@sselph Sorry, the problem was my own ineptitude. I was typing "/opt/retropie/supplementary/scraper" when running it, I missed a directory in there. Problem resolved. Thanks for the response!

just reinstalled retropie... SOLVED!

Okay folks, I've written up a script to handle this exactly the way I described before.

It runs from the autostart.sh and watches /dev/shm/screen_manager.cfg for updates.
That way any other system process can create/modify that file and this script will respond by either starting the rom, or starting the dashboard.

Cheers!

https://github.com/coderkevin/mini-nes/tree/master/screen

@ahller4132
Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

@stevefo There was a thread abput the arcade folder allready:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/253/arcade-folder-how-can-i-find-out-what-roms-use-what-emulators/5

But I will summ that up quickly:
You don't have to use the folder, if you are using mame/fba folders. But if you want to have all roms for mame/fba in one folder, you can use that. But keep in mind that you have to understand the "folder" and how the emulators work first.

Taken from the thread:

When you dump your romset into the arcade directory, you should know which emulator they were built for. You can set em accordingly from the runcommand. If you arbitrarily dump all sorts of roms into it, then good luck sorting em out. I personally prefer to have my MAME sets organized under specific emulators with the best of their respective builds.

And you can also read this wiki page:
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/MAME

Taken from the wiki page:

So you can have one zipped ROMset for each of these (mame4all, FBA, NeoGeo, advmame) To avoid having several EmulationStation menus for different arcade emulators, all arcade-based ROMs can be placed in the arcade ROM folder, but you will have to specify which emulator each will use from the Runcommand Menu

So basicly it "cleans" the mess of having different folder for different arcade emulators.
But you have to set it up correctly.

@herb_fargus as a noob I'm guessing it worked for me because I was missing some file that came onboard with lightdm. I agree, is love to know why it worked. For now, just keeping my eyes crossed. 😁

@tygr20 We're here to help!

@theoneandonly Here is what I did:

Download RetroPie image (from zip)

Extract file

Format SD card

Use Win32IDskImager to write image to SD card

Boot into RetroPie

Configure PS3 controller

Copy roms using WinSCP

Reboot Emulationstation

Play

@daeks strange as it shouldn't kill runcommand but the child. You could try meleu's suggestion, or just don't allow restarting if a game is running.

@buzz I'm a completely new to the Retropie scene, so please forgive my stupidity.

If I run a game from a command line I'm assuming that I have to quit Emulation Station.

If I do that will the config file still be used for the system that I am running from the command line to back out of a game (hotkey+start)?

I'm asking because I do not want to unplug my Pi when I'm done with a game...

Thank you in advance!!

@maddyfresh1 what you've asked is basic and covered in the wiki. If you read that first post that was linked, it says to read the wiki first. You agreed to these rules when signing up to the forum.

@waltisfrozen This was already changed - if you update to the latest retropie-setup it no longer uses md5 hashes by default, but just includes system and rom name minus extension /path (excluding all characters except a-z A-Z 0-9 _ - in the format system_romname

for per emulator settings, the format is emulator_romname

using pi1 images worked great, thanks again guys!

@JHNTR Then the issue is most likely your power source. If you still have trouble with a proper PSU, the next thing would be to check the image was written currently, and that the sdcard isn't faulty.

There's no need to expand file system via raspi-config.

@aberusugi said in Booting to command line after installing basic package:

I go into retropie config and install basic package

What "basic package" is it?!

@Laddy981 Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

@Septcanmat glad you got it sorted. there are two versions of Raspbian, one with the desktop environment, the other without(Raspbian lite) obviously the RetroPie sd image is built on Raspbian lite.

Wiki can be edited by anyone so feel free to make a note of it

@markyh444 for reference if anybody reads this, it writes over everything including the roms you have saved.

Glad I backed all that up including images and game lists files

Wow very useful tip. I am very new to all this.
Thank you very much!