Retropi on Linux Mint?

battlecat

Is it possible to either run in a VM the RetroPi image or install RetroPi on top Linux Mint so that experimentation with it is a bit easier? By easier I mean I do not have to keep messing directly with my RPi swapping out my only monitor that has HDMI with it.

It would just make toying with it a bit easier.

Thanks,
BC

meleu

@battlecat
Yes, it is.
Here are the steps:
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/RetroPie-Ubuntu-16.04-LTS-x86-Flavor

battlecat

Hi:

Thank you for responding.

So this page/script installed RetroPi on top of a Linux Desktop? In other words can I just use my primary workstation, that I use for everyday things like email, with Linux Mint 17.3 pre-installed, to add on as a desktop session the RetroPi image or will it wipe my currently Linux and all my files?

Thank you,
BC

ronlaws86

~~Im not sure why you want to use "Retropie" on your main Desktop PC, originally "Retropie" was a tweaked version of the distro' Rasbian, which is specific to Raspberry Pi.~~ The front end application is called Emulation Station, which itself is a standalone application.

To answer your question though, Yes. following those steps will erase your system if you follow the instructions to install the ubuntu system first if you are not careful.

The part you are looking for is section 2 and onward, ~~however I personally have not tested this so I can't guarantee it won't do crazy things to your existing desktop environment.~~

I recommend testing it inside a Virtual machine by installing whatever linux flavour the standard way that you use first to see what happens before doing it to your main computer.

If all goes well, running the command emulationstation from command line (or Alt+F2 run prompt) should launch ES.

BuZz

actually, RetroPie is the software to setup / install emulators on Raspbian, but now it works on Ubuntu on the odroid-c1 and PC also. The image is just a preinstalled RetroPie on top of Raspbian Lite provided for convenience.

meleu

@ronlaws86 @battlecat
Look what is written on the retropie home page:
"The RetroPie SD image is built on top of Raspbian but RetroPie can be installed on any Debian based linux distribution."

Installing RetroPie on your Linux Mint won't destroy your data! RetroPie is a set of cool shell scripts that helps to turn your linux on an awesome retrogaming station. The SD image is just a convenience for the RaspberryPi users.

I use RetroPie on my laptop myself (and on my raspi, of course). After install RetroPie on your Linux Mint, you can use your system normally, when you want to play, start emulationstation and play!

ronlaws86

@BuZz @meleu Thanks for clearing that up! wasn't 100% sure myself.

Edited my original post to avoid confusion.

battlecat

Hi All:

I wanted to report back in. I followed the steps provided on the link:
https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/RetroPie-Ubuntu-16.04-LTS-x86-Flavor

I finished the setup and thanks to ronlaws86's comment
If all goes well, running the command emulationstation from command line (or Alt+F2 run prompt) should launch ES.
I was able to launch the EmulationStation on my main computer. Pretty nifty.

Now I have not played with any of the settings or set it up beyond the initial setup but it appears correctly and looks great.

Thank you once more for the assistance. I love the project.

Why would I want to have RetroPi (EmulationStation and all) installed on top of my regular workday desktop? It is that it is much easier to see how things may work or look from my main workstation than it is to unplug my HDMI and USB keyboard/mouse from my main computer and use it on the RPi over and over. I do not own or want to purchase extra keyboards, mice, monitors to play with the RPi. Once the RPi is all setup and I am happy it will actually go into a real old Joust cabinet that I have in my kitchen.

I have installed all new buttons and an iPac interface wired up as well as a a working coin door.

I did have a full tower in the cabinet but to be honest it never lived up to what I wanted. I knew people who had a fully functioning MAME cabinet that did not have all the issue I had on my box but they were Windows users and I am not.

So that is my explanation for wanting to have the same setup on my desktop as I would on the RPi. Of course there is always the urge to tinker with it and of course there is the "Because I can" reason to just see if it would work. :)

Thanks again for the help.
-BC

ronlaws86

Glad it worked out! Credit is due to the developers though who did an amazing job with the setup script and documentation, I've learned a couple of things myself about this project from this thread.

battlecat

Okay. I have experimented with starting EmulationStation on my Linux Mint 17.3 desktop. I am having no real issues at all.

The most confusing thing, for me, so far is that I had to set the "joystick" up on the first start of ES. I am using a keyboard and not a joystick. Thus I thought that the keyboard would come with predefined setup. Of course having to define it on the first boot is nice as long as your used to setting up a keyboard to act like a joystick. I am not enough of a hard-core gamer to have thought through what key should correspond to what joystick action. Thus it took me a while to get it where I could use the keypad somewhat. Mind you the goal is to have this in an arcade cabinet with a iPac4 as the controller for the real joystick and buttons. I do not intend to use a real keyboard in my arcade cabinet.

