emulationstation systemd service

j_r0dd

I have been trying to get a systemd service unit going for emulationstation to really have more of an appliance behavior. Using this with lubuntu 16.04. Currently I have a systemd timer set up to check every 15 seconds if ES is running and if not it will restart it. That way it respawns if a user accidentally quits or if the application crashes. I have created a systemd service file which boots into X and loads ES without a window manager, which is exactly what I want. The problem is once it loads ES does not recognize any input from a keyboard or ps3 controller. I was hoping someone more knowledgeable about ES or systemd could hopefully help. The logs have not given much to go on at all. Any advice is welcome!

Not working

[Unit]                                                                                                                                                                                          
Description = Starts an instance of EmulationStation
After = remote-fs.target

[Service]
User = retropie
Group = retropie
Type = simple
PAMName = login
ExecStart = /usr/bin/xinit /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/gnome-terminal --full-screen -e emulationstation -- :0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -nocursor
Restart = always
RestartSec= 2

[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

Working
I've slimmed this down as much as I can without a single systemd service. My current implementation achieves most of my goal, but it floods journalctl with no way to turn off unless I change systemd's LogLevel across the board. This also requires a wm to start X and is a little more hackish and is as follows:

/etc/systemd/system/rp_check.timer

[Unit]                                                                                                                                                                                          
Description = Check emulationstation

[Timer]
OnCalendar = *:*:0/15
Persistent = true

[Install]
WantedBy = timers.target

/etc/systemd/system/rp_check.service

[Unit]                                                                                                                                                                                          
Description = Check Emulationstation

[Service]
Type = oneshot
User = retropie
Group = retropie
StandardOut = null
Environment = "DISPLAY=:0"
ExecStart = /bin/bash -c 'if [[ $(pidof emulationstation) -ne 0 ]]; then \
                          echo "emulationstation is running"; exit 0; else \
                          echo "starting emulationstation"; gnome-terminal \
                          --full-screen -e emulationstation; exit 0; fi'

Hevvie

I had the same issue, what you need to do is put "<bool name="BackgroundJoystickInput" value="true" />" into your es_settings.cfg file as it thinks ES is running in the background.

j_r0dd

@Hevvie said in emulationstation systemd service:

I had the same issue, what you need to do is put "<bool name="BackgroundJoystickInput" value="true" />" into your es_settings.cfg file as it thinks ES is running in the background.

I will try this out when I get a chance. Great find!!!