Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1

movisman

Glad you fixed the issue. I must say I didn't get this problem when installing on Ubuntu Server 18.04.1 using my Samsung TV over HDMI, but I did get screen blanking after 10 minutes and I had to wake it up with a keyboard/mouse - it wouldn't wake with the controller.

I fixed this with the commands in post 38:
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/18810/retropie-installation-on-ubuntu-server-x64-18-04-1/38

I also had an error saying 'xdg-screensaver not found' when exiting Retroarch from the Setup screen, but installing 'xdg-utils' (which in turn installs xdg-screensaver) clears that error. So it's worth doing that anyway if running RetroPie on Ubuntu Server which has minimal packages.

I have this on my own documentation (which I will publish at some point).

Cheers!

movisman

I also noticed that with the install method I chose I do not have a ~/.config/retroarch/retroarch.cfg file. Could this file be somewhere else?

I think the default is here off the top of my head:
/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg

Panja

I'm trying to get the Plymouth working on my Intel NUC8 but at boot I only see a black screen. Sometimes I get the RetroPie logo for a brief 1 or 2 seconds.
Any one have a clue whats going on?

Panja

@movisman or maybe someone else... 😉
Everything seems to be running excellent with Ubuntu Server except Dolphin GUI menu and for instance the FPS counter are really big. This seems to be a resolution issue.

As we don’t use a normal desktop is there a way to specify the resolution used on my machine.
Dolphin seems to use the desktop res.

MisterB

Just wanted to pass along my thanks for the great information that is in this thread. I have wanted to build a system that looked just like the RPi but on x86 for a while, and never got it right. These steps nailed it for me.

For anyone interested in an automated setup of the required configs, I have created a bash script that takes care of everything, and shared it on GitHub: https://github.com/MizterB/RetroPie-Setup-UbuntuServer

It does not (yet?) handle the TV resolution changes, or the VNC login, but everything else mentioned here is collected in one place. Hopefully it is useful for others. I don't know how actively I will maintain this or improve upon it - probably depends on the interest and feedback.

On that note, please give it a shot - I welcome your feedback!

wmarcio

@MisterB thxs, great idea. Its r un on x64?
I sugest to add a install script for music on emulationstation, and install and update video drivers, including vulkan.

Retropie BGM script:

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/347/background-music-continued-from-help-support

Panja

Which emulators benefit from the Vulkan drivers?
I'm running without them and everything seems to run smooth.
But of course improvement is always good. :)

MisterB

@wmarcio - Good point, this script is technically for X64 - I have not tried it on a 32-bit install.

The code to upgrade the video drivers and install Vulkan is actually in there. I haven't 'enabled' it yet, as I haven't had a chance to test that everything still works after the upgrades. This is where adding some configurability options would be nice... But for now you can append the following to the end of the script before running it if you want:

install_latest_video_drivers
install_vulkan

I don't know anything about the music capabilities. I will look into it.

wmarcio

@MisterB thxs, i will test your script tomorrow.

johnodon

@MisterB Excellent work! I just ran the script against an Ubuntu 18.04 install (using the x64 mini iso) and everything seems to be working as expected. The only thing I had to do was install curl prior.

I'll continue to test and report back.

John

johnodon

Has anyone had any luck running Naomi/Atomiswave ROMs (MAME .zips) on this config using lr-beetle-dc (formally lr-reicast)...specifically on an Intel GPU?

Panja

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

Which emulators benefit from the Vulkan drivers?
I'm running without them and everything seems to run smooth.
But of course improvement is always good. :)

Any one?

retroczr

@MisterB Just tried this in x86 18.04 and it works great. Did some preliminary testing with vulkan drivers too and no issues to report yet. Really great work on putting this together. I second adding the optional steps into the script. Thank you again - great work.

retroczr

@retroczr should add that I used the server install, not the mini.iso.

wilmardo

@MisterB Massive thanks for the script! I used your script yesterday and it completed successfully, but when I boot I just see a mouse and what seems a openbox interface, not emulstation. When I click with the right mouse button I get the options to start a terminal, applications, restart, reconfigure etc. but when I start the terminal I see nothing. The mouse unclutters nicely so the autostart has run at some point.
If I login with ssh and run ps aux I see that the emulstation process is running. I suspect there might be some overscan or wrong resolution at play and therefore the terminal isn't visible but this shouldn't matter for emulstation starting fullscreen right?
I tried some xrandr command in the openbox autostart config to adjust the resolution but to no avail. I will test further tomorrow but any pointers will be highly appreciated :)

