Could not successfully build sdl2 on Bullseye

FericousPom

Hi

I found this old post with same issue, https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/16748/retropie-on-ubuntu-could-not-successfully-build-sdl2 , but I think mine is not the same.

I saw this post on LibSDL's github page, https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/issues/5132 and this seems to be linked to changes in Bullseye compared to Buster.

Seems it will be fixed in v.2.0.20 on LibSDL which is due in early Jan 2022.

I can post the logs and all this too if needed.

windg

RetroPie doesn't support yet Debian Bullseye and many things they doesn't work.

FericousPom

@windg Is there more info on what is not working and which components doesn't work under Bullseye?

windg

@fericouspom said in Could not successfully build sdl2 on Bullseye:

@windg Is there more info on what is not working and which components doesn't work under Bullseye?

I try it, just for curiocity few days ago and the big problem i met was with libsdl2 and libsdl2-dev packages. To bypass this i run "sudo apt --fix-broken install libsdl2-2.0-0 libsdl2-dev"( those are not that packages that RetroPie are using). After that you have to install everything from source, i install only psx emulator and megadrive, snes and the are working fine. Another thing that doesn't work is the omxplayer and Kodi. Also many times the system didn't load emulationstation..

My opinion is that it doesn't worth the try. better wait the official release. But if you want to try be sure that Pi is using a good cooling system and be ready to wait many hours for the process to finish with anknown results and performance.

FericousPom

@windg I got it working to build LibSDL but then it failed to build retroarch (haven't checked why yet)

In file "./scriptmodules/supplementary/sdl2.sh" I changed the git line to:

gitPullOrClone "$md_build/$pkg_ver" https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL "main"

After this, it worked to build libsdl. But I don't recommend anyone to do this. Like you said, better to wait for official release.

Folly

@windg

I am trying on a RPI3 with Desktop Raspbian bullseye.

I just used (there was no need to use --fix-broken) :

sudo apt install libsdl2-2.0-0 libsdl2-dev

After that I could install, for example, emulationstation from source but the setup still wants to install SDL2 from source which will fail every time.

@FericousPom

Adding your line in ./scriptmodules/supplementary/sdl2.sh doesn't work here on my RPI3 ,compilation will also fail.

Folly

This is how we can fool the system and install binary packages of buster (do it on your own risk !) .

--> I edited these next lines <-- :

/home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/system.sh :
lines 168 - 169 :

__os_release="10"    
__os_codename="buster"

When needed, for RPI3 or lower, comment line 72 (not needed for RPI4) :

#isPlatform "kms" && __binary_path+="/kms"

I tested these binaries and worked ok:

mame
lr-mess
lr-bluemsx

I tested openmsx but I got into trouble as it will try to force an older SDL2 binary to be installed, which does not match with other libraries debending on SDL2 >= 2.0.12

After that I had to restore with :

sudo apt install libsdl2-2.0-0 libsdl2-dev

( If SDL2 is installed earlier, as explained in the next post, you will probably not have above issue )

Folly

@fericouspom

(Updated post 7 February 2022)

With a fresh install you have to do the following to fix the SDL2 problem.

Edit line 19 and line 37 of the original /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/supplementary/sdl2.sh.

Edit line 19 (edit version to 2.0.18 or 2.0.20) to :

echo "2.0.20"

Edit line 37 (add libsamplerate0-dev) to :

local depends=(libsamplerate0-dev libasound2-dev libudev-dev libibus-1.0-dev libdbus-1-dev fcitx-libs-dev libsndio-dev)

Then :
- install SDL2 separately from source
- install the other packages -> basic install
- reboot the raspberry pi
- everything should work

p.s.
Look also at this post to fix the emulationstation install :
https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/31924/could-not-successfully-build-sdl2-on-bullseye/11
Edit : the module-script for emulationstation has been updated and as far as I know will now install correctly (installing emulationstation from source).

Darksavior

(OUTDATED DON'T USE)
~~You can now install sdl2 on bullseye with 2.0.20 from this repo: https://github.com/joolswills/RetroPie-Setup/tree/sdl_2.0.16~~

I had to fool around with some scripts so they'd build to test a game and the performance is worse than buster and I get screen tearing/jerky video once every few seconds. I wouldn't bother wasting the time until it's done.

rafaelrafael

Is there some coordinate effort to get retropie working with bullseye? I'd like to contribute, if there is someone already leading that effort.

Folly

The next problem is that omxplayer is marked obsolete in bullseye.
So it's removed from the bullseye repository.
Therefor installing emulationstation will fail as it can't install omxplayer.

A workaround is to install emulationstation-dev from the experimental packages.

An other workaround is to comment or remove the lines 140,141,142 from the emulationstation.sh script.
Although we can get it working this way, there will probably be a few things that will not work correctly.

Edit :
I prefer the second solution because it creates es_systems.cfg in the correct directory.
With emulationstation-dev you have to update/copy es_systems.cfg when you add systems.
Or use pegasus-frontend as @Darksavior suggests in post 16.

Folly

@rafaelrafael said in Could not successfully build sdl2 on Bullseye:

Is there some coordinate effort to get retropie working with bullseye? I'd like to contribute, if there is someone already leading that effort.

They are busy, though it's reverted back to "2.0.10" :
https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/commit/0d45d6bb0fbce3fd1b251353b0ee712ef92ace8e

tavuntu

@Darksavior said in Could not successfully build sdl2 on Bullseye:

https://github.com/joolswills/RetroPie-Setup/tree/sdl_2.0.16

Looks like they took this down? maybe moved it?

Darksavior

@tavuntu Follow @Folly 's guide.

I guess this deserves an update. I've been using 64bit bullseye lite for months now with little issues now using Folly's guide. I no longer get any screen tearing. There are some performance issues with lr-snes9x with minor drops so I'm not sure if the installer script needs to be optimized. In the past it would give me some armv6 error when building but that seems to be gone.

tavuntu

@Darksavior Alright, thanks for the info. I've been trying to run retroarch (no emulationstations, only retroarch binary + cores) in DietPi using that same guide to "fool" the script, unfortunately it is not straight forward (and that makes sense since it's not a supported system). Have you ever seen an error like libbrcmOpenVG.so: cannot open shared object file? I tried googling.

Darksavior

@tavuntu Sorry, no. After I set up my controllers with ES I switch to the pegasus-frontend with my custom theme.