An Image that is really ready to use out of the box

dankcushions

it does make sense to strive to the goal of a seamless OOTB experience IMO.

i feel like this is (part of) the goal. it's certainly easier than it was. for fundamental emulation you should never need to go to the command line.

however, this is free software, and there's only a handful of users that are actually making the software better. the improvements can only come faster if more people start coding.

Danorak1981

In the nicest possible way, I feel that your ideal RPi kinda' misses the point.

I'd actually never heard of Recalbox as mentioned by @herb_fargus, I stumbled across an article on how to build a Pi that would emulate the 'classics' for a reasonably small cost. Once I delved into the article I was quite pleasantly surprised by Retropie and jumped in. Had I heard about Recalbox, I would have weighed the two up, but looking into it now, it doesn't have the same feel that Retropie does, and I think that's the big difference. I don't think Retropie lends itself to being an OOTB solution: more a pathway to how you want your OOTB solution to be.

Considering Retropie is a free piece of software that has been developed from the ground up by enthusiasts, then what has been achieved is incredible. I have had zero coding experience and never really understood Linux, but I've installed a couple of scripts (albeit with guides), I've 'tinkered' with settings in Retroarch, customised my artwork-all incredibly remedial, but so satisfying once successfully executed. Sometimes I spend more time tinkering than playing, but I think that's what's great. As you experiment more, the greater your confidence becomes. So you have to set things up yourself? That's what it's about (my 8Bitdo pad was a nightmare: the Wiki was great help, but the instructions from 8Bitdo on how to update the firmware on the pad were not very clear. Took me a good evening to sort out, but I did and it worked). And to quote herb "The goal of this project is functionality and customisability and hopefully it also helps fulfil the Raspberry Pi Foundation's goal in getting people to learn how to code. If anything all the user friendliness we have added has detracted from the purpose of what the pi was designed for"; I disagree. I'd never have looked into Linux or SSH if it wasn't for this, and already, I find myself reading more and more articles on the Wiki in a hope to understand and build confidence in trying new things. I've already come on ten-fold prior to having a Pi, so in that sense, what Retropie has done is give me the confidence to explore it further because it is user friendly. I didn't even know what SSH was until I had a Pi!

We are spoilt in this day and age by things that just work, and as tech has evolved the day-to-day user needs less and less understanding to get things to work: I think you have to understand that if you want to run Retropie you have to be prepared to accept that you're going to have to get stuck in to get it going: it is free software afterall ;)

theantnest

@Danorak1981

Totally see your point, and for the most part agree. Especially about the free software part.

But you can't just ignore the many people who are willing to pay for an OOTB experience. And at the moment, the only way to do that is to go through nefarious and frowned upon sellers through eBay, etc.

And unfortunately the mentality that "it should not work out of the box, and should force the user to learn" is frankly missing out on a huge opportunity and a market of customers who will happily part with their hard earned, for an out of the box experience.

I know this whole project started in the way that everyone has pointed out above, but it is exactly now at the point where it actually could be a very marketable product. Surely it can be possible to capitalise on that in a way that benefits the devs and the community, and without destroying the educational, customisable heart of the project?

dankcushions

@theantnest said in An Image that is really ready to use out of the box:

@Danorak1981

Totally see your point, and for the most part agree. Especially about the free software part.

But you can't just ignore the many people who are willing to pay for an OOTB experience. And at the moment, the only way to do that is to go through nefarious and frowned upon sellers through eBay, etc.

but they're not paying for configuration. typically these pre-built systems just contain retropie installed on an SD card plus roms. they won't have your wifi, overscan, etc configured or anything else - how would they?

so beyond that, retropie couldn't create an image that included roms, as that's obviously very illegal.

And unfortunately the mentality that "it should not work out of the box, and should force the user to learn" is frankly missing out on a huge opportunity and a market of customers who will happily part with their hard earned, for an out of the box experience.

pre-installed retropie can't be sold even by retropie: https://retropie.org.uk/about/legal/

theantnest

@dankcushions

You could say the same for somebody buying a laptop. You have to connect it to your wifi, set up your documents, web browser, etc.

All OP was saying was that making this process more simple would be nice, and I tend to agree. Doesn't stop people like us from learning and tinkering, and makes it more accessible to others less capable.

I see because of the OS GPL you can't sell a full image, but there's nothing stopping Retropie from selling a stable release version with a support package of Retropie, no?

BuZz

@theantnest said in An Image that is really ready to use out of the box:

I see because of the OS GPL you can't sell a full image, but there's nothing stopping Retropie from selling a stable release version with a support package of Retropie, no?

It's not the GPL which is the issue. We can never sell RetroPie images and never would.

As far as I'm concerned for most systems RetroPie does work out of the box. There is a GUI for wi-fi configuration. Most controllers work out if the box. Even 8bitdo and other Bluetooth devices can be set up from the gui. A keyboard is recommended though.

I have added a lot of things to make RetroPie more user friendly, but I don't want to do more at the expense of dumbing it down. Our strength is the level of configurability etc.

obsidianspider

The "I bought a Raspberry Pi but I don't want to learn how to use it" thing is really frustrating. The entire reason Raspberry Pi exists is to be an educational tool, not a cheap alternative to the NES Classic.

Then again, maybe I'm old school, I'm more DIY than DIFM.

dankcushions

@theantnest said in An Image that is really ready to use out of the box:

@dankcushions

You could say the same for somebody buying a laptop. You have to connect it to your wifi, set up your documents, web browser, etc.

