Setting up RetroPie without using the gui

[Azsorlex26]

Hello. I'm trying to make a script that sets up my computer from a clean installation. I've already figured out the commands to a basic install as well as installing the pixel desktop. Those are:

• ./retropie_packages.sh setup basic_install (to run the basic install), and
• ./retropie_packages.sh raspbiantools lxde (to install the desktop)

What I'd like to do now is to remove usbromservices and splashscreen, add scraper, and set the system to boot to desktop (I've already tried this with sudo raspi-config nonint do_boot_behaviour B3 but it still booted to emulationstation after rebooting). Please help me out here.

[backstander]

@azsorlex26

I'm not sure exactly what you are looking for but here's some ideas:

You can set the system to boot to desktop by running this command and going to Configuration / tools then to autostart

sudo ~/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh

You can also disable the USB ROM Service there as well.

You can also just edit /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh manually to boot to desktop instead of emulationstation.

Here's the help doc on it:
https://retropie.org.uk/docs/FAQ/#how-do-i-boot-to-the-desktop-or-kodi

[Azsorlex26]

@backstander That bit on editing autostart.sh really does help, however the first part doesn't. You see, when running that GUI installer in my script, at first nothing goes wrong. I can exit out of it as soon as it loads and my script will continue on normally. However the problem exists when performing a task such as a basic install or removing a package. For some reason after doing that, my script doesn't continue on. I've already tried executing the above two commands I stated in my script, and they set up retropie and the desktop without exiting out of my script (and also automatically, so that's a plus), however I also need commands for removing usbromservice (at the bare minimum) as well as the other things I mentioned before (cherries on top).

[BuZz]

@Azsorlex26
sudo ./retropie_packages.sh usbromservice remove

the raspi-config line looks correct, unless they have changed something. We use that ourselves in retropie-setup (which you may have noticed already).

[Azsorlex26]

@buzz Thanks so much for your response to this. For the raspi-config line, it turns out that it was correct, however I placed an 'exit' after the retropie stuff so it didn't set up things unnecessary to the setup of retropie (including that line). Also I didn't notice your use of the raspi-config line. I have hardly any idea of how shell scripting works and couldn't find that line anywhere in your code.

So I don't have to ask questions over and over about different commands, how does retropie_packages.sh work? I noticed in the files in RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary that there are different functions in the files. The functions are named along the lines of remove_usbromservice() or install_scraper(). Are the commands really as simple as sudo ./retropie_packages.sh [last word] [first word] (example: sudo ./retropie_packages.sh scraper install ), or is there something else to it?

[mitu]

@azsorlex26 Each package exposes a standard set of commands to be executed - sources, build, install, remove, configure. Most packages have these options, there might be packages with special functions.
Look at https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/packages.sh#L55 and https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/bfaedb92cb86335b7fec34d23fb39890455ae05f/scriptmodules/packages.sh#L162 to see how the retropie_packages.sh script works.