# Castle Game Engine on PineTab2, Linux tablet from PINE64

**URL:** https://forum.castle-engine.io/t/castle-game-engine-on-pinetab2-linux-tablet-from-pine64/1026
**Category:** News
**Created:** [December 13, 2023, 6:25pm UTC](https://forum.castle-engine.io/t/castle-game-engine-on-pinetab2-linux-tablet-from-pine64/1026 "2023-12-13T18:25:07Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![michalis](https://forum.castle-engine.io/user_avatar/forum.castle-engine.io/michalis/32/3_2.png) [@michalis](https://forum.castle-engine.io/u/michalis)
#### Post date: [December 13, 2023, 6:25pm UTC](https://forum.castle-engine.io/t/castle-game-engine-on-pinetab2-linux-tablet-from-pine64/1026/1 "2023-12-13T18:25:07Z")

</div>

| [![Castle Game Engine on PineTab2](https://forum.castle-engine.io/uploads/default/original/2X/6/6a402ee0dcdd702b04e3a2f9303b96ab485cdf45.png)](https://castle-engine.io/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot_20231212_234958.png "Castle Game Engine on PineTab2") |
| [![Castle Game Engine on PineTab2 - occlusion_query example](https://forum.castle-engine.io/uploads/default/original/2X/3/388071e7735a28931667c2dcd4abbff96b567af5.png)](https://castle-engine.io/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot_20231212_235435.png "Castle Game Engine on PineTab2 - occlusion\_query example") |
| [![Castle Game Engine on PineTab2 - terrain example](https://forum.castle-engine.io/uploads/default/original/2X/e/ec6a8279b6e03d9cacb37950f5ba96f6426ce91c.png)](https://castle-engine.io/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot_20231212_235549.png "Castle Game Engine on PineTab2 - terrain example") |
| [![Castle Game Engine on PineTab2 - platformer example](https://forum.castle-engine.io/uploads/default/original/2X/9/93ca8fae3766c53d2043873036816a18618fa724.png)](https://castle-engine.io/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot_20231213_001425.png "Castle Game Engine on PineTab2 - platformer example") |
| [![Castle Game Engine on PineTab2 - platformer example](https://forum.castle-engine.io/uploads/default/original/2X/8/8a928eea0315db430dca0accb66881f0139054cf.png)](https://castle-engine.io/wp/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Screenshot_20231212_235802.png "Castle Game Engine on PineTab2 - platformer example") |

Last week, I got my [PineTab2 tablet](https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/), made by the [PINE64](https://www.pine64.org/) community. In a way, it’s an early Christmas gift I bought for myself 🙂 It’s a tablet running Linux on 64-bit Arm. My hope was to have something that can be a tablet (light device, can do tasks for which touchscreen input is comfortable enough, like read things and watch movies) but also can be a laptop (do e.g. coding, as it features a fully-functional Linux and a keyboard with touchpad). It took some tinkering, but I have to say my hope was fulfilled and I love it 🙂

It’s still a _low-end device_, by which I mean that it’s not very fast and when I have a choice — working on a regular modern PC / laptop is just faster. But it’s also not terribly slow. It is much more powerful than e.g. a Raspberry Pi 4 (e.g. [examples/platformer](https://github.com/castle-engine/castle-engine/tree/master/examples/platformer) runs on PineTab2 with ~30 FPS, which is playable; on Raspberry Pi 4, I could run it, but it wasn’t really playable). The device is fast enough to even use [KDE Plasma by default](https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/) (Though I’m a GNOME guy, I’m bound to install there familiar GNOME 3 or XFCE at some point; but for now I enjoy KDE, it’s an interesting change for me).

You can install there [FPC](https://www.freepascal.org/), [Lazarus](https://www.lazarus-ide.org/), [VS Code](https://castle-engine.io/vscode), and finally our [Castle Game Engine](https://castle-engine.io/) and have fun making games. The default OS on PineTab2 is DanctNIX, which is _Arch Linux ARM_, and in practice it features most of software you would find on a regular _Arch Linux_, both from official packages and AUR.

