ROCKNIX is a community developed Linux distribution for handheld gaming devices. Our goal is to produce an operating system that has the features and capabilities that we need, and to have fun as we develop it.

Licenses

ROCKNIX is a Linux distribution that is made up of many open-source components. Components are provided under their respective licenses. This distribution includes components licensed for non-commercial use only.

ROCKNIX Branding

ROCKNIX branding and images are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

You are free to

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

Under the following terms

• Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
• NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
• ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

ROCKNIX Software

Copyright (C) 2026 ROCKNIX (https://github.com/ROCKNIX)

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.

Installation

• Download the latest version of ROCKNIX.
• Decompress the image.
• Write the image to an SDCARD using an imaging tool. Common imaging tools include Balena Etcher, Raspberry Pi Imager, and Win32 Disk Imager. If you're skilled with the command line, dd works fine too.

Installation Package Downloads

Upgrading

• Download and install the update online via the System Settings menu.
• If you are unable to update online
  • Download the latest version of ROCKNIX from Github
  • Copy the update to your device over the network to your device's update share.
  • Reboot the device, and the update will begin automatically.

Update Package Downloads

Documentation

Contribute

• Building ROCKNIX
• Code of Conduct
• Contributing to ROCKNIX
• Modifying ROCKNIX
• Adding Hardware Quirks
• Creating Packages
• Pull Request Template

Play

• Installing ROCKNIX
• Updating ROCKNIX
• Controls
• Netplay
• Configuring Moonlight
• Device Specific Documentation

Configure

• Optimizations
• Shaders
• Cloud Sync
• VPN

Other

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Donating to ROCKNIX

Full Changelog: 2026080...2026090

Changelog

🐧 Kernel & Boot

• rocknix-joypad: bump to HEAD (sunshineinabox) (3a8eb3d)
• rocknix-abl: bump version to v1.1.8 (spycat88) (753f693)
• linux: kernel config (github-merge-queue[bot]) (24ebc89)
• linux: run kconfig-olddefconfig (Philippe Simons) (968b13c)
• linux: build SM8250 audio as modules to fix silent boot (Philippe Simons) (c50963e)
• linux: fix wifi/bt mac patches for 7.2 strncpy removal (Philippe Simons) (0b81582)
• linux: bump SM8250/SM8550/SM8650 to 7.2 (Philippe Simons) (9202008)
• linux: kernel config (porschemad911) (1f76f69)
• linux: v6.18.45 (RK3399 / S922X) (John Williams) (f5edc77)
• linux: kernel config (github-merge-queue[bot]) (f945949)
• linux: merge SM8750 into H700|SM6115 case arm (André Braga) (00503e2)
• linux: kernel config (github-merge-queue[bot]) (72121b4)
• linux: update SM6115 to kernel 7.2 (Mike) (758edfc)
• arm-efi: move package to virtual (spycat88) (aa997cf)
• linux: update H700 to kernel 7.2 (Mike) (0c77a91)
• GRUB: fix device selection for stock bl (sunshineinabox) (ff8058e)
• linux: kernel config (github-merge-queue[bot]) (4277263)
• GRUB: only set dtb from abl if set (sunshineinabox) (405240b)
• mkbootimg: fix package (spycat88) (cf26a70)
• linux: kernel config (sunshineinabox) (433f9b2)
• rocknix-joypad: bump version (Mike) (1a5cc67)

🎮 Emulators & Frontend

• gzdoom-sa: cleanup package (spycat88) (65be7b6)
• steam: remove mesa:host dep (spycat88) (81cae75)
• steam: handle 180 degree handheld displays (danyi) (1b04b33)
• steam: remove x86 Mesa driver overwrite (tiopex) (d9a00a4)
• steam: Use fex-emu from valve (tiopex) (46cdea8)
• emulationstation: bump package and enable GLES3 support (spycat88) (27b4e05)
• emulationstation: use archive (spycat88) (238c83e)
• steam: Use valve PV container for protons (tiopex) (a24b86d)
• dolphin-sa: rework package and scripts to use the same commit/features (Noxwell) (e53f4bc)
• rpcs3-sa: fix the quit hotkey kill target (Edouard Durand) (e3ac902)
• box86: make building the package less noisy (spycat88) (254c978)
• moonlight: remove non-existant dependency (spycat88) (15636f7)
• daedalusx64-sa: fix building package with newer cmake (spycat88) (3212690)
• supermodel-sa: fix parallel build (spycat88) (297536c)

