Launching Emulationstation with a gamepad (Logitech F310) button and through SSH... to screen!

k3001993 · 16 Dec 2021, 00:14

This is gonna be an epic journey, guys. ANY help is welcome. If you can't help, then I hope you learn something. If that's the case, nice!

TL;DR I want to be able to launch RetroPie when pressing a gamepad button and bring that process to on-screen automatically through SSH.

So my Raspberry has a 7 inch touchscreen directly attached through the DSI connection.
Things I have achieved building my ultimate gaming station:

Launch a web browser on startup on full screen.
Get the cursor to disappear after 1 second of idling.
Map correctly a Logitech F310, including the analog sticks (only tested with lr-pcsx-rearmed aka Playstation). This one was hard AF.
Open emulationstation directly on screen when pressing the central button of my gamepad.

Things I have not achieved yet:

Establish the hotkey+X combination to open RetroArch config.
Unpause a game that has been paused (I know the default keyboard button is P, but still doesn't work).
Open emulationstation directly on screen when pressing the central button of my gamepad through SSH.

Ok, so, to make this possible we need a script to listen to gamepad events such as, pressing the button.

This script will be mentioned as ./script.sh from now on. Don't forget to chmod +x ./script.sh if you want to follow along.

 #!/bin/bash
while true; do
        jstest --event /dev/input/js0 | grep -m 1 "type 1, time .*, number 8, value 1"
        killall emulationstation
        emulationstation
done

What this script does is really simple. It uses jstest to listen for gamepad events, then we grep the type 1 (aka button has been pressed) and the number 8 (central button of my gamepad). This makes the script only go forward when the button 8 is pressed. Then it kills all emulationstation processes just because we don't want any duplicates, then starts a new one.

The script sends our emulator to our connected screen, but it should not matter how or from where we execute the script, right?

Also, running the listener script in the background at startup is not our problem either. Just use /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart. @lxterminal --command [COMMAND] or @lxterminal -e [PROGRAM] work like a charm.

But ultimately, we want to be able to lauch the ./script.sh through SSH. This is where the pain starts. If we launch the script, it will launch in our SSH shell (a black screen is all you'll get). How can we launch this explicitly on a new terminal in front of whatever we have on-screen if we launch it through SSH?

Thanks.

k3001993 · 16 Dec 2021, 00:33

I have found a possible way, using lxterminal. But this is what I get when using it through SSH:

Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused

(lxterminal:1445): Gtk-WARNING **: 01:29:40.705: cannot open display:

k3001993 · 16 Dec 2021, 00:45

This might be the solution, I'll try tomorrow.

k3001993 · 16 Dec 2021, 21:34

Yes! I made it!
That was what I wanted.

I moved my script to /usr/bin/ for easy path execution and renamed it to just retropie.

So if I do ssh pi@raspberrypi.local 'DISPLAY=:0 retropie', my script opens and waits for me to press the central button of my gamepad, then it starts emulationstation. Success!

I'm already thinking about how to make it even better because I found this particular issue:

This retropie script keeps open in our SSH shell so if you press the button again, it kills all emulationstation processes and starts one again (aka restart). We might want to make a simple script to be executed once, only for SSH execution, that executes the real retropie script locally.

k3001993 · 16 Dec 2021, 23:23

This post is deleted!

k3001993 · 16 Dec 2021, 23:37

I'm ending it here for now. Posting here all commands and configs I made in order to make it work:

Moved Downloads/gamepad.sh to /usr/bin/gamepad for even more easy path execution.
The retropie script is just used to call to the real script, which is now called gamepad.

nano /usr/bin/retropie

 #!/bin/bash
killall gamepad >> /dev/null 2>&1
killall emulationstation >> /dev/null 2>&1
bash -c "gamepad"

nano /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart

@lxterminal --command="retropie"

nano /usr/bin/gamepad

 #!/bin/bash
export TERM="xterm-256color"
while true; do
        jstest --event /dev/input/js0 | grep -m 1 "type 1, time .*, number 8, value 1" >> /dev/null 2>&1
        killall emulationstation >> /dev/null 2>&1
        emulationstation
done

Wrapping up: Running ssh pi@raspberrypi.local 'DISPLAY=:0 retropie' actually runs gamepad but locally. I didn't manage to hide the terminal. Maybe tomorrow?

k3001993 · 18 Dec 2021, 02:01

If you don't want to use the line ssh pi@raspberrypi.local 'DISPLAY=:0 retropie' and still want to run my retropie script through SSH but NOT inside your established connection, then:

Do nano /usr/bin/retropie or nano /usr/bin/gamepad

And add this line below #!/bin/bash or wherever it works for you.

export DISPLAY=:0

Sometimes emulationstation crashes but I don't want to go that deep.

My job is completely done here. Have fun and stay safe.

	#!/bin/bash
	while true; do
	jstest --event /dev/input/js0 \| grep -m 1 "type 1, time .*, number 8, value 1"
	killall emulationstation
	emulationstation
	done

	#!/bin/bash
	killall gamepad >> /dev/null 2>&1
	killall emulationstation >> /dev/null 2>&1
	bash -c "gamepad"

	#!/bin/bash
	export TERM="xterm-256color"
	while true; do
	jstest --event /dev/input/js0 \| grep -m 1 "type 1, time .*, number 8, value 1" >> /dev/null 2>&1
	killall emulationstation >> /dev/null 2>&1
	emulationstation
	done