I have removed all of the 0.37b5 ROMS (/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-mame4all) from the system and added in the 0.78 ROMS (/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/mame-libretro).

How do I get ES to rescan my MAME ROM selection on demand when I make a change to the ROM selection?

What happens if I leave select or who ROM sets in both folders?

Thank you,
BC

dankcushions

@battlecat

The most confusing thing, for me, so far is that I had to set the "joystick" up on the first start of ES. I am using a keyboard and not a joystick. Thus I thought that the keyboard would come with predefined setup.

then you'd have the other problem of suddenly booting up to an interface where it's asking you to press 'start' or 'select' on a keyboard :) by personally mapping them you can apply your preference, and also educate yourself as to what buttons are what.

How do I get ES to rescan my MAME ROM selection on demand when I make a change to the ROM selection?

restart ES (or reboot)

What happens if I leave select or who ROM sets in both folders?

in english? :)

battlecat

What happens if I leave select or whole ROM sets in both folders?

dankcushions

@battlecat you'd end up with the 2 MAME systems in ES. why not try? :)

battlecat

Okay. I deleted all ROMs from my /home/battlecat/mame/roms directory. When I re-start ES I get the same list of ROMs as when the directory was full. Please note that this is on a Linux Mint desktop not a RPi.

Thanks again,
BC

dankcushions

@battlecat mame/roms is not a valid folder for anything in retropie. see https://github.com/retropie/retropie-setup/wiki/RetroPie-Ubuntu-16.04-LTS-x86-Flavor#section-22-installation
and the table in
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/MAME
shows the right rom paths within the RetroPie folder.

battlecat

Okay, thanks dankcushions!

What I was doing was removing the ROMs from the folder that the default install of MAME 0.152 for the regular Linux Mint desktop was using.

In other words I feel stupid now. Thanks for pointing it out and getting me back on track.

--BC

battlecat

Hello again:

Something I realized that RetroPie on Linux is so great for is re-purposing my old laptop with everything so conveniently setup from a script. The ability to have consistency across my hobby cabinet builds is so nice.

Thanks once more for all of the help with toying with this!
--BC

battlecat

Recently I set up RetroPi on my Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon desktop. I am glad to report that there were no issues and that the setup went smoothly.

I used a 0.78 romset in the mame-libretro folder and all was well. The roms all appeared to load without any issues. I am sure that a few will not work but so what. I was pleased that everything was going so well.

I ran a RetroPi script update from one of the menus because well I like to be up to date. When I went back in to load a MAME rom none of the MAME roms would load. I restarted the whole workstation and tried again. Still no roms would load. I would get the little white box that always is there about the log file. It was like when MAME was run via a cmd line. It would simply not load anything.

I ended up removing the folders for RetroPi after uninstalling it via the menu system.

I rebooted.

I re-installed RetroPi. Sure enough the same MAME roms are back to working. Should I try to update and break it again? Would this be of any help to anyone if it was replicated?

Thanks,
--BC

meleu

@battlecat said in Retropi on Linux Mint?:

Recently I set up RetroPi on my Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon desktop. I am glad to report that there were no issues and that the setup went smoothly.
(...)
I ran a RetroPi script update from one of the menus because well I like to be up to date. When I went back in to load a MAME rom none of the MAME roms would load.

I have to disagree with you. If everything is working fine, as you reported, and you are happy. Why to care about updates?!

Should I try to update and break it again?

It's funny how you ask a question with an answer in it. :-)

Oh please, don't get me so serious and let's digress a little... I think that staying allways uptodate is useful for testers and developers. Testers give feedback to developers and developers... well, that's where the updates come from...

With your next question "Would this be of any help to anyone if it was replicated?", it seems that you want to give feedback to the community/developers about some problems they can face/fix. It's cool. We enjoy it!

But if you have a system that works as you like, and you just want to play your [g]old videogames, it's better to ~~not touch it~~ update very carefully.

I'm saying that because I have a Raspberry Pi 1, and I'm very afraid that an update can bring some heavy piece of software to my raspi1 and turn it slow. About a year ago, I was very disapointed after updating my old RetroPie 2.6 to 3.0. The SNES core became a little laggy. Oh man... Sad memories... I was very melancholic in those days...

But nowadays I'm very happy with lr-armsnes, lr-fceumm, lr-picodrive in my raspi1. I'm using it to earn some RetroAchievements and play some Marvel vs. Capcom on PiFBA. I'm really sure that I will not update anything until it stops working! :D

battlecat

@meleu Hello:

Yes I agree. The temptation to do a script update is so alluring though!

I got the desktop version of RetroPie re-installed and working just fine. I think I will steer away from clicking the update scripts options for awhile.

Thanks again,
BC