R36S Custom Firmware Recommendations

[XFoxPrower]

A friend just got an R36S for like $40. Not a bad little toy. He turned to me for help loading up. Looks like there's lots of custom firmware options. Any recommendtions and tips? Latest ArkOS? Any favorite accessories? Etc.

 

[_iggyman_]

 

[CMDreamer]

Personally I use Pan4Elec, it works great.

Last time I installed it, it was compatible only with Panel 4 R36S units, take that into consideration if its still the case.

 

[XFoxPrower]

Not sure if those images are meant to be links, but glad to see some activity with this unit. What's Panel 4, a hardware variation? So not sure if it's Google blocking me (as it has earlier) or if the latest ArkOS is really so popular that Google Drive's not allowing more downloads right now.

 

[XFoxPrower]

So we got a 2nd card working in the 2nd slot (though nothing transfersed. It boots to a faulty OS with no games) and was able to copy games to /roms2. Boot without card and games are back But copy anything from /roms2 to /roms and the result is instant: 0 byte files. Happens with either FileManager or '351 Files' (or whatever it's called). Any workaround for this issue? Think it has an outdated ArkOS. Would like to fix that but don't have a PC to image a card with the update.

 

[XFoxPrower]

Now whether there's 1 card or 2 in, it boots but has no roms. The OS is so broken that the menu is almost unnavigatable for lack of themes (blue on black text, no cues as to what's highlighted). No option to switch between cards. Issue seemed to happen unprovoked. He's worried it's bricked. Maybe the EasyRoms partition (not visible from filemanager) is corrupted. No idea what to do.

 

[esmith13]

Flashing ArkOS to a quality SD card would likely solve your issue. If you're using the cards that came with the device you're in for all kinds of problems. EtchDroid or Pi SD Card Imager can be used to flash an SD card via an Android device if you don't have access to a computer.

 

[XFoxPrower]

Thanks, was afraid of that. It was a $40 pawnshop item. Still seems to be the stock card. I sold the guy a 128GB card for secondary roms. Neither of us have access to a PC or smart phone. Think partition management / imaging would definitely need admin access too. Guess he'll be saving up to buy one of my Vitas.

 

[esmith13]

Thanks, was afraid of that. It was a $40 pawnshop item. Still seems to be the stock card. I sold the guy a 128GB card for secondary roms. Neither of us have access to a PC or smart phone. Think partition management / imaging would definitely need admin access too. Guess he'll be saving up to buy one of my Vitas.

On Windows PC and Android you wouldn't need admin rights to format and flash a SD card. As for not having a second decent card, the 128GB card could be reformatted to be the single and only card used and you would only use a few GB of the total capacity for the OS - but then you would really need a device to backup all the ROMs and re-add them after imaging.. Sounds like someone needs to borrow a computer for an hour or just hand the 128GB card to someone with a PC and have them do the hour's work.

 

[XFoxPrower]

Well we couldn't do a thing without admin rights after all (Compmgmt.msc can't show drives, Rufus can't launch, etc). Also seems the USB-C port is shot as it can't detect any flash drives or even a known-working wifi dongle. At a stalemate, so that friend ended up buying a Vita from me.