Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1

etheling

@nobodyfamous Safe to ignore; I think that message is caused by these changes to your .bash_profile: https://github.com/MizterB/RetroPie-Setup-Ubuntu/blob/master/retropie_setup_ubuntu.sh#L258-L275

Nobodyfamous

I have a question, and I think it relates to this particular setup.

I want to install a web browser, so I added zerojay/RetroPie-Extras, have re-booted many times but the "extras" never show up in the RetroPie setup -> Manage packages -> Manage experimental packages (or any of them)

Do I need to do something extra? Am I looking in the wrong place?

mitu

@nobodyfamous The 'extras' don't appear as a separate section in RetroPie-Setup, it just adds new packages in the existing section of the packages ('experimental' should have the most additions).

Nobodyfamous

@mitu Thats where I am looking, they don't show up.

Nobodyfamous

@etheling So I made a discovery about the black screen. I can not say for sure for Ubuntu 20.04, but for sure on my current Ubuntu 18.04 installation, if I have any USB dongles attached, I get the black screen. If I move the mouse around it showes up, but any mouse clicks does nothing. I think it is an empty openbox desktop.

This happens with a logitec k400 keyboard dongle plugged in and my EasySMX ESM-9101 controllers.

If a leave then unplugged, boot fully to the "no gamepad detected" screen, then plug them in it works.

elliot123

@nobodyfamous said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

On a hunch I installed Ubuntu 18.04 server and got the same results (well, the black screen). I would see a mouse if I moved it around. I could not get to the cli with alt + f2

I follow the instructions on MrBs repo exactly. User/Password is pi/raspberry. I am a long time linux user, so also have a really good grasp on what I am doing.

I run (after downloading with wget) sudo bash ./bootstrap.sh and then sudo ./RetroPie-Setup-Ubuntu/retropie_setup_ubuntu.sh

I'll boot the laptop up again to get the log file.

Apologies for the long delay.

After trying the below:

Updating grub bootloader > Didn't change anything :(
Upgrading Ubuntu kernel (tried upgrading and downgrading) > Didn't work (Sorry @etheling )

I eventually went with installing the 18.04 version of Ubuntu server and it worked!!!!

Thank you guys so much for your help. Still curious why the 20.04 results in a black screen, but as this Retropie build is for a friend, 18.04 should be just fine.

I can also confirm with @Nobodyfamous that the 18.04 build only booted properly on the second boot onwards.

etheling

if I have any USB dongles attached, I get the black screen

Thanks a lot for figuring this out! Hopefully this will help others who maybe stuck with same problem.

I'm curious what might be causing this though. I plugged into x200 laptop that I setup with 20.04.1 USB hardware I had lying around, but couldn't reproduce this. :(

@elliot123 @Nobodyfamous Do you mind sharing what laptop/hw you're using (or at least if it has non-Intel graphics chipset)?

I am personally on Ubuntu 20.10 with KMS/DRM setup (e.g. no X) and that has been working well for me on NUC8i5BEK (and x200 and pixelbook laptops; but then again, so did 20.04.1 mostly).

If you're on intel GPU/graphics chipset, maybe you can try Ubuntu 20.10 and my KMS/DRM setup during xmas - I'd be curious to hear if it works any better for you (discussion, Ubuntu 20.10 server iso, forked 20.10/kms compatible install script, optional_scripts/post_install/00_kmsdrm.sh to setup for kms/drm)? Word of warning though - KMS/DRM script [probably] only works for Intel graphics chipsets ; if you have nVidia or AMD, probably not worth the time to test how it breaks the KMS/DRM modifications. :)

Nobodyfamous

@etheling The laptop I am using is an HP Compaq 8510p

I just did a fresh install of Ubuntu server 20.04.1 and rather than using MrB script, I just did the first 7 steps of this thread and installed RetroPie and it is working pretty good. At least it boots with USB dngles plugged in. I am just running my test games (Hot Wheels Turbo racing, and Gran Turismo, Tony Hawk pro skater)

UPDATE: game play is alright. I need to add some emulators. Out of the box, recalbox works so well with both N64 and PSX.

I still can not get Retropie-Extras to show up in the package lists. I just sshed in and installed google-chrome, and then added chrome launcher to kodi. It works okay. I had to remove -nocursor from the .bash_profile so I could see the mouse in chrome.

Nobodyfamous

One last thing I am trying to do is have Kodi auto start on boot. The autostart option in RetrePie-Setup only lists enable/disable for ES autostart.

I edited .config/openbox/autostart and put gnome-terminal --full-screen --hide-menubar -- kodi-standalone #auto\nemulationstation #auto which I gleaned from https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/supplementary/autostart.sh

Kodi will start, but when I exit, ES is not running or started.

