The Arduboy is an open-source, credit-card-sized handheld built on the Arduino platform. It’s all about that 8-bit era feel—roughly, you know, a step above those black-and-white LCD Tetris handhelds. The project actually started as a way to promote Arduino, something Arduino fans cooked up themselves. It later hit Kickstarter, became a proper product, and turned into a geek toy. As more people bought it, they did a bunch of collabs and even put out an enhanced Arduboy FX with more preloaded games and USB-C link play… It looks commercial, but the thing is fundamentally open source. You can buy an ATmega32u4 chip and, by mooching off companies like JLC, solder one together yourself. No need to buy the official version—especially since the official one has been out of stock and getting pricier lately.

Getting my hands on this machine was a bit of a fluke. I’d been messing around with running LLMs on Intel hardware, using the Xe Linux graphics driver, and every time I filed a bug with Intel I got the same sneering response: “The Xe driver is for LNL and BMG. We don’t care about your ARL integrated graphics.” Truth is, plenty of Xe driver bugs have nothing to do with LNL or BMG—they’re just bugs. And cards from the Arc 140T / A770 era benefit hugely from the Xe driver too; the performance gains are real, and using them makes far more sense than clinging to TGL-era stuff. Getting unceremoniously dumped by Intel pissed me off, so I vented: “Should I buy a Lunar Lake laptop just so I can complain about Intel?” And then this Lunar Lake device showed up for testing. Special thanks to Cat Dad—here’s his blog, packed with good stuff, go check it out.

I already had two x86 handhelds on hand, but there was still a reason to buy a third. At first I just wanted something to play PS2 on. My old device was a Retroid Pocket 4, an Android handheld with a MediaTek Dimensity 1100 — just barely enough for PS2, but some games still drop frames. What’s worse is that PS2 emulator on Android: it hasn’t been updated in ages and looks like it’s on its way to being completely dead. So I started looking for a replacement. Then I came across all those high-end Android retro handhelds — Aya Neo, Ayn Odin, Retroid Pocket 5/6. The budget for these things has climbed to around 2,500 RMB. Honestly, I really don’t like Android handhelds. For one, the OS itself is bloated for a gaming device. For another, Android has input latency when playing emulated games. A lot of people probably can’t feel it, but if you compare side by side it’s obvious. So isn’t there some slightly smaller handheld that runs Linux and can handle PS2 emulation? That’s when I spotted a batch of brand-new AYN Loki Max units on Xianyu. After thinking it over, I went for it.

Honestly, I’m not sure why I bought this thing. Maybe because I saw it on sale during Double 12. I did the math, and building an eGPU dock myself would have cost more than this. I’d also been wanting to play games again, and I wanted something that worked with my Linux laptop and my Windows handheld, with some room to spare. After looking around, this seemed to fit, so I bought it. Anyway, I bought it. I mainly want to talk about my experience using it, because I think a lot of people are curious and there’s very little online about how this thing works under Linux. So I’ll share my impressions and give Linux users thinking about an eGPU dock some reference.

Preface: I’ve never really had any particular need for a tablet, but it’s not like I have zero use for one either. I do want a tablet. My needs are simple: use it as a reader, browse the web, watch videos, read PDFs, listen to something to fall asleep to at night. That’s it. The tablet I’d been using was a cheap used LG I picked up from OK’s place. I don’t think I ever wrote about it, but for 300 yuan it’s worth the price — it does fine as a video machine. Its biggest problem is the system. It’s an Android tablet, and a Japanese Android tablet at that, packed with all sorts of junk that causes all sorts of problems, whether it’s system updates or app compatibility. For example, I ran into a situation where my proxy app wouldn’t work. If my home network didn’t have a global proxy, this thing really wouldn’t be able to watch YouTube. So I had an idea: why not try using Linux as a tablet? GNOME, for instance, has been criticized for years for having a UI that’s too “touch-oriented” — so if you actually use it as a touch tablet, wouldn’t it be more suitable? Once the idea was there, I got to work.

Preface: Retro handhelds (open-source handhelds) have been kind of popular these past few years. I’ve bought and sold a few myself. Honestly, before this I was just following the crowd — I barely played any games on them, it was more about messing with the hardware. Lately I’ve been thinking about settling down and actually playing something seriously, so I started wondering whether I should put together a “handheld” that genuinely fits my needs. So after a whole bunch of tinkering, I ended up with a result I’m reasonably happy with. I figured I’d write it up and share it with anyone who’s had the same idea, in the hope it helps or gives some inspiration.

It’s been a long time since this happened, but I kept going back and forth on whether to write it down. Same as my experience two years ago when I got dragged into a quarantine facility for over ten days — I really wanted to write about it, and it would be meaningful, but it’s easy to get burned, to invite unnecessary trouble. Last year I really wanted to write it out and vent, but as time passed I forgot about it. Today I happened to remember, and figured I should write it after all — the whole process is not just surreal but ironic, and it also illustrates the state of most of the industry from the side, and it even calls back to some of my experiences from years ago. To avoid unnecessary trouble, I won’t mention the product’s name in this whole piece, and I won’t comment too heavily on the product’s R&D and management strategy. I’ll try to just lay out the facts plainly and let everyone judge for themselves. At the end I’ll give my short take. Of course, this is just a long dream I had last year. All the plot comes from the story in the dream, not reality. Please don’t match it to anyone real, and don’t make weird guesses.

Last time I mentioned I bought an RK3588 laptop. It used a no-name OEM chassis, but the overall experience still beat my expectations. I also mentioned that the laptop had a few shortcomings, and fixing them would be a huge improvement: Fast typing on the keyboard causes double presses (probably a chassis issue) Battery capacity isn’t big enough Build quality is a bit poor, the whole body is plastic Only one USB-A port Too much empty space inside So is there an RK3588 laptop that solves all those pain points? Yes, there is, my friend, there absolutely is.

Around May last year I was thinking about replacing the laptop I’d been using for over three years. Unfortunately, the only new stuff out at the time was either a Ryzen 7840HS with mediocre Linux support, or the new Intel Meteor Lake ThinkPads. Even though going from an 11th-gen chip to Meteor Lake would have been a big jump, Meteor Lake barely improved over the previous generation — it even regressed in places — so I decided to wait it out. While waiting, I stumbled onto this “Chinese-made laptop,” the Cool-Pi CM5 Laptop. ARM architecture, RK3588, native Linux support, 32GB of RAM, hard drive expansion, and interest-free installments on the Tmall store. I thought about it and figured I’d play with it for a bit. Ended up buying one.

Getting older, I still like looking at the pretty and the hot stuff for the eye candy, but I also like messing around with e-waste. The regular stuff just doesn’t excite me anymore. And the hottest e-waste lately is all the Linux-based “xinchuang” (信创) gear. “Xinchuang” is basically the mainland’s push for domestic everything—replacing the “Western” and “open source” stuff with fully Chinese products so nobody can strangle you with supply chain sanctions. Whether that’s realistic, whether it’s feasible, how far along it actually is—let’s set all that aside. At the very least, the xinchuang scene does enough work with and on top of Linux to satisfy a Linux guy’s urge to tinker with junk. I’d wanted a Loongson laptop for a while, but that batch of RMS-endorsed 198-yuan group-buy machines is now stupidly expensive, and the specs and pricing are just absurd. Newer Loongson laptops are also pricey, out of my league, so I just watched from the sidelines. Then a kind soul reached out a hand. With help from a certain big shot, I somehow got my hands on a “xinchuang laptop.” Carrying that person’s earnest warnings, I started my own xinchuang journey.