How to install a working web browser in RetroPie!

PiBoyyy

In this tutorial you will learn how to install a working web browser in RetroPie, launchable from the Ports section in ES!

Run the following commands on your system to clone my updated fork of Exarkuniv's RetroPie-Extra to it:
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/ImAQwertyGuy/RetroPie-Extra.git
cd RetroPie-Extra/
./install-extras.sh
You could also just use Exarkuniv's version if you want.

Go to "select which scripts to install" and use the arrow keys to scroll all the way down to "supplementary."

Click on "chromium.sh" and/or "firefox.sh" and then press enter/return. If you're using a 64-bit OS (and my repo) you can use the Brave browser.

Now you will see a message like "1 selected scriptmodules have been copied to /home/debian/RetroPie-Setup/ext/RetroPie-Extra." Choose "OK" and then "Exit."

Now you can install your web browser from the RetroPie Setup script like any other package. Choose "manage all packages." You'll find the web browser at the bottom of the list. Enjoy!

NOTE! You might end up with an outdated version of your web browser if you're using the standard RetroPie image. If you don't mind that's fine, but to fix this, you should probably just flash a standard Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm Lite image to your microSD card and install RetroPie on that. The reason for this is because the Pi OS 10 package lists are not actively being updated.

mitu

@PiBoyyy said in How to install a working web browser in RetroPie!:

NOTE! You might end up with an outdated version of your web browser. To fix this follow these steps: https://9to5linux.com/how-to-upgrade-raspberry-pi-os-to-debian-bookworm-from-bullseye

Or not - upgrading in place between RaspiOS versions is not recommended nor supported.
EDIT: the page is just a content fillter, there's no way an upgrade from RaspiOS Bullseye to Bookworm is just an 'apt-get' operation. @PiBoyyy did you go through the steps outlined in the article and it worked ?

FWIW - installing the desktop through RetroPie-Setup will install also the supported browser. On Bookworm it will install both Firefox and Chromium, the current versions supported by RaspiOS.

PiBoyyy

@mitu Works for me...

mitu

@PiBoyyy said in How to install a working web browser in RetroPie!:

@mitu Works for me...

OK, I see - you've actually not even tried the upgrade.

PiBoyyy

@mitu The UPGRADE works for me. I got a few errors with some new features in the desktop, but other than that it worked pretty much fine. Considering that RetroPie is basically Raspberry Pi OS Lite and has no desktop, it should work pretty much just fine.

mitu

@PiBoyyy said in How to install a working web browser in RetroPie!:

The UPGRADE works for me.

Not with those instructions.

The Linux kernel package names have been changed from Bullseye to Bookworm so when you're upgrading the new Linux kernels would not be installed. Since the new repo doesn't contain the old kernels, you wouldnt' be able to install any kernels or firmware updates automatically through apt.
The bootfs partition is not longer mounted under /boot, but under /boot/firmware - this is a manual step that's not done by any RaspiOS package and failing to do so will prevent any firmware or Linux kernel installs, not to mention raspi-config will be very confused where config.txt is located (see this recent change which made /boot/config.txt an empty file).

Only because of the 2 points above, I very much doubt you've completed any upgrade from Bullseye to Bookworm - with just the instructions from the page you linked.

PiBoyyy

@mitu Pretty soon after upgrading I reflashed my microSD card in case anything went wrong with the upgrade so yea it's probably safe to say that you should just flash Pi OS onto your Pi and install RetroPie on that. I updated the instructions to say that.

mitu

@PiBoyyy Which Pi did you use to upgrade Pi5/Pi4/Pi3 ? So you re-flashed the the OS right after the upgrade, without booting into the new OS ?

Meiner

I tried this and installed firefox-esr and chromium but can't start them. after restarting emulationstation they are under ports when i try to start it nothing happens.

i use a pi4.

mrizzone

Asks me for user and pass.

@PiBoyyy said in How to install a working web browser in RetroPie!:

In this tutorial you will learn how to install a working web browser in RetroPie, launchable from the Ports section in ES!

Run the following commands on your system to clone my updated fork of Exarkuniv's RetroPie-Extra to it:
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/ImAQwertyGuy/RetroPie-Extra.git
cd RetroPie-Extra/
./install-extras.sh
You could also just use Exarkuniv's version if you want.

Go to "select which scripts to install" and use the arrow keys to scroll all the way down to "supplementary."

Click on "chromium.sh" and/or "firefox.sh" and then press enter/return. If you're using a 64-bit OS (and my repo) you can use the Brave browser.

Now you will see a message like "1 selected scriptmodules have been copied to /home/debian/RetroPie-Setup/ext/RetroPie-Extra." Choose "OK" and then "Exit."

Now you can install your web browser from the RetroPie Setup script like any other package. Choose "manage all packages." You'll find the web browser at the bottom of the list. Enjoy!

NOTE! You might end up with an outdated version of your web browser if you're using the standard RetroPie image. If you don't mind that's fine, but to fix this, you should probably just flash a standard Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm Lite image to your microSD card and install RetroPie on that. The reason for this is because the Pi OS 10 package lists are not actively being updated.

ExarKunIv

@mrizzone at what part does that come up