Leaf 0.1.0 - First Public Release

Leaf 0.1.0 - First Public Release

Leaf is custom firmware for the Miniloong Pocket 1. It runs on top of the stock OS instead of replacing it, so the launcher you actually live in is ours, but the device stays recoverable if anything ever goes sideways.

This is the first build we're putting out in public. We've been daily-driving it for a while and it's solid, but we're still shaking out the install process on other people's hardware, so go in expecting the odd rough edge. If you hit one, please tell us.

What you get

The home screen is a simple set of tabs, Recents, Favorites, Games, Apps and Settings, with cover art and a search that reaches everything. Press SELECT from the home screen and the game switcher pops up, a quick carousel of what you've been playing so you can jump straight back in.

You can make it yours. There are fourteen color schemes, a full run of dark ones and a matching set of lights, ten fonts to choose from, a soft-green LED, and a boot animation to go with it. The screen can run at 60, 90 or 120 Hz.

For playing, there are twenty-five emulator cores covering the stock systems, plus standalone PPSSPP for PSP and DraStic for DS. Saves and save-states are there with thumbnails, you can pause into a menu to save, load, reset or quit without leaving the game, and there are per-system performance profiles for the systems that need more grunt. Sign in to RetroAchievements and they just work, and you can pull box art automatically from ScreenScraper.

A few apps come with it: Central Scrutinizer, which lets you manage your ROMs, saves and artwork from a browser on your computer; Fugazi for tuning CRT shaders live; Joe's Calibrage for calibrating the analog stick when it isn't reaching full throw; a file explorer; and an SSH server. There's also Disco Boy, a little music player, which you can grab separately from the app store.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth audio both work, wired or wireless headphones, it handles a second SD card, and it updates itself over the air from here on out. If the launcher ever gets stuck crash-looping it quietly drops you back to stock on its own, and the recovery download puts the device fully back to stock whenever you want it.

Installing it

One thing to sort out first: your device has to have taken at least one stock update before you install Leaf. The firmware it ships with from the factory is missing a piece of the stock system that the installer needs, and updating fills it in. We've tested on 1.3.0.32 and recommend updating to that. Just run the device's built-in system update the normal way before you start.

Then:

1. Download leaf-mlp1-sd-v0.1.0.zip.
2. Extract everything inside it to the root of a FAT32 SD card. Not exFAT, the stock updater won't look at an exFAT card.
3. Put the card in, power on, and let the stock "upgrading" screen run. It installs Leaf and reboots into it.
4. If that screen never shows up, power the device off and on a few times. Stock decides where to mount the card fresh on every boot, and the installer only catches when it lands in the right spot. That's a stock quirk, not us.

This is a clean install. It won't carry data over from an earlier dev build, so start from a fresh card.

If you want stock back

leaf-mlp1-recovery-v0.1.0.zip puts the device back to stock. Same FAT32 card, same power-cycle to trigger it.

Docs

The full guide, with screenshots and troubleshooting, lives at https://utility-muffin-research-kitchen.github.io/leaf-docs/.

One ask

Some of the cores we bundle are released under non-commercial terms, which means Leaf has to stay free. Please don't sell it, and don't sell devices with it preinstalled. The full per-core licenses ride along inside the install.

Check your download against SHA256SUMS if you like. Built clean, with the core and license checks passing.