Retropie menu components not opening vol 2.0-2023

samsunix

I have very similar issue launching my emulationstation when I don't have any "additional" X systems installed.

I am running minimal ubuntu 22.04 -server and I simply used crontab with

@reboot emulationsation

which do work but menu components just flash login screen and then immediately jumps back to retropie menu.

mitu

That's not supported on a desktop/PC - and it's likely other things won't also work. Auto-login to an X session and start EmulationStation as explained in the previous topic.

samsunix

@mitu

Thank you for reply, I end up with following solution to avoid full graphical enviroments:

sudo apt install openbox xterm xinit

add line on /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart

xterm -fs 14 -x maximized /usr/bin/emulationstation

edit /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config
and change from ubuntus defaults "console" to "anybody"

allowed_users=anybody

Still have some issues,

auto launch openbox on boot (seems suprising difficult).
"@reboot startx /usr/bin/openbox-session" is not getting executed from crontab as user,
works as root but when run as root autostart is not working resulting blank screen
(fixed with slim)
I would like to control settings -terminal window with a gamepad.
only phone & gampeds are planned to be used on this setup
steam link is only available for ARM devices it seems.
hopefully available trough kodi

mitu

auto launch openbox on boot (seems suprising difficult).
"@reboot startx /usr/bin/openbox-session" is not getting executed from crontab as user,

Of course is not working and it's a terrible method to auto-start something that should run as a user. Use a login manager for that (gdm/sdm).

I would like to control settings -terminal window with a gamepad.

If you configure the gamepad in EmulationStation, then you'll be able to use it to control the configuration menus.

steam link is only available for ARM devices it seems.

Yes, it's not available on a PC - you have the full Steam client available on the PC, there's no point in having steamlink (which needs an additional PC to run/pair Steam).

samsunix

@mitu said in Retropie menu components not opening vol 2.0-2023:

I would like to control settings -terminal window with a gamepad.

If you configure the gamepad in EmulationStation, then you'll be able to use it to control the configuration menus.

That's good news.

steam link is only available for ARM devices it seems.

Yes, it's not available on a PC - you have the full Steam client available on the PC, there's no point in having steamlink (which needs an additional PC to run/pair Steam).

I beg a different opinion. My 200€ "tv box" ODYSSEY - X86J4125800 might be slightly more powerful than Pi4 for example, but deffinetly not anywhere near to my actual gaming setup. I hope retropie devs have not drop x86 support (4steamlink) just because they think there is either lows end pies or high end desktops and nothing between.

That said steam link sits easily on my system and performance is amazing while I can't even install standard steam client nor I want to even do that.

mitu

@samsunix said in Retropie menu components not opening vol 2.0-2023:

I hope retropie devs have not drop x86 support (4steamlink) just because they think there is either lows end pies or high end desktops and nothing between.

Steamlink is not created by RetroPie, but by Valve. If you wish to have x86 support for it, they're the only ones that can make it happen - but I don't think this will change at some point. There are other streaming solutions for x86 - like Moonlight.