Hi, all
Been a while! I picked up mine again after a long time (bought it in 2019) and realized I had left it at the point where its Wifi was refusing to connect. Still has the same issue. The OS is on v0.5. Looks like the last update was v0.6? That one seems to have issues as well.
So, is GameShell OS still maintained? Wondering if I should spend time figuring out the issue again 
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cc @guu
Thanks!
None of the Clockwork OS are really maintained, only third party stuff gets enough passion to keep things updated. That’s part of why so many of us are switching from the rockchip boards to R Pi boards, easier for people to maintain. I don’t this can be applied to the GameShell though, not aware of them making any different processor boards.
I’ve tried to keep an eye on posts over the years, but the last amount of effort on the Gameshell was probably the DEOT community build. It was more stable than the outdated official OS, but it’s also quite old now and I’m not sure how well it works today.
I’d always meant to check out the Arch OS build for Gameshell. It seemed like mostly Arch enthusiasts used it, and I’m not familiar with the tools in that OS, but it also sounded like the most stable and maintainable OS for Gameshell. It appears to still be alive and working today, but i haven’t tried it myself. I’m seriously considering dusting off my old Gameshell and giving it a try. I remember back in the day users claimed it was also signficantkLy faster than the official OS or the DEOT build (which was mostly just some settings tweaks and better app builds).
The obvious issue for Gameshell seemed to be the launcher. While the UI design was alright, it’s dependence on python caused it to be slow in startup.and navigation. There was at least one other community launcher being worked on and mentioned on the forums somewhere that was native C or C++ and was faster, but I remember it used a different organization scheme for hooking up to apps so it required a lot of manual customization to get set up.
Even though the hardware is outdated now and was custom and not Pi-based, the Gameshell didn’t have as many driver differences and hardware compatibility issues as the Devterm/uConsole. The main thing i remember was the video driver being actively developed and never totally stable. Towards the end of my time using it, it seemed pretty solid though, but there was always confusion on the forums about whether hardware acceleration was on (it may have been off by default?) and which version of the accelerated driver was being used. I have vague memories of.building that driver from source, which may have been the only way to ensure the latest and best version was installed.
Saw this the other day too. While I don’t personally understand the value of PostmarketOS, it’s exciting to see some development going on for the Gameshell. I hope they have good luck and get it working. If they do I’ll probably use it as an excuse to try out that OS too. 
It’s been so long since I used mine, but I know I got wifi working. I’m not sure if the hardware even supported 5ghz though. Might be worth trying different security for your access point too, like maybe set up an extra one temporarily just to test. Pretty sure I was using regular security back then, but maybe it only supported WEP?
As convenient as internet access over the USB connection was, I definitely remember connecting regularly from desktop to Gameshell over wifi. It was even possible to run graphical apps remotely on the desktop by messing the display parameters and running an X server on the desktop (there are some available for Windows too). Wasn’t good for gaming because of the lack of video acceleration, but it was good for running graphical apps that didn’t need to be fast. There’s info on the forums about that somewhere.
Really appreciate all the replies, @adcockm! I guess I was hoping there would have been some solution to this by now, but I think I might just have a bad board. Also, weirdly, the battery is now acting up as well and not charging properly (might need replacing since it’s almost 5y old at this point ).
Seeing all the responses and some other threads, the official OS seems pretty much dead at this point.
I guess I’ll have to dedicate one of these upcoming weekends to see if the console can be updated to fully work. The clockwork guys dropped the ball on it 
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That’s pretty much how all the Clockwork products go. They make good hardware (and seem to make good on replacements if there are actual hardware issues, like a part failing), but the software never goes much past the “proof of concept” phase. I think that’s kinda how they advertised the Gameshell originally, with it being not just a kit to assemble but also a project to customize and improve. Not sure that came across as well for the advertising on the Devterm or uConsole though, but they have had the same sort of software situation. The origjnal OS will boot on them, but updating it and maintaining it is more hassle than just using a community OS that is already up to date and maintained by volunteers. And the official OS was never bug free, though community efforts tend to fix most, if not all of the issues.
Something Clockwork does do extremely well is the “unboxing” experience. There hardware designs are cool too, but the process of discovering and taking all the parts out when it arrives, and assembling the device is kind of magical. And it’s the only hardware I’ve bought where it felt like making a model kit (without the glue). The instructions may not be 100% clear but all the devices felt good to put together. And they all feel solid after assembly too – perhaps even more than some pre-assembled devices!
But the software side of things… That requires a lot more effort and research. 
I also think they suffer a bit from being ahead of their time. The lima accelerated video driver for the Gameshell was probably more of an alpha at the time it released, and since it was maintained by others there was no guarantee it would become stable. But i think it mostly got there. As it aged the Gameshell hardware felt a little like it started off as sort of thrifty cutting edge, and then later outdated and sort of non-standard compared to the Pi stuff that continued to get better and found it’s way into other homebrew handhelds. I kinda hope they revisit the Gameshell one day and release one that uses… I guess a Pico? Or if they wait a bit longer maybe even ESP32 style hardware will become fast/good enough to consider. I’m a little surprised I haven’t seen someone try to Frankenstein a Pico into the Gameshell already. I’d probably try myself if i had more hardware experience.
i pulled mine out just a couple weeks ago. i have knowledge, but not enough to go from scratch on a new say debian variant or everything that would be required… so i guess i start reading. maybe if i actually make some progress we can see about getting together a group of ppl to build a modern build. it looks mostly like the kernel patches and such will need to be completely redone for a modern kernel… fingers crossed lol!
With all his OS contributions to the uConsole (and Devterm) community, I wonder if Clockwork would consider thanking him with a free Gameshell, and if @Rex would consider making an updated version of Debian for the Gameshell?
Other than @AlexDuan I’m not sure who would even be the contact for such a suggestion these days. And obviously I’m making a lot of assumptions above. But when the Gameshell was new, Clockwork had some promotional efforts and contests where they gave some devices (and maybe discounts, I forget) to developers who made games and content for it. Pretty sure they did that for some community contributions on the forum and/or discord in the early days too.
I had a GameShell but didn’t really use it. My daughter played with it for a bit, then I gave it to my friends sons. I keep trying to get into gaming but its not really my thing. If I did receive one I don’t think I’d have the motivation to do anything with it.
I wish you guys luck in getting this thing updated!