noise

Hi Guys

I sucessfully installed retropie on ubuntu 18.04 with a lattepanda alpha 864

the most working fine
ir-parallel N64
ir-genesis-plus-gx
ir-mame2003,2015
ir-gambatte
ir-mgba
ir-gw
ir-fbalpha2012
ir-vice
ir-4do
ir-snes9x2010
ir-picodrive
ir-beetle-supergrafx
ir-beetle-ngp
ir-nestopioa
ir-pcsx-rearmed
ir-ppsspp (xmb menü freezing using rgui)
ir-beetle saturn (audio crackles no roms to testing more)

reicast > flycast (cannot be installed, i do another post)
ir-dosbox (not all run and the running like maniac mansion have no audio.

fs-uae my amiberry scripts are not working here check it later...

Dolphin problem is solved now...
i had audio crackles and lags and full freezes..
these are going since changing to vulkan.

Dolphin Audio:
after trying hours of some configuration it running much smoother with gpu clock rate: 80% the audio crackles are gone 90% decrease.

I installed vulkan in that way:
repos:
[https://launchpad.net/~paulo-miguel-dias/+archive/ubuntu/mesa](link url)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:paulo-miguel-dias/mesa

sudo apt upgrade libglapi-mesa libgl1-mesa-dri vulkan-utils
sudo apt install libvulkan1 mesa-vulkan-drivers vulkan-utils

now i can switch in retroarch to vulkan and vulkan is working,

My main problem is now pcsx2 i can't install from
Official PCSX2 PPA
[https://launchpad.net/~gregory-hainaut/+archive/ubuntu/pcsx2.official.ppa](link url)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gregory-hainaut/pcsx2.official.ppa

installing fom retropie script is unable and
sudo apt install pcsx2
gives the ouput:
package pcsx2 cannot be found.

i saw that is only 32bit... so anyone has successfully installed on ubuntu18.04 with a intel processor ?
if yes a guide would be helpful :-)

thanks

MisterB

@wilmardo If you have the ability to do so, try starting from scratch with my latest script, where I made some changes to auto login logic (but don't run on top of an existing install - that will blow everything up).

But you can also try to manually edit files as follows:

/home/pi/.config/openbox/autostart should look like this:

unclutter -idle 0.01 -root
/opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh

If you don't have /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh already created, create it with:

mkdir -p /opt/retropie/configs/all
touch /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh
chmod +x /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh
chown $USER:$USER /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh
cat << EOF > /opt/retropie/configs/all/autostart.sh
#! /bin/bash

###############################################################################
# Start EmulationStation
###############################################################################
gnome-terminal --full-screen --hide-menubar -- emulationstation --no-splash
EOF

If the autostart.sh file already exists, just populate it with:

#! /bin/bash

###############################################################################
# Start EmulationStation
###############################################################################
gnome-terminal --full-screen --hide-menubar -- emulationstation --no-splash

MisterB

I have posted a new release on GitHub. Please note that the install script needs to be run on a newly installed basic OS image. Do not run it on top of an existing RetroPie installation!

CHANGELOG

Changed name to reflect support for both Server and Mini versions of Ubuntu
Added retropie.preseed file to standardize basic OS install & config
Installs the basic_install RetroPie meta-package, rather than its individual parts
Improved hiding of boot messages
Updated autostart logic, moved EmulationStation launch into RetroPie's autostart.sh file
Enabled install of updated video drivers and Vulkan by default
Removed install of Ultimarc-linux and RetroPie launchingimages package.

https://github.com/MizterB/RetroPie-Setup-Ubuntu

wilmardo

@MisterB Thanks for the update! One thing first, I think you forgot to enable the video driver installation so I ran the script with both lines uncommented (https://github.com/MizterB/RetroPie-Setup-Ubuntu/blob/master/retropie_setup_ubuntu.sh#L222)

But the sad news is, I have the exact same problem after a clean install from the ubuntu-18.04.2-live-server-amd64.iso. I see emulstation running when I run ps aux over ssh but on the screen I only have a terminal with a mousepointer which unclutters.

I will try to troubleshoot this, I just had time to run the script and check if it works. Will post back hopefully tomorrow :)

MisterB

Thanks for the heads-up on the video drivers - I just re-enabled those. Not sure about the blank screen issue, though. I did have something similar a few weeks ago, and after splitting out the autostart.sh and adding a shebang to the top of that file, everything started working reliably. If you could continue to troubleshoot your install and let me know what you find, I'm happy to make to changes. Maybe backgrounding clutter, or introducing a brief sleep before start ES would help?