GStickOS - FAQ

FAQ

> What is GStickOS?

> How do I install GStickOS?

> Is GStickOS compatible with my hardware?

> Will GStickOS makes permanent changes to my stick?

> How can I update GStickOS?

> Is there a guide on how to use it?

> What about games? Are there any included?

> How can I play games?

> Is there WiFi connection?

Yes, sort of: if you plug a WiFi dongle there a popular driver I built and loaded for it (RTL8188eu), if WiFi dongle has this chip you're good to go. To configure the SSID/password you have to put a wpa_supplicant.conf file in the root folder of a USB stick, plug it in and then reboot after a few seconds. GStickOS looks for wpa_supplicant.conf file in every USB device as soon as you plug it in, if it founds one it will replace the internal configuration with the one provided. This is a sample wpa_supplicant.conf file, update as needed:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
update_config=1
country=IT
network={
 ssid="my_1st_network"
 psk="MyPassword1"
}

network={
 ssid="my_2nd_network"
 psk="MyPassword1"
}

> Why this page is so ugly?

> I want to SSH into GStickOS

You're welcome to do so, you can login as root and the password is gstickos, all lower case. Beware that with root access you can do anything, even remove files that are needed for the OS to run. Anyway if you do something wrong you can flash again the image and you'll be fine.

> I want to copy some files to the SD

That's ok: grab yourself a program that is able to copy files over SCP (e.g. WinSCP) and use the root password above to transfer the files. My suggestion is to copy all the files under /mnt/extended, which is the largest partition on the SD. You can later see the files from the Retroarch UI by navigating again to /mnt/extended or wherever you put your files.

> The extended partition is not large enough!

> I want to hack GStickOS

Fair enough, as long as you share your improvements with us :) Here are a few hints to get started:

Use Linux. A virtual machine with it it's ok too. Don't use Windows, you'll regret it
GStickOS is Busybox based. This, among other things, means you have to be comfortable using the CLI
The SD is not mounted without your intervention: without being too technical, this is due to how they build the hardware of the stick and cannote be changed easily (you should flash a custom bootloader on an internal unlabelled chip, if you're into it let me know)
The SD contains two partitions: a root fs and and extended partition. To mount them you have to specify an offset to the mount command. The offsets you need are 10MB and 138MB. Say you want to mount the extended partition, the command is sudo mount -oloop,offset=$((138 * 1024 * 1024)) /dev/sdX /media/sd. Be sure to specify the correct path of the sd (i.e. replace /dev/sdX) and mount point (i.e. /media/sd)
Everything is built from scratch with a custom toolchain, from the base OS (Busybox) to Retroarch and its cores. I made a docker image of the toolchain (here) with wich you should be able to recompile everything, kernel included. A word of warning: using toolchains is the first step down the rabbit hole. My only clue here is that after you load the docker image you should source the env.sh file.
Most cores build without modification: this mean that if you have your docker container running (and env.sh sourced) you should be able to just make them all. Some of them require small to big changes though, from updating some configurations to recompiling libraries and frameworks.
It's easy to be stuck with the toolchain, especially because it's based on an older GCC (4.9.2) and the equivalent glibc. Reach the Discord channel if you want to ask questions, I'm not always there but I can try answer your questions.

FAQ