Batocera – The Retro Arcade OS

May 16, 2026

I have a mini-PC that my workplace isn’t using so I grabbed it and brought it home. With this home labbing I have been getting into I thought about having a retro video game box. Most people get a Raspberry Pi and install RetroPie on it. The limitations is the micro SD card that the RPi boots off of. I have a mini-PC that uses an M.2 SSD drive to boot the OS off it. So I chose that to host my retro video game box.

It only has a 250 GB SSD so I ordered a 512 GB SSD. As for the OS I found on called Batocera and it is designed to be for retro video game machines. So instead of installing Ubuntu and RetroPie it will boot up right to the Gamestation interface. Flashed that to a thumb drive and it isn’t installed because I am waiting for the new SSD. As for ROMS I am going to get them from The Internet Archive.

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Cyberdecks

May 8, 2026

People are making cyberdecks. For those that aren’t familiar with them it is a homemade computer usually a Raspberry Pi with a screen and keyboard placed in some kind of shell. People have gotten creative with them decorating them to fit their personality. Also it has been modded with things like solar panels or mesh networking.

I have a bunch of Raspberry Pi that aren’t being used and this might be a good project. I am thinking of setting up some sort of mesh Wi-Fi networking or a software defined radio. Turn it into a police ban radio scanner or get my ham radio license. Use the Wi-Fi to hack Flock cameras. I don’t know yet.

Reason people build them is to have ownership over there hardware and software. Not to have corporate control or forced to use AI. And I support the people that do that.

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