As a continued effort to put off writing my talk for the Hope conference.

I decided to build a cyberdeck, and I wanted to do it with things I had sitting around. Turns out I have a lot of junk sitting around.

Parts List:

- Raspberry pi5 w/ SD card
- Smallest bluetooth keyboard I could find in my junk pile
- Hosyond 7 Inch Touchscreen (the only part I didn't have)
- 5V/3A USB battery pack (like you would use to charge your phone)
- **Quality** USB to USB-C cable
- Old zippered case I had lying around

The first thing I needed to do was get the pi5 up and running. I used the raspberry pie imager with the SD card. I went with something basic and 64 bit, the latest version of the OS called “Trixie". This being proof of concept I wanted to go as vanilla as possible. The app also let me set SSID and preinstall SSH.

Booted the pie got the green light but no image. I hit my first snag. my micro HDMI adapter stopped working. Luckily I was able to SSH in and install VNC. There's a stock version of VNC but it involved creating an account on the cloud somewhere. no thanks. So I did it the hard way.

I SSH’s into the box ( if SSH isn't your thing you can mount the SD card on your desktop the configure.txt is visible) amd added `usb_max_current_enable=1` to `/boot/firmware/config.txt` so the Pi 5 stops capping USB current when it's running off a battery bank instead of the official 5A wall supply. Without it, the Pi detects the weaker supply and throttles peripheral current to be safe. With it set, the Pi draws what it needs off a solid 5V/3A bank, which for a headless deck with a DSI screen is plenty.

with VNC was up and running I was able to take a look at the desktop and tweak it to my likeing. I was running it completely on the USB battery and getting a low-voltage warning, I upgraded the quality of my USB-C cable and the

warnings went away.

The real trick was making it all fit into a portable self-contained case. This was the zippered case I had settled on. It was originally to hold a car battery pack. Sturdy. And spacious.

Want to breathe in new life into some old hardware? Miss the video games of yesteryear? Then a retro gaming console might be just what you're looking for. It's easier to get up and running than you might think

Here's how I did it.

I evaluated quite a few systems and settled on ~Batocera~, a lightweight, open-source Linux distribution designed to turn almost any computer into a dedicated retro gaming console. Instead of being an application that launches on an OS, you install it like you would any other linux distro. It supports x86 PCs, Raspberry Pi, Steam Deck, handhelds, and many ARM-based devices. It runs Emulationstation on the backend and has just about ~every system you could imagine~. Although what system you can run is of course dependent on the ~hardware you're installing it on.~

**What You'll Need**:

* ~An old PC, mini PC, laptop, or pi.~
* USB flash drive (16GB+ recommended).
* Another computer to create the installer.

⠀If you've ever installed linux on a machine this is exactly the same thing. Keep in mind that it will take the entire hard drive. Like any linux installation

Once you have your hardware sorted out you'll need to ~download the disk image~. Once the image is downloaded, burn it onto the USB flash drive. There are a lot of apps that do this. Personally I use ~balenaEtcher~

Once you have your USB disk image you'll want to use it to boot into BATOCERA. Just place it in the USB port of your machine and you're good.

You'll see the startup screen and be brought into the main interface you can use the arrow keys along with return and space to navigate. A few open-source games are installed for you to get a feel for the systems. But keep in mind you are running from a USB drive so once it's installed on actual hardware it will run a lot faster.

Once you're done looking around it's time to install it on your hardware

* Press start or spacebar to open the **MAIN MENU**. 
* Navigate to **SYSTEM SETTINGS** → **INSTALL BATOCERA ON A NEW DISK**. 

⠀select your target device, your architecture, and click that you're sure. Then hit the install button.

**THIS WILL WIPE OUT EVERYTHING ON YOUR MACHINE AND PLACE A FRESH INSTALL OF BATOCERA. YOU WILL LOSE ALL DATA ON THE MACHINE. PLAN ACCORDINGLY.**

once the install is finished reboot the machine remove the USB drive and you are good to go. If not Batocera has a ~troubleshooting page~

First Boot
When you first boot into Botto Keere there are a few things you need to take care of.

* Enable Wi-Fi. **SYSTEM SETTINGS → NETWORK SETTINGS → ENABLE WIFI** (wired network will work too)
* Install updates. **SYSTEM SETTINGS → UPDATES & DOWNLOADS → CHECK FOR UPDATES.** (From here you also have the choice to enter the beta update channel )
* Download themes. **USER INTERFACE SETTINGS → DOWNLOAD THEMES** (Batocera has a vibrant theme community and you're sure to find one you like)
* Get your controllers working. Just about any Bluetooth controller will work along with wired USB controllers **CONTROLLER & BLUETOOTH SETTINGS → PAIR A BLUETOOTH DEVICE**
* Configure controllers. **CONTROLLER & BLUETOOTH SETTINGS → CONFIGURE A CONTROLLER**
* if the music is driving you crazy **SYSTEM SETTINGS → FRONTEND MUSIC**

That should get you up and running enough to kick the tires and give it spin. In future posts will go deeper into customization and of course where to find ROMs (legally of course 😉)

Comic book covers that live in my head rent free

As the dumpster fire known as 2025 comes to a close and as we look forward to 2026 with this new microblog I thought I would take a minute and recap the year. 


Projects
I dabbled in a lot of stuff this year here are a list of the major things.

StickerTop.art [https://stickertop.art] - this project went very well. I love laptop stickers and now I have plenty to look at. Hope you enjoy it and I hope you submit. 

ZineDrop [https://zinedrop.com] - I made a repository for Zines so far I have a little over 90 but it's slowly growing. Check it out if you're into subculture publications. 

https://batocera.org/ I built a consult emulation system using the BATOCERA software and install installed it on a NUC and was able to push it out to my television via HDMI. Then squeezed in sunshine/moonlight so I was able to play remotely. Keeping the promise I made to 10-year-old me to own every console game in existence.

https://meshtastic.org/ - got up to speed on the mesh tastic protocol. Still need some work and I'm going to spend more time with it in the upcoming year.

Personal Feed [https://feed.jackgangi.me] this one came in under the wire. I'd been tinkering with it for months. Keeping up with traditional blogging was getting to be a bit much, and there were a lot of little moments and observations I wanted to share without the overhead. This format made more sense. Quick posts, my own server, no ads or algorithms.

HackerEvents [https://events.jackgangi.me] this is a project that scrapes all the upcoming events from Hakka spaces and displayed them in a timeline format. It's still in BETA. The idea is a one stop place to look for anything hacker related. Hoping to add conferences and venues in the future.

Zoltar. I played with self hosted AI. I installed https://ollama.com/ along with a an https://docs.openwebui.com/ wrapper. It was interesting but I just didn't have the hardware resources to support this long-term. I think when the dust settles AI is going to make a great tool, or be the downfall of society as we know it. Jury is still out

Spoke at the Hope Conference [https://hope.net] I gave a talk at this year at HOPE 16 (Hackers On Planet Earth). The topic was "The Struggle for Connection in a Fragmented World: Rebuilding Third Space" it went great and was a lot of fun.

I hope you all enjoyed and found anything front facing useful. Here's hoping we survive 2026!!

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