Another in the seemingly unending march of me-interviewing-developers-from-different-programs/projects/games-etc has arrived. This time I’ve chatted to the team behind Spruce/Sprig (a pair of Linux-based operating systems designed specifically for retro handhelds) to get their story.

Interestingly they felt a little hesitant at first, before I got to know them. They’ve had some bad experiences before with YouTubers covering their work and painting them in a bad light.

Which I can’t fathom for the life of me.

Anyway, I chatted to eight members of the developer team and asked them all about the origins of making these, how its like to maintain it, and what they think the future will bring (both for Spruce/Sprig and for the Linux handheld scene in general).

One warning, it is a LONG article this time. Over 10K words. Originally I was going to pick and choose quotes and write this as a narrative piece, but…I just felt like these devs deserve to tell their own stories their own way.

If you’re into handhelds, Linux, dev work or gaming, you might find this interesting. The link is right here. And just to make sure you know (since I’ve had weird nasty messages about this before), there’s no ads on this site and I’m not paid to write these. I just think its fun!