Arch R Flasher
Flash. Select panel. Play.

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Cross-platform desktop app for flashing Arch R onto R36S and clone gaming consoles. Handles image download, SD card writing, and display panel configuration in one step.

Features

• Two tabs: Flash (full image write) and Overlay (change panel on existing SD)
• 24 display panels: 12 original R36S + 12 clone variants, data-driven selection
• Customizations: display rotation, analog stick inversion, headphone detect polarity
• Image download: fetches latest release from GitHub with SHA256 verification and caching
• Compression support: handles both .img.gz and .img.xz images
• Cross-platform: Windows, Linux, macOS with native privilege escalation
• In-app updates: automatic update checking and installation
• 5 languages: English, Portuguese (BR), Spanish, Chinese, Russian
• Retry logic: automatic retry on transient SD card I/O errors

Download

Get the latest release for your platform from Releases.

Platform	File
Windows	Arch.R.Flasher_x64-setup.exe
Linux (deb)	arch-r-flasher_amd64.deb
Linux (AppImage)	arch-r-flasher_amd64.AppImage
macOS	Arch.R.Flasher_aarch64.dmg

Usage

Overlays

Boards	Variation	Overlays
R36S-V12 2023-08-18	Original	panel0.dtbo
R36S-Y02 2024-11-27	Original	unknown
R36S-Y02 2025-02-18	Original	panel0.dtbo
Y3506_V03_20241210	SoySauce / Original	panel5.dtbo / panel6.dtbo
Y3506_V03_20241104	SoySauce / Original	unknown
Y3506_V03_20250317	SoySauce / Original	panel6.dtbo
Y3506_V04_20250529	SoySauce / Original	panel6.dtbo
2025-07-22_1402	SoySauce / Original	panel6.dtbo
Y3506_V05_20251215 | 2551	SoySauce / Original	panel5.dtbo
Y3506_V05_20251215 | 2601	SoySauce / Original	unknown
R36S-V21 2024-12-18	Original	panel4.dtbo
R36S-V22 2024-12-18	Original	panel4v22.dtbo
RK3326-D3	Unknown	panel4.dtbo
R36S-V30 2025-10-18	Original	unknown
G80C-MB V1.1-20250319	Clone	clone_panel_8.dtbo
G80CA-MB V1.2-20250422	Clone	clone_panel_8.dtbo / clone_panel_9.dtbo
G80CA-MB V1.2-20250423	Clone	clone_panel_8.dtbo / clone_panel_9.dtbo
G80CA-MB V1.3-20251212	Clone	clone_panel_8.dtbo / clone_panel_9.dtbo
G80D-MB V1.0-20250609	Clone	clone_panel_10.dtbo
R36S-V12	Clone	clone_panel_8.dtbo
R36S-V20 2025-05-18	Clone	clone_panel_1.dtbo / clone_panel_3.dtbo
R36S-V20 2025-09-18	Clone	unknown
R36S-V12 2023-08-18 variant 1	Clone	clone_panel_4.dtbo
R36S-V12 2023-08-18 variant 2	Clone	clone_panel_2.dtbo
R36S-V12 2023-08-18 variant 3A	Clone	unknown
R36S-V12 2023-08-18 variant 3	Clone	clone_panel_1.dtbo
R36S-Power-MB 01 - 060625	Clone	clone_panel_8.dtbo

Flash Tab

1. Select console type -- R36S Original (12 panels) or R36S Clone (12 panels)
2. Select image -- download latest from GitHub or pick a local .img / .img.xz / .img.gz file
3. Select your display panel
4. Optionally adjust customizations (rotation, stick inversion, HP detect)
5. Select target SD card
6. Click FLASH

The app decompresses images, writes to SD, and injects the correct panel overlay (DTBO) into the BOOT partition.

Overlay Tab

Change the display panel on an already-flashed Arch R SD card without reflashing:

1. Insert an Arch R SD card
2. App auto-detects the BOOT partition and shows current panel + settings
3. Select a new panel and/or adjust customizations
4. Click APPLY

Building from Source

Requirements

• Rust (stable)
• Tauri CLI: cargo install tauri-cli

Linux

sudo apt install -y libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev

macOS

Xcode Command Line Tools.

