# PocketChip flashing in 2019
### Entered in vim on RPoJ via ssh
### 20190118

The [PocketChip][1] is a [SBC][2] that comes mounted in a
socket on a board with a 4.3 inch 480×272 pixel resistive
touchscreen, a crap-tastic keyboard (but usable), and 4gb
of flash. It was designed and sold by Next Thing Co., which
is now out of business. When they went down, their web
properties went down too. That included their Debian repo
and their flash images.

When you get a _new_ PocketChip, it comes flashed with the
PocketHome interface. This is a six icon menu that includes
Pico8 games, and the terminal. If you're like me, you just
want your Linux handheld. I am not a fan of PocketHome.

There was a flashable image for an XFCE Debian desktop
interface for the PocketChip. However, if you follow links
online for it, the site is down.

## Here's how you do it anyway

There is a collection of all the flash images on
[Archive.org][3]. Download these for posterity. The one
you want is stable GUI. Instructions for flashing are
still available [here][4]. After flashing the GUI image
you will need to edit /etc/apt/sources.list as instructed on
[this site][5]. Note that the [archive][3] listed earlier
also contains a .tar.bz2 version of the entire repo if you
want to self host. Follow the instructions in
[this video][6] to install PocketDesk. This will correct
your touchscreen after flashing the GUI image, and also
reinstall the PocketChip stock software such as Pico8.

Important! that video will tell you to git clone the
[PocketDesk][7] git repo and blindly run the PocketDESK.sh
script. You need to modify that shell script and remove the
line that adds a defunct repo to your /etc/apt/sources.list
it will then succeed and you will be left with a decent
little WiFi terminal that can run xorg apps (the vertical
screen res makes things like firefox suck ass, but
chocolate doom runs nicely).

[1]: https://shop.pocketchip.co/ "POCKET C.H.I.P."
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-board_computer "Single Board Computer"
[3]: https://archive.org/details/C.h.i.p.FlashCollection "C.h.i.p. Flash Collection"
[4]: https://yoursunny.com/t/2018/CHIP-flash-offline/ "CHIP flash offline"
[5]: http://chip.jfpossibilities.com/chip/debian/ "Mirror of the PocketChip Debian Repo"
[6]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NHS11YpIhGs "PocketDesk Instructional Video"
[7]: https://github.com/AllGray/PocketDesk "PocketDesk git repo"

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