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Installing

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oauramos edited this page Oct 15, 2026 · 3 revisions

omega-zero runs on BaseOS, a minimal Linux for H700 handhelds. You need the BaseOS image for your exact model.

On one card

  1. Download the BaseOS image for your device from the BaseOS releases (for example baseos-rg35xxsp-*.img.zip) and write it to a microSD card with a tool such as Raspberry Pi Imager.
  2. Put the card in the slot marked SD1 (TF1) and power on. BaseOS expands its storage, then says no frontend was found. Power off.
  3. Download the latest omega-zero release, unzip it, and copy the contents of the omega-zero-vX.Y.Z/ folder to the root of the card.
  4. Put your games in Games/GBA, Games/GB, Games/GBC, Games/SNES and Games/PS1; see Systems for the files each takes. Labels are optional; see The Card and Cart Labels.
  5. Put the card back in SD1 and boot.

What you see as it starts

While Linux starts, the handheld shows a still boot screen: an old PC's BIOS screen, after Award's, told about omega-zero. Its first boot only puts that screen on the boot partition, so the first one shows BaseOS's own logo and every boot after it shows omega-zero's.

Then omega-zero plays its opening. The boot screen fades to black, and a terminal after Mega Man X5's boot screen types its way through ten seconds about the handheld: its model, its memory, the H700, the battery and its charge. Then the shelf fades in. Any button skips it; see Controls. A boot that goes straight back into a game, or to the clock, plays no opening.

On two cards

  1. Write BaseOS to the card in SD1 as above.
  2. Format a second card as FAT32 or exFAT with an MBR partition table, and copy the contents of the release's omega-zero-vX.Y.Z/ folder to it.
  3. Add your games to the second card and put it in SD2. BaseOS runs omega-zero from SD2 whenever one is there.

Updating

Replace the System/ folder on the card omega-zero runs from with the one from the new release. Your games, saves, save states, labels, wallpapers, overlays and settings all live outside System/.

Once Wi-Fi is set up, you can also copy the new System/ over SFTP; see Wi-Fi, SSH and SFTP.

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