🖥️ Graphics

• libmali: add missing SHA checksum (tiopex) (d018af1)
• SDL2: remove unnecessary host deps and cleanup package (spycat88) (51bca92)
• gamescope: cleanup package (spycat88) (7b29b9e)
• qt6: remove mesa:host dependency (spycat88) (c41ddfb)
• mesa: cleanup mesa:host, don't compile drivers for host build (spycat88) (294347f)
• libmali: cosmetic cleanup (sunshineinabox) (5dbde0a)
• gtk3: remove upstreamed patch (spycat88) (c8e7f64)
• tiff: build with shared libs (spycat88) (a2b6fd7)
• libjpeg-turbo: pin package against upstream version (spycat88) (aba0534)
• gamescope: use hwdata:host dependency (spycat88) (8a13314)

📦 Multimedia

• mpv: bump to v0.41.0, disable vulkan for S922X (John Williams) (5cdc269)
• vlc: fix circular dependency (spycat88) (77b4643)
• ffmpeg: temporarily drop v4l2-drmprime patches (Matthias Reichl) (35ad538)

🔊 Audio

• wireplumber: check existence before copying device-specific config (John Williams) (682028f)
• pulseaudio: fix qa check (spycat88) (eeec9b7)
• wavpack: update pkg url (sunshineinabox) (b2f6dab)
• opus: pin package (spycat88) (591a4f5)

🌐 Network

• wifi: keep Pocket S Mini scans usable (danyi) (e28bc40)

📱 Device Support

• SM8550: fix Pocket S Mini panel for Linux 7.2 (Philippe Simons) (dfcba41)
• S922X: audio fixes (John Williams) (6590021)
• sm8250: keep wsa881x amps out of runtime PM (Philippe Simons) (03636b8)
• SM8750: drop new HiSilicon erratum from 7.2 regen (André Braga) (5b9324a)
• SM8750: trim stray olddefconfig noise from 7.2 regen (André Braga) (766088f)
• SM8750: regenerate kernel config for 7.2 (Patrick Hennig) (294c7d8)
• amd64: wip am64 changes (rocknix) (40fce2a)
• SM8250: add 'gpt' to EXTRA_CMDLINE (John Williams) (0878019)
• S922X: add energy-full-design-microwatt-hours to DTS (John Williams) (592f279)
• S922X: linux v7.1.9 (John Williams) (a088e3e)
• SM8750: port sm8550 patch + silence spam (sunshineinabox) (1e3cf97)
• sm8750: fix affinity (sunshineinabox) (9f8f13d)
• rk3326: disable CONFIG_CMD_BOOTEFI_HELLO_COMPILE (tiopex) (7eb8b12)
• rk3399: rollback kernel to 6.18.x (rocknix) (a184003)
• sm8550: drop vulkan patch that is no longer needed (rocknix) (9bafcfc)
• sm8550: policy4 is a no-op update (sunshineinabox) (08dea32)

⚙️ CI & Workflows

• ci: truncate changelog and add omitted-commits summary (tiopex) (1ebff24)
• CI: build llvm:target in toolchain step (tiopex) (52e3fd7)
• CI: auto remove in toolchain step (tiopex) (bce3e15)
• ci: switch mirror to sources-v2 (tiopex) (ddbb8e3)
• ci: switch update mirror to sources-v2 (tiopex) (a0d140c)
• ci: skip git when update mirror (tiopex) (6af4b88)
• ci: update sources (tiopex) (a30eba6)
• ci: expand category prefix matching (tiopex) (9ab81f1)

