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September 2026: A Silicon Summer

The RetroDECK Team have been hard at work stirring the development cauldron.

This month is a special edition of the blog featuring summer travels.

Highlights

News

  • RetroDECK Travel Blog: Team FOSS
  • Development Update: 0.11.0
  • RetroDECK 0.10.10b
  • Extra: OpenTTD Flathub Maintainer Needed

RetroDECK Summer Travels

With summer coming to an end, members of the RetroDECK team have been traveling. But ONE team member recently visited a particularly unique destination: Shenzhen, China.

Disclaimer: The RetroDECK Team does not endorse or promote any specific products, companies, or manufacturers and is not officially affiliated with any of the companies mentioned in this travel blog. All visits were made independently as fans and members of the wider open source community. No sponsorship or other financial support was received for the trip, all travel and related expenses were paid for by the team member himself.

Now on to his tales!

RetroDECK Travel Blog: Team FOSS

I have always had a personal interest in technology, so when the opportunity arose to visit Shenzhen during the summer, it was simply too good to pass up. Shenzhen is widely regarded as one of China's major technology hubs and being able to experience its technology ecosystem firsthand was something I was genuinely excited about.

I traveled with my friend Tyson Tan, a well-known KDE and Krita contributor and FOSS artist, who joined me throughout the trip.

Tyson helped me with translation and communication during our visit. Together, we explored the streets of Shenzhen by day and by night, Team FOSS was go!

As we are not representing a for-profit company, nor were we acting as reviewers or media representatives whose work depends on maintaining favorable relationships with these companies, we could simply visit as fans and members of the open source community and driven by a genuine passion for FOSS.

The purpose of these visits was not as some might speculate to promote RetroDECK or ask companies to ship RetroDECK on their devices. This was a fan tour with a FOSS-focused liaison approach, aimed at building connections, sharing ideas and encouraging better support for open source and Linux.

A Struggle of Finding Information

For many of these smaller or more niche Chinese companies, simply finding the right information and contacts across the communication and cultural barriers between East and West can be challenging.

As a founding member of the RetroDECK team with a long-standing personal connection to China and many years of experience visiting the country. I have a personal understanding of some of the challenges involved in communicating across these cultural and geographic boundaries. This includes both the practical difficulties of finding the right contacts and the cultural differences that can sometimes make communication more difficult.

We hope that our visits helped point them in the right direction and gave them some useful places to start. While we cannot guarantee that anything will come from these conversations, we hope that the information, introductions and connections we shared will prove helpful in the future.

I'm also a little sad that I just missed Russ from Retro Game Corps, who had visited Shenzhen only a few weeks before my trip.

Maybe another time!

Broad Topics

In general, Tyson and I discussed a range of broad topics with all we visited, including:

  • Firmware updates on Linux: Many vendors hardware currently only provides firmware update tools for Windows and Android, leaving Linux users without official support. We suggested considering standardized firmware updates through LVFS (Linux Vendor Firmware Service) to make updates more accessible.

  • Steam Input: We discussed how important good Steam Input support is and the value of testing and understanding how their devices behave with it.

  • Remapping and keyboard shortcuts: We also talked about better remapping tools that work on Linux and a keyboard hotkeys mode (this was brought up by a Tyson, who uses small controllers as shortcut devices when creating his artwork).

  • Standardization: We also mentioned standardization efforts and organizations such as Open Gaming Collective (OGC), which is working on a unified set of gaming-focused components for the Linux ecosystem.

  • Open source collaboration: We encouraged them to work with and support open source community developers where possible, helping make their hardware and software more accessible to the wider FOSS community.

  • International support: We discussed the importance of having strong international customer support that understands cultural differences between Chinese and Western customers and building a community.

The Risk of FOSS Project Dynamics

One light-hearted but important topic was the need to keep an eye on community and project dynamics. Some of the companies we spoke with shared stories about negative experiences with parts of the open source community that they had heard about from other companies (not themselves).

Open source projects are often made up of creative, passionate and sometimes rather quirky people (myself included), so disagreements and conflicts can occasionally arise both within projects and between different projects.

We discussed the importance of doing some due diligence when deciding which projects or individuals to support and making sure that the people representing a project are actually in a position to do so.

There have been cases where former project members continued to maintain relationships with companies and receive review or development devices without making it clear that they were no longer part of the project. Situations like this can understandably create confusion and damage trust between companies and open source communities.

JSAUX GAMING / Bitmo Lab

We visited JSAUX GAMING and its subsidiary brand, Bitmo Lab. During our visit, we got a look at the latest GAMEBABY lineup: iPhone gaming cases featuring built-in physical controls that interact directly with virtual touch mappings.

