Retropie Installation on Ubuntu Server x64 18.04.1

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?

movisman

@MisterB

Hi there,

I followed the steps posted by @johnodon a while back now, and added a few findings of my own to this thread - glad to see you have incorporated all of this into a script!

I'm going to change machines because I have another machine available now which will run Dolphin at full speed, so i'm going to reinstall and move my RetroPie instance over to that. This time round, to save time i'm going to try your script and see how it goes.

Just wanted to say thanks for going to the trouble of making it - if it works as planned it will save me a load of time during the initial installation phase for the reinstall. If I come across anything strange or that needs adding, I will let you know if you are still in a position to make changes to the script. I'll be installing on Ubuntu Server 18.04.3.

Hopefully others will make use of your script.

Thanks again!

MisterB

Thank you for the feedback - much appreciated! This script was still working for me a couple of months ago - would love to hear if you are also successful with it. Happy to add tweaks as required.

movisman

@MisterB

No worries!

I had a quick play with it last night but ran into some issues - not with your script though I don't think.

My replacement machine has a GeForce 1030 in it, so after running the script I decided to put the proprietary drivers on there, but ran into a blank screen after rebooting. I could swap to a different TTY and login to the console, but it no longer would come up with ES.

Anyway, I reinstalled and put the driver on first, so later i'll try the script again and see what happens.

I noticed that it does a basic install - which i'm sure is fine for most, but for me on x86 I only install the emulators I need or the ones which work best on x86. I saw in a previous commit that you reverted to a basic install rather than the core packages, any idea what the issue was?

For now, i'll just take the RetroPie install step out of the script and install it at the end.

One comment about the vulkan drivers on your script - I see in the code that vulkan installs AFTER RetroPie is installed. I think these are best installed before, and I also think you may need to have libvulkan-dev installed too in addition to mesa-vulkan-drivers. The reason is, when RetroArch is installed, I think it detects vulkan support if available and compiles accordingly, so you want the drivers on there first. I believe libvulkan-dev needs to be present too, as per this thread I created a couple of years back:
~~https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/15914/x86-vulkan-driver-option-for-various-emulators-not-showing-up-but-dolphin-works~~

~~Not 100% sure if this stuff is still valid, but on my previous machine this is how I had to do things in order to be able to select Vulkan in RetroArch.~~

When i've had time to run the script again (and hopefully not run into display issues this time) i'll let you know if I have any additional feedback!

Cheers

movisman

@MisterB

Actually, partially scrap the above (i think!) - I just checked here:
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/emulators/retroarch.sh

And it looks like for x11, libvulkan-dev is listed as a dependency, so I guess this will get installed as part of RetroArch anyway.

So that probably doesn't need to go onto the script.

It also looks like vulkan is enabled is you are running x11, so perhaps it doesn't matter if the driver is installed before or not.

I'll check it out when I next run the script and ensure vulkan works properly as-is with no changes.

Cheers