Retroid puts mainline Linux 7.3 kernels for the Pocket 6, Pocket Nova and Pocket Duo on GitHub

Kernel, audio topology and UCM branches bring the three handhelds up on Linux 7.3 with screens, controls, Wi-Fi, GPU and audio working. It is a base for firmware builders, not an OS to flash.

AI-drafted from 3 sources. This story was written with AI from the outside reporting listed under Sources, and checked by automated tools before it went up. The originals have the full detail.

Retroid has posted what it calls mainline Linux support for three of its newest handhelds: the Retroid Pocket 6, the Pocket Nova and the dual-screen Pocket Duo. The announcement went out on the company's Discord, and Retro Handhelds reproduced it in full. The code itself sits in Retroid's GitHub organisation, in a retroidpocket/v7.3 branch of its Linux kernel tree.

The Pocket 6 and Pocket Nova are listed under Qualcomm's QCS8550, and the Duo under the chip codenamed Eliza, which Retroid's store page sells as the Dragonwing Q-7790. The branch's recent commits, all by Teguh Sobirin and dated 19 and 20 October, add a device tree for each handheld plus a shared one for each chip, along with fixes to Qualcomm's sound drivers.

What works

According to the announcement, the list is long for a first drop: the display panels (both screens on the Duo), touchscreens, the gamepad and analogue sticks, the RGB lights on the Pocket 6 and Nova, speakers, headphones, the internal and headset microphones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, the GPU, video decode and encode, USB-C with DisplayPort output, UFS storage, microSD, and the fan with thermal control. DisplayPort audio is listed for the Pocket 6 and Nova only.

Getting sound out takes two more pieces besides the kernel. Retroid has published an audio topology branch, whose .bin file goes under /lib/firmware/qcom/, and an ALSA UCM config branch for /usr/share/alsa/ucm2/. The announcement says audio needs both.

Who it is for

This is not a firmware image you flash on a Sunday afternoon. Retro Handhelds points out that it is a more tedious process than installing ROCKNIX or similar systems, and reads it as Retroid giving developers a supported base to build or update custom firmware on. The Duo itself ships with Android 16. Retro Handhelds also notes the timing: the Duo is the newest of the three, and its first shipments were due to start on 21 October.

Sources

Image: Retroid

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