We also got to sit down, play with and discuss the new prototype Steam Frame E-Ink panel.

We discussed several interesting possibilities and exchanged ideas, including:

  • Steam Achievements: Showing achievements or other Steam events on the E-Ink panel as they happen.
  • Community plugins: A possible "plugin store" where the community could share and upload their own creations.

Note: These were simply ideas shared and discussed while we were in the same room. Talking about an idea does not mean it is planned or that anything will be implemented. It was just a fun opportunity to exchange ideas and see what might be possible.

A big thanks to JSAUX GAMING and Bitmo Lab for hosting us and giving us the opportunity to visit, see their latest work and exchange ideas.

8BitDo

We visited 8BitDo, who welcomed us to their impressive offices and gave us the opportunity to see their collection of retro consoles and controllers.

One of the things that stood out to us was the scale and professionalism of the company. Compared with some of the other places we visited, 8BitDo felt particularly large while still maintaining a strong connection to its retro gaming roots.

We were especially happy to talk about how many members of the RetroDECK community enjoy using 8BitDo controllers.

We also talked about some of the major challenges when developing and maintaining one of the more complex Steam Input layouts around.

A big thank you to 8BitDo for hosting us, showing us around and giving us the opportunity to meet.

abxylute

abxylute is a manufacturer of handheld gaming devices with a particular focus on cloud gaming and game streaming. They are a relatively small company and during our visit we had the opportunity to speak with their lead engineer about the different philosophies and challenges surrounding cloud-based gaming compared with native gaming.

We also discussed the possibility of abxylute doing more with Linux in the future. They are keeping a close eye on the development of SteamOS and the broader Linux gaming ecosystem.

This sentiment was also echoed indirectly by contacts at other companies we did not have time to visit. From the online conversations we had, it was clear that Valve's SteamOS is receiving a significant amount of attention in Chinas Silicon Valley. The growing interest in Linux-based gaming appears to be something that several hardware manufacturers are watching closely.

During our visit, abxylute also showed us some prototypes of upcoming hardware and controllers. As enthusiastic supporters of FOSS, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing the importance of users being able to update firmware on Linux.

We cannot share more details about the prototypes.

AKNES

AKNES is a global distributor of hardware, with a particular focus on retro gaming handhelds, controllers and related accessories. The company works with a range of devices and manufacturers and handles everything from packaging and distribution to customer support.

AKNES is a relatively small but steadily growing company. What started as a single small office has grown to the point where the company now occupies almost an entire floor of its office building.

Our visit also had a more personal aspect compared to the others. AKNES and the RetroDECK team share a history of friendship as me and AKNES's second-in-command first got to know each other online many years ago.

It was therefore particularly nice to finally meet in person and see the company they had built over the years firsthand.

Also eat hotpot, hotpot was great as always.

Venture Electronics 微翼音频 (VECLAN)

Note: Venture Electronics is not located in Shenzhen, but in Shenyang. I stopped by there later during the trip.

Venture Electronics (VECLAN) is an audio company founded by Wild Lee, a Chinese YouTuber and Bilibili creator known for his reviews of audio equipment and televisions, as well as his extensive collection of CRT TVs.

Wild Lee also have a connection with Anbernic. He assists with several of their social media platforms and also helps host guests visiting the company acting a bridge between East and West.

During my time in China, I had the opportunity to spend a day with Wild Lee and see some of his work firsthand. I visited his studio and joined a recording session with one of his friends, who is the number one television reviewer on Bilibili. He needed access to some of Wild Lee's CRT displays for a comparison with modern televisions from manufacturers such as Sony, LG and Samsung.

I also had the opportunity to try out on one of Wild Lee's latest category of retro gaming-focused headsets, which were still heavily under development at the time.

Lee and I also spent quite a bit of time talking about Dongbei Guo Bao Rou (锅包肉), a classic dish from Northeast China.

One of the things we discussed was how, in our experience, some of the most authentic and memorable Chinese food is often found in small local street shops and family-run restaurants rather than in large shopping malls.

It also got heated when we debated the best Guo Bao Rou places.

谢谢

I would like to sincerely thank all the Chinese companies, communities and friends who took the time to meet with me during my little trip through China.

I am very grateful for the hospitality, conversations, ideas and friendships that came from these visits.

Thank you all for welcoming me and making the trip so memorable!

Development Update: 0.11.0

We are in active development on the upcoming major update, 0.11.0.

Horizon

We are now starting to see what RetroDECK 0.11.0 will become.

There are still features to develop and plenty of testing to do. Some tasks may be as small as fixing a single bug, while others feel as ambitious as reaching for the stars.

