well still at work but walked my wife through it at home, lol. She said it got to the gamepad screen running Kubuntu, must have been a driver issue.

You're not running into issues with building the N64 emulator mupen64plus? It's only happening on Debian Stretch (x86-64) but it could be my setup so that's why I'm asking. It's requiring a newer version of cmake than what's available:

/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/tmp/build/mupen64plus/GLideN64/projects/cmake /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/tmp/build/mupen64plus /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:1 (cmake_minimum_required): CMake 3.9 or higher is required. You are running version 3.7.2

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Resolved the issue, and PS2 appears in the EmulationStation frontend.
.bash_history doesn't show any evidence of the desktop environment being removed - by way of shell command.

Awesome! I set up open box to start with 1280x720, verified it via the log, and it worked perfectly with the threading set false. Looks way better than it did set true, has better response/less lag, and of course the screensaver doesn't kill it after 10 minutes.

Thanks so much for your help with my problem.

@marcoabm Raspbian on a pc is untested, but we can't help without more info.

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

You will need to provide a full log.