🔧 System

• gamepadcalibration: use upstream pyxel (spycat88) (fca0017)
• rocknix-bluetooth-agent: pass an explicit event loop to dbussy (Zetarancio) (1b2cd4c)
• gcc-linaro-arm-eabi: fix SHA checksum (tiopex) (683f3db)
• gcc-linaro-aarch64-elf: add PKG_SHA256 (John Williams) (95c649f)
• wayland/x11: use upstream packages where possible (spycat88) (690ed4c)
• rocknix: remove freq functions for different archs (rocknix) (fc4c2a7)
• rocknix-fake-suspend: disable DPMS by default (John Williams) (104a4d1)
• glibc: add custom ldconfig script (tiopex) (40a9d23)
• usbgadget: make MTP file transfer enumerate on SuperSpeed hosts (Edouard Durand) (fae7574)
• ccache: force dev mode off, the CI env var turns on -Werror (sunshineinabox) (3a05ffd)
• udevil: remove upstreamed patch (spycat88) (a5f84af)
• libxml2: use upstream package (spycat88) (90138cf)

📚 Documentation

• documentation: SUPPORTED_EMULATORS_AND_CORES (github-merge-queue[bot]) (0fd9136)

🔩 Other

• agents: add initial pre flight checklist (spycat88) (5fbbb8f)
• pyxel: introduce package (spycat88) (b744cef)
• apps: cleanup and refactor (spycat88) (07f0358)
• packages: add sha256 (spycat88) (e0a68c9)
• zmusic: add glib to host deps (spycat88) (75e12cf)
• x264: compile as shared library (spycat88) (f3ce408)
• device: add AYANEO Pocket S Mini support (danyi) (aa418ad)
• flycast: update flycast sa and lr to v2.7 (rocknix) (05b0b76)
• config/functions: hash the global recipe a project package sources (Max Engel) (cb884ed)
• config/functions: do not reconfigure libtool with installed libtoolize (Max Engel) (5ce3dcc)
• packages: drop distutilscross and cleanup Python packages (spycat88) (42d5301)
• pugixml: copy headers to /usr/include/pugixml/src in sysroot for ES (spycat88) (9d34180)
• lsfg-vk: add enable environment setting (tiopex) (e931a69)
• packages: use archives where possible (spycat88) (5df8cdb)
• EFI: allow setting device tree from bootloader (sunshineinabox) (b5a7a06)
• lsfg-vk: add Vulkan layer support for x86 (tiopex) (640bcf4)
• gopher64: fix build (rocknix) (c27aa9b)
• libXres: fix package (spycat88) (fda675a)
• x11: pin and bump packages (spycat88) (135d112)
• libevdev: update pkg url (sunshineinabox) (19706df)
• zlib: fetch from the GitHub release rather than zlib.net (sunshineinabox) (b812281)
• wlroots: use hwdata:host dependency (spycat88) (2fe2128)
• gst-plugins-base: fix package (spycat88) (555bf7d)
• arm: remove non-existant dependency (spycat88) (948b974)
• libfontenc: fix package (spycat88) (1599df1)
• libXxf86vm: fix package (spycat88) (92b152a)
• libXinerama: fix package (spycat88) (8ba7ff2)
• kodi: update to 62a5ed5 (Matthias Reichl) (e78ff4c)
• linux (RPi): update to 6.18.44-846462a (Matthias Reichl) (f6ab981)
• rpi-eeprom: update to 1c05267 (Matthias Reichl) (8cedf0b)
• RPi: update to firmware 3d301dd (Matthias Reichl) (3d19309)
• RPi: update to firmware 2cfe163 (Matthias Reichl) (ed01c17)
• inputstream.ffmpegdirect: build with ffmpeg 9.0 (Rudi Heitbaum) (f7eee89)
• rpcs3: use current master sha (sunshineinabox) (774bb68)
• armsx2: bump again (sunshineinabox) (7aebbb9)
• rapidjson: pin package (spycat88) (450a23a)

↩️ Reverts

• Revert "meson: never download wrap subprojects" (spycat88) (4be3f2e)

• 4884 commits omitted

• Full changelog: 2026080...2026090