Name: Arch R
Author: Arch R

Question 1

Which handhelds does Arch R support?

Accepted Answer

The original image carries device trees for the R36S, R33S, R36S Soysauce, Odroid Go Advance (including the v1.1 board) and Go Super, Anbernic RG351M and RG351V, GameForce Chi, MagicX XU10 and Powkiddy RGB10. The clone image covers the K36 style clones (EE Clone), Powkiddy RGB10X, MagicX XU-Mini-M and the Odroid Go Advance. The panel is not part of that list: you generate the panel overlay yourself from your own console device tree.

Question 2

Is Arch R free and open source?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Arch R is GPLv2 licensed, free to download and modify. All sources are on GitHub and the whole image is built from a clean checkout with a single `make docker-RK3326` command.

Question 3

Which GPU driver does Arch R use?

Accepted Answer

Both stacks ship in the image. The ARM libmali binary driver is what boots today, because Panfrost still hangs the kernel on some RK3326 clone boards. Mesa Panfrost, which is fully open source, is built in and selected by setting gpu.driver=panfrost in system.cfg; the boot script falls back to the other driver if the chosen one does not attach.

Question 4

Does Arch R update without re-flashing?

Accepted Answer

Yes. pacman is installed on the device and archr-update wraps it: archr-update check compares the installed packages against the repository, archr-update update applies the transaction and syncs the boot partition, so kernel and device-tree fixes arrive without re-flashing. Re-flashing is only needed for a fresh install, recovery, or a bootloader change.

Question 5

How does the Overlay Generator work?

Accepted Answer

Upload your console firmware DTB and the generator extracts panel timings, MIPI init sequences and GPIO wiring in your browser via Pyodide. It writes a mipi-panel.dtbo that declares archr,generic-dsi; the ArchR panel driver also binds rocknix,generic-dsi, so an overlay generated by ROCKNIX works too. Your DTB never leaves the page.