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RetroStoneOS 0.1.0

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@PaddleStroke PaddleStroke released this 02 Oct 19:19
· 26 commits to main since this release
Immutable release. Only release title and notes can be modified.
v0.1.0
f610480

RetroStoneOS 0.1.0: a fast-booting firmware for the RetroStone2 handheld (8BCraft), plus community ports
to other boards. One SD card image per board.

Seven built-in RetroStone games: Bomber Mole, Leady Squid, Duck Parade, Blueberry Tumble, Beaver Rush, Pancake Tower and Pogo Mamie.
The six arcade games support up to four players, with the updated title menus and multiplayer results screens.
Game source: RetroStone VC c60b905bbf2b.

Downloads

Board Image Download size Status Bundled games
RetroStone2 retrostoneos-0.1.0-retrostone2.img.xz 71 MiB tested on hardware yes
Orange Pi One / Lite retrostoneos-0.1.0-orangepi-h3-one.img.xz 70 MiB community-tested yes
Orange Pi PC / PC Plus retrostoneos-0.1.0-orangepi-h3-pc.img.xz 70 MiB community-tested yes
Raspberry Pi 2 retrostoneos-0.1.0-rpi2.img.xz 89 MiB community-tested yes
Raspberry Pi 3 retrostoneos-0.1.0-rpi3-64.img.xz 94 MiB community-tested yes
Raspberry Pi 4 retrostoneos-0.1.0-rpi4-64.img.xz 95 MiB community-tested yes
Raspberry Pi 5 retrostoneos-0.1.0-rpi5-64.img.xz 93 MiB community-tested yes
RetroStone1 retrostoneos-0.1.0-retrostone1.img.xz 70 MiB untested; the built-in screen (composite) is compile-tested only yes
  • tested on hardware: the RetroStoneOS developers ran this image on the device.
  • community-tested: the image builds, but the developers have not run it on that hardware. Reports and fixes are
    welcome in the issues (porting guide).

Check a download against SHA256SUMS:

  • Linux/macOS: sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing
  • Windows (PowerShell): Get-FileHash .\retrostoneos-0.1.0-retrostone2.img.xz and compare with the line in
    SHA256SUMS

Flashing the SD card

Flashing erases the whole card. The card must be 2 GB or more (4 GB or more for the Orange Pi 5): the images
are about 1.2 GB (2.2 GB for the Orange Pi 5) once written. 8 GB or more leaves room for games.

  • balenaEtcher (Windows, macOS, Linux): "Flash from file", pick the .img.xz as it is (no need to extract it),
    select the card, "Flash". It verifies the card afterwards.
  • Rufus (Windows): select the card under "Device", then the .img.xz with "SELECT" (pick "All files" in the
    dialog if it is not listed; or extract the .img with 7-Zip first), keep "DD image" mode if asked, "START".
  • Raspberry Pi Imager: "Choose OS" > "Use custom" > the .img.xz.
  • Linux: xz -dc retrostoneos-0.1.0-<board>.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=fsync status=progress

First boot

  • The first boot prepares the card: the data partition is grown to fill the card and formatted as exFAT (the
    screen says "Preparing the SD card..."). It takes a few seconds; do not remove the power meanwhile (an
    interrupted first boot resumes at the next one).
  • Afterwards the card shows up on a PC as the drive RETROSTONE: put your games in roms/<system>/ (the folders
    are already there), BIOS files in bios/. README.txt on the card explains the layout.
  • Two free games come with the images, copied to roms/ at the first boot: µCity (Game Boy Color) and Freedoom (Doom).
  • RetroStone, first in the menu: seven built-in 8BCraft games (Bomber Mole, Leady Squid, Duck Parade, Blueberry Tumble, Beaver Rush, Pancake Tower and Pogo Mamie).
  • WiFi, Bluetooth and Ethernet are off until you turn them on in the settings.

Updating without reflashing

The boards with A/B system slots (the RetroStone2, the RetroStone1 and the Orange Pi boards: those with a .rsu
file below) update themselves: Settings > System update > Check for updates (network on), or copy the .rsu
file of your board to a USB drive (at its root or in a RetroStoneOS folder) or to the update folder of the
RETROSTONE drive, then plug it in. Games, saves and settings are kept; if the new version does not start, the
console goes back to the previous one by itself. The packages are signed; the console checks the signature before
writing anything. Other boards (Raspberry Pi): flash the new image.

