Samwise Makers' News
Wednesday, October 7, 2026
Raspberry Pi Desktop Returns for PC and Mac on 64-Bit Debian Trixie
Raspberry Pi has released an updated Raspberry Pi Desktop for PC and Mac, its first refresh since the Bullseye-based version that the company says it lacked time to maintain. Developer Simon Long writes that the new build runs on Debian Trixie and moves to 64-bit Debian on the amd64 architecture, because Debian has stopped supporting 32-bit for PC architectures. Most PCs made in roughly the last 15 years and most Intel-based Macs should run it, but Apple Silicon Macs cannot. The release includes the new Control Centre and dock, a Raspberry Pi Connect client for remote access, and a Calamares installer on a live USB image.
Sources: Raspberry Pi
DSPi Firmware Turns RP2040 and RP2350 Boards Into USB DSP Sound Cards
DSPi is audio DSP firmware that turns the Raspberry Pi Pico, Pico 2, and other RP2040 or RP2350 boards into a USB sound card with an integrated DSP engine, CNX Software reports. It accepts 16-bit and 24-bit USB audio at 44.1, 48, and 96 kHz and works with macOS, Windows, Linux, and iOS. Features include parametric EQ with up to 110 filter bands on the RP2350 or 70 on the RP2040, active crossovers up to 8th order, time alignment up to 85 ms, headphone crossfeed, and a PDM subwoofer output. Weeb Labs also offers DSPi Console and DSPi Terminal control tools, and the firmware repository has 1.2k GitHub stars.
Sources: CNX Software
Dr. PD Brings Open-Source USB-C Power Delivery Analysis Up to 240 W
Marco Tabini has created Dr. PD, an open-source protocol analyzer for USB-C Power Delivery, Hackaday reports. The device can sit between a USB-C PD source and sink to monitor the connection, or emulate a sink in order to characterize a power source. It supports a wide range of USB power protocols and can work up to the full 48-volt, 240-watt limits of the technology. The project files are published on GitHub, and Dr. PD is set to be the subject of a crowdfunding campaign. Hackaday points to cheap USB-C PD gear that fails to follow standards or supplies the wrong voltage as the problem it tackles.
Guide Shows How an ESP32 Can Serve as a Linux SBC’s WiFi and Bluetooth Card
Writing for Hackaday, Arya Voronova explains how Espressif’s esp-hosted project lets an ESP32 module act as the WiFi and Bluetooth card for a Linux single-board computer over SDIO or SPI. The esp-hosted-linux variant keeps the wireless stack on the Linux side, with the ESP32 acting as a relatively thin proxy. Supported chips include the ESP32-S2, -S3, -C2, -C3, -C5, and -C6. Voronova used an ESP32-C6 but would pick the 5GHz-capable ESP32-C5 for a new board design. The guide covers SDIO layout, firmware flashing, and driver setup on Raspberry Pi, and reports throughput of 40 to 50 Mbps at the default SDIO frequency.
OpenTMS Publishes an Open-Source Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Design
Zach McGinty has published OpenTMS, an open-source transcranial magnetic stimulation project, Hackaday reports. TMS has been approved by regulatory agencies as evidence-based medicine, but OpenTMS is not approved by the FDA, and McGinty warns it is not a medical device and that anyone building from his GitHub data does so at their own risk. The design uses coils made of hollow copper pipe to carry coolant, and a power supply built from a pair of microwave oven transformers switched through IGBTs in a flyback configuration, handling kiloamps. The IGBT gate controls are isolated with fiber optics. Hackaday places the project firmly in its don’t-try-this-at-home category.
B.L.O.O.M. Cyberdeck Packs an Arduino UNO Q Into a Train Case for Fieldwork
Creative technologist Jen Looper has built B.L.O.O.M. (Bridging Local Observations, Openly Mapped), a #cottagecore cyberdeck for collecting field notes on regional plants and animals, the Arduino Blog reports. Instead of an aluminum slab, the hardware sits inside a train case, a traditional carrier for cosmetics and grooming supplies, with room left over for paper notebooks. It is built around a 4GB Arduino UNO Q with a 5-inch HDMI screen, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, power bank, USB camera, and USB microphone. A companion Field Notes app compiles data in the Grinnell format, and Looper used Edge Impulse in Arduino App Lab to build a model that recognizes bird species by song.
Sources: Arduino Blog
SmallTV Desk Gadget Hacked to Show Custom Images Without New Firmware
Yongha Kim has found a way to show custom content on GeekMagic SmallTV desk gadgets without replacing the stock firmware or picking up a soldering iron, Hackaday reports. The inexpensive devices pair an ESP8266 or ESP32 with a small display, typically used to show the time or weather. Kim’s approach uses the SmallTV’s built-in photo viewer: another machine on the network generates a 240×240 image and pushes it to the device over HTTP. Kim’s example uses Python and the Pillow library to display Claude and Codex usage data, but any programming language or tool can generate the images, and GIF animation is supported. The code is published on GitHub.
Commodore 64 Keyboard Font Traced From Photos and Released as a Vector Font
Levente Szabadkai has traced the Commodore 64 keyboard font from photographs and released it as a vector font in several formats on GitHub, Hackaday reports. The typeface is uppercase only, because the original hardware never sported lowercase letters. Beyond the alphabet, it includes punctuation and other marks, all of the PETSCII glyphs, the function keys, and a Commodore logo for the key in the lower left corner. Hackaday notes that the font’s cursor arrows are solid, while the arrows on its own C64 are outlined, and guesses that minor differences between models may explain it. The release lets anyone make their projects look like a 1980s home computer keyboard.
Top Crowdfunding
Kickstarter / Indiegogo
LightMake L4 3D printer — over $3M raised, Kickstarter (runs to Oct 15)
Co Print Quadro 3D printer — Kickstarter launch planned for October
Dr. PD USB-C PD analyzer — crowdfunding campaign announced
GitHub Trending
Makers & Hardware
MarlinFirmware/Marlin — 17.6k★
makerspet/oomwoo — 10.6k★
meshtastic/firmware — 8.3k★
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