Any ideas?

UPDATE: with help I figured it out

/home/pi/.config/openbox/autostart

gnome-terminal --full-screen --hide-menubar -- bash /home/pi/autostart.sh

and
/home/pi/autostart.sh (chmod +x)

#!/usr/bin/env bash
kodi-standalone
sleep 2
emulationstation

tiago90

@johnodon Hey there, before anything, thanks for sharing this awesome stuff :D. I am going to try it on my server (20.04), i would like to avoid running retropie on startup, considering i have plenty other stuff on the server. Is there an easy way to avoid it by editing the provided bootstrap.sh ? thanks in advance !

Cyborgbob

Can't wait to try this out.....

johnodon

@etheling said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

And lastly, while not completely unexpected, still somewhat disappointing: it looks like nVidia or Radeon based systems don't trivially support this approach. They might still, but... I got KMS/DRM working under Nouveau nVidia driver (used 'nouveau.modeset=1 i915.modeset=0' boot options), but performance was subjectively substandard to running emulators under X with nVidia binary drivers, so unless one is open source purist, I don't know why would you want to do that.

@etheling Wasn't sure if you saw this or not:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA#DRM_kernel_mode_setting

I have KMS/DRM working nicely on my Asus CN65 (Intel HD 5500) but would LOVE to get my GTX1650 purring. Does any of the above help to get us closer to Nvidia support?

TIA!

John

etheling

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA#DRM_kernel_mode_setting

I think version 364.16 that they mention in Arch wiki is from around 2016. I tried to get KMS/DRM working on 1080Ti equipped workstation with Nouveau and NVidia proprietary drivers around new years but gave up. With Nouveau the KMS/DRM perf was sub par (e.g. about the same as what I get from Intel Iris 655 that I have in NUC). Proprietary driver wouldn't co-operate at all. I was more curious than determined, so maybe there is some way to get it running. These changes coming to 5.11/5.12 kernels might change something for the better on the Noveau side. I may try again after Ubuntu 21.04 is released later this month as I think it'll ship with 5.11.

I got my hands on a new 'toy' couple of weeks back with AMD Ryzen 5 / Vega 11 inside, complete with FreeSync enabled 144Hz gaming display. And I absolutely wanted to try to see how RetroPie/RetroArch runs with FreeSync enabled and generally see how it compares to my NUC.

TL;Dr: KMS/DRM doesn't appear to support Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) at all yet (although some work seems to be in progress to make it supported), and in general KMS/DRM perf wasn't as good as expected on Razen/Vega 11 (tried with both open source and AMD proprietary driver). Perf was as expected and VRR/FreeSync worked great under both X and Wayland/Sway. Working combination I have now is Ubuntu 20.04, with latest AMDGPU 20.50 driver and Wayland using Sway compositor.

And let me go on record saying that I absolutely love the RetroPie experience with FreeSync enabled. Now modesetting can be completely skipped in runcommand as RetroArch (with vrr_runloop_enable = "true") cores are able to sync monitor to actual refresh rate the content runs on (like NTSC or PAL refresh rates or to more exotic ones like NeoGeo at 59.1856060Hz, StarWars at 40Hz or Mortal Kombat at 54Hz etc.). It is probably placebo effect, but some titles just feel more smooth and responsive with FreeSync running.

I'll see if I can package what I did to an install 'recipe' for MisterBs core install script so that if someone else wants to try Linux / FreeSync / VRR /w RetroPie on AMDGPU, they can skip right to the good part. :)

johnodon

@etheling Honestly, I stopped using mini/server as the base OS and now just use 20.04 Desktop and make Openbox the default DE. There is very little tweaking that needs to be done after the fact (i.e. set gnome terminal background to black, hide the scrollbar, etc.) and I can always get back to a true desktop if needed. My HP Prodesk 600 G2 does an excellent job of hiding boot test so no tweaking needed there. On a 240GB SSD that is dedicated to the OS and a 1TB SSD for ROMS/media, I'm not exactly hurting for space and boot times really aren't that much slower. So far it has been an absolute joy.

That being said...from what I have seen on my Chromebox, KMS/DRM is the way to go as far as giving a true appliance look/feel.

John

etheling

As mentioned few days a go I've been playing around with RetroPie and FreeSync, and I really like how it works / feels.

Below is a link to install script to configure Ubuntu 20.04LTS and RetroPie to work with AMD FreeSync when amdgpu and compatible display are present. Script probably looks more complicated than it really was to get everything going, but at the same time, it took me a while to get all the right configs/pieces together - and now they are codified here to hopefully save anyone else who wants to try this from the trouble.