All OP was saying was that making this process more simple would be nice, and I tend to agree. Doesn't stop people like us from learning and tinkering, and makes it more accessible to others less capable.

right, and retropie now is easier to use than it was 1 year ago (etc). it is getting simpler. asking for it to be essentially 'finished' is sort of like asking us to figure out time-travel :)

that said, i feel like it is just about 'out of the box' ready for most purposes.

obsidianspider

@dankcushions No way, keep that time travel to yourself. I don't need anyone to be their own grandpa.

herb_fargus

I think the point people are missing is we don't do this for money (and we couldn't legally even if we wanted to as @dankcushions said) If we did we would have already made a million dollars on some shady kickstarter (like many others already have)

We also don't do it for more users. At least I don't. It's just a hobby that I enjoy, and if others happen to want to learn great, if not- there are plenty of other projects out there.

mediamogul

@BuZz said in An Image that is really ready to use out of the box:

I don't want to do more at the expense of dumbing it down.

I can't thank you guys enough for this. I've been an Apple user first and foremost for 22 years and I've recently had to make the painful decision to move away from their entire ecosystem due to the company's increasingly overzealous objective to turn computers into inflexible appliances. I agree that RetroPie is by no means difficult to use out of the box and it's great to see a project that isn't afraid to be a hands-on experience rather than a hand-holding one.

Fruitybit

@obsidianspider I keep telling my kids- time travel IS possible, you're doing it now, just forwards and at a very slow rate. I use that same philosophy with Retropie, learning a little every day, but always going forwards. Doesn't stop me making stupid mistakes though, just another chance to learn something, both on Linux or in life.

cloudlink

I understand there are people who really need things dumbed down for them, but I hope RetroPie doesn't start heading in that direction. It's not a product marketed at all, let alone to that kind of demographic.
For people without the capacity or time for something like RetroPie, there exists products like the NES Mini or an iPhone etc..
It's great that RetroPie is free and open. It may take a little work and a little reading to get started, but the payoff is great!
None of us are customers, which creates an environment where we all greatly appreciate the time and work devoted by the developers, rather than expect it.
It's a starting place for something we can make our own and learn from the process. It's something we can collaborate on, compare ideas and share our different end results.
If RetroPie held everybody's hand through the same setup process from beginning to end, everyone would have the same end result, nobody would learn anything, and we wouldn't have the feeling of accomplishment we get when we put in the work using it as a tool to create something for ourselves.
That's how I feel about it at least.

BuZz

@cloudlink said in An Image that is really ready to use out of the box:

None of us are customers, which creates an environment where we all greatly appreciate the time and work devoted by the developers, rather than expect it.

Thanks - I think some people don't realise this :-)

Belowstupid

Would it be nice if Retropie did more user friendly things? Sure, why not. Will issues be solved if they're never brought up? No, they won't. Looking at it like that I have no problems.

But look this is free software made by people in their spare time and they just give it away. You're going to have to give your pound of flesh in any transaction. You buy a nes classic you give up money, you get Retropie you need to give up time. If I had paid for this software I'd be annoyed to have to fiddle with it as much as I have, but it's free, and it's kind of fun to learn Linux, so I'm good.

rbaker

@JJohnson said in An Image that is really ready to use out of the box:

The online help I found here and elsewhere didn't really give me all that great a step-by-step guide to setting the thing up.

I disagree. In May 2016, I arrived, read the guide and was up and running in under an hour. No need to access a command line unless you wanted to. You Tube provides visual set ups too.

LS650

I really enjoy my Retropie setup, but I knew from the get-go that this is very much for people who like to "get under the hood" and tinker. If you want a hands-free, fool-proof gaming system, there are plenty of commercial options available. With Retropie, you're getting for free some software that has been created by hobbyists with a love for these old games, and not a lot of money or appreciation.

Have you donated to Retropie? I have - if everyone who uses it donated just a couple of bucks, these guys could afford to dedicate a lot more of their time towards improvements.

tekn0

I am more of an intermediate user, but I had no major issues getting the retropie stock image working just fine the first time I tried it.

Flash it to your card
Put the card in
First boot happens into emulation station
Connect it your network using a cable or wifi from the setup menu
Shows up just fine as a discoverable network share
Copy roms over to the system you want and reboot
Menus are auto populated and play
done

If you want more customization then you need to dig a little deeper.

Personally I would donate monthly to the retropie project in a heartbeat if they had a patreon, just like many of us already do to libretro. You guys absolutely deserve it and this project is well worth it.

markyh444

@cloudlink My feelings exactly!

When I found RetroPie I loved that it was something that you needed to tinker with to perfect. I'm still not convinced I've managed to perfect everything on mine yet because I've barely touched MAME Emulation on my NES build yet!

It took me back to when I was in college messing with Photoshop to make wallpapers for my PC desktop because the ones I found online were not what I wanted. I found these the other day on my current PC (I loathe to delete my old data and it follows me around) and I've made about 200 of them! Like I ever changed my wallpaper that much!

As you say though, if people want something slicker and easier to use then there's other Emulation options such as the Nes mini or iPhone/Android emulators. I've got a really powerful emulator personally; it's called my PC.

I love RetroPie because it makes this little £35 circuit board thing with flashy lights and bare input pins sticking out into something wonderful. Plus, you can shoehorn it into things and make amazing things happen like building your own Arcade Machine! Things that dreams are made of people. Dreams...