  • Orange Pi One / Lite: retrostoneos-0.1.0-orangepi-h3-one.rsu (86 MiB)
  • Orange Pi PC / PC Plus: retrostoneos-0.1.0-orangepi-h3-pc.rsu (86 MiB)
  • RetroStone1: retrostoneos-0.1.0-retrostone1.rsu (86 MiB)
  • RetroStone2: retrostoneos-0.1.0-retrostone2.rsu (88 MiB)

Licences

Free, non-commercial distribution only. RetroStoneOS is a free download; it is not sold, and it does not come
with the hardware. The images contain emulator cores and theme art whose licences forbid commercial use: Snes9x
(snes9x2005, snes9x2010), PicoDrive, MAME 2003-Plus and FBNeo, and the gbz35 themes, the Carbon system art and the
RetroStone games' art, music and levels (CC BY-NC-SA). So these images must not be sold, and must not be preloaded on hardware that is sold (a console, an
SD card or a kit). Sharing them for free, unchanged, is fine.

  • The RetroStoneOS code (frontend, build tree, scripts) is under the MIT licence
    (LICENSE).
  • The Linux kernel, U-Boot, BusyBox and the other system packages keep their own licences (GPL-2.0 and others).
  • The other emulator cores keep their own licences (GPL, zlib, BSD and others).
  • The pre-installed games: µCity (GPL-3.0+ code, BSD-2-Clause GBT Player, CC BY-SA 4.0 graphics and music) and
    Freedoom (BSD-3-Clause); their source is in the legal-info archives.
  • The RetroStone system (seven games, RetroStone VC):
    code under MIT, art, music, sound and levels under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. The names and logos are not licensed.
  • Per-package licences: legal-info/manifest.csv in the archives below.

Source code (GPL)

The complete corresponding source of the GPL and LGPL software in these images, with the licence texts, the
Buildroot configuration and the patches, is attached to this release (make legal-info, one archive per board;
the NXEngine source there leaves out the Cave Story game data of the upstream tarball, which is not GPL software
and not in the images):

  • legal-info-orangepi-h3-one-0.1.0.tar.xz (990 MiB)
  • legal-info-orangepi-h3-pc-0.1.0.tar.xz (990 MiB)
  • legal-info-retrostone1-0.1.0.tar.xz (990 MiB)
  • legal-info-retrostone2-0.1.0.tar.xz (1569 MiB)
  • legal-info-rpi2-0.1.0.tar.xz (1171 MiB)
  • legal-info-rpi3-64-0.1.0.tar.xz (1179 MiB)
  • legal-info-rpi4-64-0.1.0.tar.xz (1179 MiB)
  • legal-info-rpi5-64-0.1.0.tar.xz (1179 MiB)

The RetroStoneOS sources of this release: https://github.com/PaddleStroke/RetroStoneOS/tree/v0.1.0 (commit f610480).
Parts in several files: cat <name>.part* > <name> before extracting.

Changes

First release. Latest commits:

  • Ship all seven RetroStone games and pin tested source for releases (f610480)
  • Owner decisions: drop the permission-only homebrew, public RetroStone VC, new VC licences (8e25998)
  • RetroStone VC games: save states on (savestates = true), tests for no-content cores with states (d4e4dca)
  • rsos-vc-games: document that the games build with RetroStone VC's default art (e3dfb72)
  • Add the RetroStone system: the RetroStone VC games in the image (3395717)
  • CI: deterministic game list order and frontend.log rotation (cb3cc8c)
  • Integrate review batches A-E: fix the merged .po files, finish cross-batch items (0228e99)
  • Boot recovery, watchdog, data partition, updater: review batch A (90e7706)
  • Review batch B2: menu process, power, UI, USB transfer (596dd91)
  • Security review batch C: SMB share, web share login, save backups, names (15b2f6a)
  • Release readiness: CI signing, release builds of all boards, docs, licences (40ce464)
  • Frontend: robustness against broken themes, gamelists, fonts, catalogs (af3465f)
  • Host B1: resume keeps a newer .srm, bench survives idle power-off, save/log hardening (7c9ac43)
  • gitignore: local Claude Code worktrees (08da45f)
  • First boot: never hang on the splash; persistent first-boot trace (88f8c64)
  • UI: prefetch theme assets in the background (no first-visit lag) (a2026a8)
  • Panel safety: never stop a powered panel's signals; idle power-off (c0093f7)
  • RetroStone1: mark post-build.sh and post-image.sh executable (68dc175)
  • Add the RetroStone1 (Allwinner H3) board (82f5019)
  • CI: fix the first run on GitHub runners (non-root, fresh checkout) (16908d4)
  • Initial public release of RetroStoneOS (aed206a)

Built by GitHub Actions from commit f610480 with Buildroot 2026.02.3 on 2026-10-02.

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