Windows

WebView2 (pre-installed on Windows 11).

Build

# Development
cargo tauri dev

# Release (generates installer for current platform)
cargo tauri build

Architecture

archr-flasher/
 src-tauri/
   src/
     main.rs            # Tauri entry point + IPC commands
     panels.rs          # Panel definitions (24 panels, data-driven)
     disk.rs            # Removable disk detection (Linux/macOS/Windows)
     flash.rs           # Image writing + privilege escalation + retry
     github.rs          # GitHub Releases API + image download
     overlay.rs         # SD card panel overlay read/write
     panel_config.rs    # DTBO read/customization (built-in FAT32 reader)
     dtbo_builder.rs    # FDT binary builder (no external tools)
   Cargo.toml
   tauri.conf.json
 src/
   index.html           # UI (two tabs: Flash + Overlay)
   style.css            # Dark theme
   main.js              # Frontend logic (vanilla JS)
   i18n/                # Translations (en, pt-BR, es, zh, ru)
 .github/
   workflows/           # CI/CD

How It Works

Flash flow:

1. Download or select .img.xz / .img.gz image
2. Decompress to app cache directory (streaming, 4MB chunks)
3. Read source panel DTBO from image's FAT32 BOOT partition
4. If customizations are set, build a modified DTBO with injected properties
5. Write image to SD card via platform-specific privileged script (3 retries)
6. Mount boot partition (with retry) and inject DTBO as overlays/mipi-panel.dtbo

Overlay flow:

1. Detect mounted Arch R BOOT partition
2. Read current mipi-panel.dtbo -- identify panel via panel_description hash
3. User selects new panel + customizations
4. Build DTBO and write to overlays/mipi-panel.dtbo

Privilege Escalation

Platform	Method	Notes
Linux	pkexec	No terminal window needed
macOS	osascript (AppleScript)	Native admin prompt
Windows	Admin manifest at startup	No runtime UAC prompt

Panel DTBO System

The app includes a built-in FDT binary builder and a minimal FAT32 reader -- no dtc, mtools, or device-tree-compiler dependency needed. Customizations (rotation, stick inversion, HP detect polarity) are injected as DT properties into the panel overlay, preserving all original hardware nodes (reset-gpios, pinctrl, power supply).

Supported Panels

Original R36S (12 panels)

Panel	Overlay
Panel 0	panel0.dtbo
Panel 1	panel1.dtbo
Panel 2	panel2.dtbo
Panel 3	panel3.dtbo
Panel 4	panel4.dtbo
Panel 4 V22	panel4-v22.dtbo
Panel 5	panel5.dtbo
Panel 6	panel6.dtbo
R35S Rumble	r35s-rumble.dtbo
R36S Plus	r36s-plus.dtbo
R46H (1024x768)	r46h.dtbo
RGB20S	rgb20s.dtbo

Clone R36S (12 panels)

Panel	Overlay
Clone 1 (ST7703)	clone_panel_1.dtbo
Clone 2 (ST7703)	clone_panel_2.dtbo
Clone 3 (NV3051D)	clone_panel_3.dtbo
Clone 4 (NV3051D)	clone_panel_4.dtbo
Clone 5 (ST7703)	clone_panel_5.dtbo
Clone 6 (NV3051D)	clone_panel_6.dtbo
Clone 7 (JD9365DA)	clone_panel_7.dtbo
Clone 8 G80CA (ST7703)	clone_panel_8.dtbo
Clone 9 (NV3051D)	clone_panel_9.dtbo
Clone 10 (ST7703)	clone_panel_10.dtbo
R36 Max (ST7703 720x720)	r36_max.dtbo
RX6S (NV3051D)	rx6s.dtbo

Licenses

Copyright (C) 2026-present Arch R

Licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL Version 2.

Credits

Part of the Arch R project, built on top of ROCKNIX.