Technically, it is just Linux on a _64-bit Arm CPU_ (known also as _Aarch64_).

You can guess where this is leading: The [official Linux/Aarch64 downloads of Castle Game Engine](https://castle-engine.io/download) “just work” on PineTab2. Enjoy!

There are no special instructions, just download, unzip and run `bin/castle-editor` inside, as on other platforms. Remember to also install FPC (_Free Pascal Compiler_), see below

### FPC on PineTab2

While you can install FPC from the packages (`sudo pacman -S fpc`), you may experience linking problems with FPC 3.2.2. They result in errors with messages like `undefined reference to`\_\_libc\_csu\_init’`.

When that happens, my advise is to install FPC 3.2.3 (from the `fixes_3_2` FPC branch). I am testing now on FPC 3.2.3 + Lazarus IDE from recent `main` branch. I used my [install\_fpc\_lazarus](https://github.com/castle-engine/cge-scripts/blob/master/install_fpc_lazarus) script for easy setup.

### Castle Game Engine in AUR

About [CGE package in AUR](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/castle-engine-git): While it should work in the future, first the FPC built into DanctNIX has to be upgraded (see above — FPC 3.2.2 will have problems at linking). Then we should update the `castle-engine-git` package to just add `aarch64` architecture and it will rock, allowing you to install CGE on it by just `yay -S castle-engine-git`.

### Editor binaries: GTK2 or Qt5

The CGE editor on Lonux comes with 2 binaries since some time: `castle-editor` (GTK 2) and `castle-editor-qt5` (Qt5). To run the latter, you have to install `qt5pas` (`sudo pacman -S qt5pas`) but it does have occasional crashes, looks like some LCL Qt5 widgetset problems. I advise using `castle-editor` for now.

### PinePhone, PineBook Pro

In theory, this support should extend as well to other PINE64 products using Arm64, like [Pinebook Pro](https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/Pinebook_Pro) and [PinePhone](https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone). They all _“just run Linux on Arm64”_ so in principle should work.

I’m pretty confident that it will work on _Pinebook Pro_ without any issues. I would assume it would be just an upgraded experience compared to PineTab2 in terms of performance, but without touchscreen.

I’m super-curious about _PinePhone_ 🙂 If anyone has _PinePhone_, and wants to test can we install FPC and CGE there, [let me know](https://castle-engine.io/talk.php). I can help if you want, e.g. we can meet online and test it together.

### Before you buy PineTab2

In case this post encourages you to actually buy [PineTab2 tablet](https://www.pine64.org/pinetab/), please take into consideration:

1. I am enthusiastic about this tablet, and I’m also a Linux fanboy 🙂 I actually enjoyed testing 3 different OSes on this (DanctNIX, [Ubuntu Touch](https://ubuntu-touch.io/), [Rhino Linux](https://rhinolinux.org/)) to see what works best. I enjoyed testing browsers to see what has best support for the touch screen, performance, and can [play DRM content](https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineTab2_FAQ#Can_PineTab2_play_back_DRM_content_such_as_Netflix?). I enjoyed playing with WiFi (while the laptop has a WiFi card, _DanctNIX_ doesn’t feature a working WiFi driver, and the simplest recommendation is to use a WiFi dongle; _Ubuntu Touch_ has a working WiFi driver, but comes with different issues around touchpad).

2. Make your own decision if you will enjoy above tinkering too 🙂

3. See [PineTab2 wiki](https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PineTab2) and reviews like [Pine64 PineTab 2 unboxing and review by Ivon Huang](https://ivonblog.com/en-us/posts/pine64-pinetab2-review/), [After 3 months of daily-driving tPineTab 2, ARM Linux tablet, I love but also hate it](https://ivonblog.com/en-us/posts/after-3-months-of-daily-driving-pinetab-2/).

4. If you want a fast and fully-functional tablet that “just works” then a modern Android tablet or iPad may suit you better. (Though PineTab2 supports [Waydroid](https://docs.waydro.id/) so you _can_ run Android tabs, but with performance hit.) 

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