Table of Contents
Nintendo Wii U
Nintendo's entry into the HD era. Releasing on November 18th, 2012 in North America, the Wii U's PowerPC-based Espresso CPU, 2 GB of RAM, and AMD Radeon “Latte” GPU outputting up to 1080p (with an 854×480 screen on the GamePad) wasn't particularly capable, compared to the Wii U's competitors. This, of course, was not all, as poor marketing and a less-than-ideal launch lineup resulted in the Wii U being one of Nintendo's biggest sales flops, with it selling only 13.56 million units. Despite this, the system has been fondly remembered as a unique experiment in Nintendo's system history, namely due to the system's “flair” and unique utilization of the GamePad exhibited in some titles.
Operating Systems (IBM PPC Espresso + ARM9 bg)
Adélie Linux
Adélie does not set a root password in their rootfs images - therefore you cannot login!
Experimental support for Wii U, with workarounds required for the above issue.
Cafe OS/Menu
A pleasant and interesting assortment of icons and applications.
Console emulation (potential)
Whether these emulators support operating systems for these consoles is unknown; it must be looked into further. Consoles without meaningful OSes are not included.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WiiUHacks/comments/8e9m3j/best_emulation_setup_for_each_system_on_wiiu/
Nintendo Entertainment System – retroarch
Super Nintendo Entertainment System – retroarch, snes9x next, CATSFC
Nintendo Game Boy (Color) – retroarch, gacubeboy, Gbiine
https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-gacubeboy-emulator.435627 https://gbatemp.net/threads/game-boy-emu-for-5-3-2.417294
Nintendo Game Boy Advance – retroarch
Nintendo Pokémon Mini - PokeMiniU
Nintendo Virtual Boy - mednafen
Sega Genesis - retroarch
Sega Master System – retroarch
Sony PlayStation Portable – PPSSPP alpha
https://www.resetera.com/threads/homebrew-ppsspp-reaches-wii-u.45383
plus see Nintendo Wii listing
plus various other retroarch cores(?)
Debian
one of the more mature distros on offer for powerpc
Has a flashable image available, but installing a DE will be up to the user. Well supported, no net?
DOSBox core in RetroArch
Windows 95 is confirmed, and presumably, ME, 98, 3.1, etc. could work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WiiUHacks/comments/i7v29o/windows_95_running_on_wii_u/
Emulation Nest
This device runs an operating system which is known to emulate various devices with EOPs. See the AmigaOS, Classic Mac OS, DOS, and MSX pages.
Linux (base kernel)
This branch is a port of version 4.19
The foundational kernel port for the Wii U.
Lubuntu
download and write the downloaded image
Only a flashable image is available for this one.
PC emulation (potential)
Whether these emulators support operating systems for these computers is unknown; it must be looked into further. Computers without meaningful OSes are not included.
https://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/Emulators_on_Wii_U
CHIP-8 – CHIP8 Emulator
Commodore 64 – YAPE 4 U 0.70.2
PICO-8 – fake-8 git
and see Nintendo Wii listing
Various retroarch cores
Void Linux
No flashable image available yet, only rootfs. Internet support?
https://wiki.linux-wiiu.org/wiki/Distributions/Void
https://docs.voidlinux-ppc.org/installation/manual.html
https://docs.voidlinux-ppc.org/configuration/post-installation.html
https://github.com/Francesco149/gopher/blob/master/blog/000004-wiiu-void-linux.md (best vers.)
Internet
Stock Browser
WebKit based and quite advanced for a Nintendo console.
Version & Revision Guide
For general information, see the Game Console Revisions Overview.
Versions
There are two versions of this console, arranged chronologically.
“Wii U Basic/8GB” (2012-2017)
LOWEST PRICE
One of the two versions available at launch. At the time, this came with less additional peripherals, whist being colored in white and having only 8GB internal storage. A few minor reports also seem to imply that these may have NAND corruption issues, but it seems unsubstantiated. Otherwise, all is identical to the Deluxe.
“Wii U Deluxe/32GB” (2012-2017)
RECOMMENDED OVERALL
The other version available at launch, coming in black with more peripherals and 32 GB internal storage. They also sold more, making it easier to find one. Thus, it is a bit of a simple decision to go for this one, as the price differential to the Basic is quite minor…
There are no revisions within any version. BEST RELIABILITY couldn’t be assigned.
update with info about nand chips and hynix lower reliability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U
https://www.reddit.com/r/wiiu/comments/7oo3wb/any_particular_wii_u_model_to_get/ (mem?)