URL: https://gist.github.com/etheling/a0978b54c8989002fbd913d179cc1543

It overwrites and modifies current Wayland and X. org configurations and generally expects to be ran as part of post install portion of RetroPie Ubuntu setup script by MisterB.

If ran independently, results may vary, because current configuration may differ from expected starting point.

To produce a working FreeSync VRR configuration on Linux, script needs following (these are likely to change over time as driver situation improves/changes):

Modern AMD GPU and Display that support FreeSync
DisplayPort cable (VRR only supported over DP on Linux currently, but some work appears to be underway to also support VRR over HDMI)
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (newest Ubuntu that is supported by AMD GPU drivers from amd.com)
AMD GPU proprietary driver 20.50 (open source stock linux driver introduced stutter etc. where smooth motion was expected; I am using e.g. Atari 2600 Seaquest to test this. 20.50 is first version to support Ubuntu 20.04.2)
Sway 1.5.x Wayland compositor (VRR is supported starting v1.5 of Sway, but Ubuntu 20.04 ships with 1.4)
RetroPie emulationstation-dev (because current default version does not work with AMD proprietary driver)
RetroArch 1.7.4 or newer for FreeSync/G-Sync support (vrr_runloop_enable)

In addition to above, Mesa will be upgraded to latest stable Mesa from ppa:kisak/kisak-mesa

This script has only been tested on 1920x1080@144Hz Viewsonic XG2405 display. It assumes that everything will be ran at 1080p resolution. It will also roll back certain changes made by core install script (remove plymouth theme/splash and switch to i3 as a default X window manager) in order to harmonize setup between Wayland and X. Please note that Wayland/Sway is started with XWayland disabled.

Once the script successfully completes, it has created working configurations for Wayland/Sway and X. org/i3, and has modified/replaced [roughly] following configuration files:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf - enable TearFree, DRI3, VRR and set Modeline for VRR mode
/home/<user>/.bash_profile - set environment, start Sway or i3
/home/<user>/.config/i3/config
/home/<user>/.config/sway/config
/home/<user>/.xsession - set freesync propert
/opt/retropie/suplementary/runcommand/runcommand.sh - allow showing launching images under Wayland
/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg - enable G/FreeSync, set display driver to Vulkan
/etc/default/grub - set kernel / GRUB modes

Wayland configuration is used as a default as xorg. conf needs a modeline created, which is not very well tested nor does it feel robust.

After reboot, the system will at startup launch Sway/Wayland and load emulation station (F4, Win+Enter to get shell). To change to running under X. org/i3 (or KMS/DRM?), see /home/<user>/.bashprofile.

alt text

NeoGeo at 59.19fps, Mortal kombat at ~56Hz and Star Wars at 80Hz (core runs at 40Hz, but because display can only go down to 48Hz, it is running at double the Hz).

etheling

@johnodon I couldn't agree more on KMS/DRM. I feel that it's the best way to experience RetroPie. Unfortunately it seems to currently work best on Intel GPUs. E.g. it works on AMD Vega 11 I tried it on, but shader performance is subpar compared to running under X or Wayland. And with NVidia we're not even that close. But hopefully this improves as time goes on.

I stopped using mini/server as the base OS and now just use 20.04 Desktop and make Openbox the default DE

That makes total sense. I have a PXE boot setup at home through which I can (most of the time ;-) automatically image my dedicated RetroPie NUC, etc. so it fits my setup very well. Main benefit I see is that it provides a sort of stable starting point for these other scripts that tune the Ubuntu based RetroPie setup.

johnodon

@etheling said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

That makes total sense. I have a PXE boot setup at home through which I can (most of the time ;-) automatically image my dedicated RetroPie NUC, etc. so it fits my setup very well. Main benefit I see is that it provides a sort of stable starting point for these other scripts that tune the Ubuntu based RetroPie setup.

I do exactly the same, using a combo of pfsense/unRAID for all of the heavy lifting.

gusrod1580

will lr-mame install under this package? having trouble getting it installed on ubuntu runinng retropie

johnodon

@etheling I invested in an HP Elitedesk 800 G2 mini for my arcade cab (will be used for MAME/FBNEO/Atomiswave/Naomi/Daphne only). It has an Intel iGPU so I am giving your KMS/DRM script a go on Server 20.10. I'll report back.

ps. Was there a reason why you landed on 20.10? Have you moved onto 21.04 yet?

John

johnodon

@gusrod1580 said in Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1:

will lr-mame install under this package? having trouble getting it installed on ubuntu runinng retropie

It should install fine but when I had issues in the past it was because I didn't define a swap file.