Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1

johnodon

To-Do

~~Still seeing some 'cloud-init' lines during boot. Need to figure out how to suppress.~~ Added to Optional Steps above.
Test wired/wireless gamepads.

johnodon

resrerved

Demetris

What i was looking for tbh. A big thank you for your trouble and one question. Isnt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twm a more light weight wm than openbox and is the standard window manager for the X Window System so it will be almost using no resources if any at all

johnodon

@demetris said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

What i was looking for tbh. A big thank you for your trouble and one question. Isnt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twm a more light weight wm than openbox and is the standard window manager for the X Window System so it will be almost using no resources if any at all

I'll take a look but I am FAR from a linux expert. I only gathered the information that I found and ran with it.

Demetris

Also since we are dependable on how good the gpu performs under linux i would recommend to update mesa from one of these ppa's for maximum performance, especially on 3d systems like dreamcast/wii/gc/N64 and so on :)

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/ubuntu/updates?field.series_filter=bionic

https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-dias/+archive/ubuntu/pkppa?field.series_filter=bionic

Demetris

And also about those wired/wireless gamepads support i can ask xanmod to provide a gaming kernel especially for use in this distro you started here :) would be awesome i think lets see what he thinks about this.
https://xanmod.org/

johnodon

@demetris said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

Also since we are dependable on how good the gpu performs under linux i would recommend to update mesa from one of these ppa's for maximum performance, especially on 3d systems like dreamcast/wii/gc/N64 and so on :)

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/ubuntu/updates?field.series_filter=bionic

https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-dias/+archive/ubuntu/pkppa?field.series_filter=bionic

Is all that is required is to add the PPA and do a dist-upgrade? Any configuration changes need to take advantage?

Demetris

nope will replace the current mesa driver with the new one

johnodon

@demetris said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

nope will replace the current mesa driver with the new one

OK...just did it. My own use case was only ever intended for arcade games so I probably won't see any improvement.

Demetris

Depends on GPU.When mesa 18.2 stable arrives some users might get opengl v4.3 support from v3.2 etc

Demetris

btw what you did with vsync issues? Last time i tried this i had screen tearing all over and was an unpleasant experience

Demetris

And is done ;) Lets wait and see
https://github.com/xanmod/linux/issues/12
I closed the issue :)
See here
https://github.com/xanmod/linux/blob/a092df697fa6bd600ac9e3d0b548fdf9603dbff7/.config#L6424
All gamepads are enabled and supported already so we can freely use that kernel and everything will work just fine ;)

johnodon

@demetris said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

btw what you did with vsync issues? Last time i tried this i had screen tearing all over and was an unpleasant experience

I haven't experienced this. Do you see it with specific games?

Demetris

@johnodon said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

@demetris said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

btw what you did with vsync issues? Last time i tried this i had screen tearing all over and was an unpleasant experience

I haven't experienced this. Do you see it with specific games?

No, issue was all over the place. In emulationstation when you swap around systems or in games.You could see a screen tearing issue and was very pita.
If you have it or not you will know as is very obvious to catch it with your eyes.
I will test soon this installation and get back to you.

johnodon

Added a video to the OP that shows game launching without terminal windows, mouse pointers, etc.

AndrewH

Out of interest, given that an installation on Ubuntu (on an x86 system) effectively sidesteps the performance limitations of the Raspberry Pi, would it be feasible to install and use one of the newer MAME versions?

I understand that it'd have to be called directly, rather than through retroarch, so there might be a bit more fiddling to get controls working, but it could potentially allow for running of some of the newer arcade games that MAME 2003 and 2010 don't support, right?

johnodon

@andrewh said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

Out of interest, given that an installation on Ubuntu (on an x86 system) effectively sidesteps the performance limitations of the Raspberry Pi, would it be feasible to install and use one of the newer MAME versions?

I understand that it'd have to be called directly, rather than through retroarch, so there might be a bit more fiddling to get controls working, but it could potentially allow for running of some of the newer arcade games that MAME 2003 and 2010 don't support, right?

There is an lr-mameexperimental package that is used for current MAME.

I'm using current MAME (0.200) right now and it works wonderfully. However, the core that is compiled using the experimental package crashes. I still use the package to install the bits and pieces, but I download a nightly core from the Libretro buildbot page and copy it to /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame.

Be aware that the file you download will need to be renamed to arcademame_libretro.so.

John

00ninja

@johnodon said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

There is an lr-mameexperimental package that is used for current MAME.

I'm using current MAME (0.200) right now and it works wonderfully. However, the core that is compiled using the experimental package crashes. I still use the package to install the bits and pieces, but I download a nightly core from the Libretro buildbot page and copy it to /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame.

Be aware that the file you download will need to be renamed to arcademame_libretro.so.

John

Thanks for this tip!

I reecently added lr-mame2003 to my Peppermint OS desktop build and today decided to upgrade to Mame 0.200. I am using the RetroPie Setup Script and after adding lr-mame, it would attempt to load a game but then dump me back to EmulationStation.

I added the latest nightly of lr-mame from the buildbot but I had to rename it 'mamearcade_libretro.so' as that is what the one from the setup script installed. Works like a charm now, thanks again!

johnodon

@00ninja said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

@johnodon said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

There is an lr-mameexperimental package that is used for current MAME.

I'm using current MAME (0.200) right now and it works wonderfully. However, the core that is compiled using the experimental package crashes. I still use the package to install the bits and pieces, but I download a nightly core from the Libretro buildbot page and copy it to /opt/retropie/libretrocores/lr-mame.

Be aware that the file you download will need to be renamed to arcademame_libretro.so.

John

Thanks for this tip!

I reecently added lr-mame2003 to my Peppermint OS desktop build and today decided to upgrade to Mame 0.200. I am using the RetroPie Setup Script and after adding lr-mame, it would attempt to load a game but then dump me back to EmulationStation.

I added the latest nightly of lr-mame from the buildbot but I had to rename it 'mamearcade_libretro.so' as that is what the one from the setup script installed. Works like a charm now, thanks again!

Quite welcome!

John

robotronman

@johnodon Thanks much for this great guide. I just setup my NUC 6i5SYH and everything works!

I do have one issue though. Is there a way to exit EmulationStation using F4, but drop directly to the CLI just like on a RPi? With this build you get dropped into a black screen running openbox. To get to a prompt, i can ssh in and kill the openbox process, but I'm sure there is a cleaner way of doing this :)