This is a huge update! In fact the largest update ever made to RetroDECK.

With 0.11.0, we believe people will get a much clearer picture of what RetroDECK is really about and what we mean when we call it an all-in-one retro gaming platform.

This release continues the major rewrite that began with RetroDECK 0.10.0b, while expanding it with a large number of new features, systems, components and improvements.

We are not ready to reveal everything just yet. For now, the only thing we can share is:

RetroDECK has effectively doubled - not in size, but in the number of components it includes.

With this update, you will find components that you may not have seen included in any other retro gaming solution. We have added ideas and software that have rarely, if ever, been packaged together in this way. This is made possible by the technology and infrastructure we have developed within RetroDECK over the years, allowing us to integrate and package a much wider range of software than before.

Many of these components are niche and can be difficult to install. Some require users to build the software from source, while others have never been available as a Flatpak and may previously have only been distributed as .deb packages or are only on AUR. With RetroDECK, users should no longer have to deal with that complexity themselves.

As we demonstrated with XRoar, we can build these projects and integrate them directly into RetroDECK, making them much easier to use.

With this update, we also want to highlight the incredible variety within the retro gaming community. Our goal is not simply to support the most well-known systems, but to bring attention to communities and projects across the entire spectrum of retro gaming from historically important systems to niche platforms and projects that might otherwise be overlooked.

We have also personally reached out to several of these communities and talked directly with their developers. This includes the Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) communities. As previously announced, Mudlet will be included as part of RetroDECK 0.11.0 and that is just one example of a system we have not seen included in other retro gaming solutions.

By talking directly with these communities, we can better understand their needs and help introduce their passions to a wider audience within the retro gaming community.

Question: Components like Mudlet have no gamepad support?

Yes, gamepad support is not required for every component.

RetroDECK 0.11.0 will include a number of components with limited or no gamepad support, particularly retro computer emulators. These systems were originally designed around keyboard and/or mouse input, so gamepad support is not always practical or appropriate.

At the same time, the vast majorty of other components included in 0.11.0 will have gamepad support.

Why?!

The goal is to bring certain aspects of retro gaming to the platform. Components such as Mudlet are included for this reason, even though they are not designed for gamepad-based gameplay.

Mudlet provides direct access to MUDs, the predecessors of modern MMOs. Many MUD servers and their communities remain active decades later, with dedicated developers and players continuing to maintain, expand and evolve these classic virtual worlds.

Including components such as Mudlet allows the wide RetroDECK Community to connect with this part of gaming history and experience online worlds that helped shape many of the games and communities that followed.

This is what we mean by an all-in-one retro gaming platform. RetroDECK is not limited to games that fit neatly into a traditional controller-based experience or a specific era. Our mission is to make the broader history, culture and technology of retro gaming accessible.

The vast majority of RetroDECK users may never open Mudlet and some may only try it briefly. But there is always a chance that a few will enjoy it enough to discover and become part of the MUD community and its virtual worlds.

For us, that possibility is worth pursuing. If including Mudlet in RetroDECK can help even a small number of users discover and join this niche community, then it aligns with our mission to preserve and make accessible the broader history and culture of retro gaming.

RetroDECK 0.10.10b

RetroDECK 0.10.10b is in its cooker testing phase. The tiny update features updated components, an upgraded org.kde.Platform (a big thing to do) and several bug fixes.

We hope that we can release it during next week, but it all depends on the amount of issues we find.

Several components, including PCSX2, have recently received new stable releases. We therefore want to allow time for any initial hotfixes to land before finalizing the update as well.

For details, see the RetroDECK 0.10.10b Patch Notes.

Extra: OpenTTD Flathub Maintainer Needed

Update: Maintainer was found, Choo Choo the trains are back!

The current maintainer of the OpenTTD Flathub has stepped down and marked the package as EOL.

If you are familiar with Flathub packaging and would be willing to take over maintenance, please consider stepping in.

OpenTTD is an important cultural pillar of both retro gaming and FOSS.

That is all for now

There are more features and improvements in the works, which will be shared in future blog updates!

As always, if you want to help with development, join the 💙-i-want-to-help channel on Discord, or reach out to us on Matrix or other socials.

A big thank you to everyone for your continued support 🦈.

// The RetroDECK Team

Category Link Description
🌐 Website retrodeck.net Official RetroDECK homepage
💬 Discord Join Discord Discord community chat
💬 Matrix Matrix Room Open Matrix community space
💬 Lemmy Lemmy Community RetroDECK community on Lemmy
💬 Reddit r/retrodeck RetroDECK subreddit
📖 Wiki RetroDECK Wiki Official documentation and guides
❤️ Donations Donations & Licenses Support the project and view license information