cubieboard5 (aka as cubietruck plus or allwinner h8)

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs i'll be on vacancy next week so i won't be able to check for some days, will let you know if i make some progress.

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs somehow i can't get the debug to report what's __platform... it gaves me just __platform instead of what is found in the label... might be doing it wrong... used echo __platform just before error discription...
like i said it's first time i try something like python/c i only know how html (only the basics), (visual) basic, assembly and turbo pascal works.

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs it seems function get __platform() { seems to be incompitable with my OS:
Distributor ID: Linaro
Description: Linaro 14.0.4
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty

vbs

@Jaapdaniels1984
Yes I understand. Making RetroPie work on your platform is probably quite a bunch of work. Will require changes at many places and permanently checking what does work and what does not and then trying to fix it. If you are going to go on that journey then feel free to ask questions if you get stuck. But be prepared to invest a good heap of time into digging and understanding how RetroPie works.

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs i can get it to get pass the platform, but then it says my os is incompitable...
my os is a modded lubuntu, just minor modded, though kernel is ehh... lets say not really how i expected it to be...
i'm willing to go through a painstaking pile of work... buti can't get it to show wht's in __platform... i expect the function tries to read a file that simply is never made in my linux. that's how much i understood of python 2.7 explenation... fixating it to be rpi3-64 gives me the eroor of incapable os... wich seems to be an error i'll have to face a lot... it seems they didn't just mod the OS to work with other hardware, they removed a lot of things too... the software centre was missing... and i'm missing a lot of libaries that i thought were standard with lubuntu (they said it was ubuntu but it's more like lubuntu).

backstander

@Jaapdaniels1984
Try something like sudo __platform=whatever ./retropie-setup.sh for now but later you'll need to figure out how to add your platform to the code once you get a lot of it working :)

I learned this trick when trying to get the Raspberry Pi version of RetroPie to install in QEMU but EmulationStation didn't work because QEMU doesn't emulator the graphics card.

Jaapdaniels1984

@backstander thanks, now i got the installer to work... adding Linaro to the same line as ubuntu was in system.sh and using your manual command... using rpi3-64 instead of whatever.

Jaapdaniels1984

@backstander i forgot... the script for reading my pltform is just not working for my OS... it'll respond with emptyness... i think that my OS missing some txt and cfg files, had this problem before with setting up audio... there was just no default alsa mixer set, nor was the file there with the info... if someone could tell me where lubuntu/ubuntu stores this information i can make a patch for the cubieboard5... like i said for some reason it is as if the software for this board is stopped developping when it worked for the basics...it's missing quite some stuff i thought to be standard with ubuntu... then again, i knew that it would need some polishing...

vbs

@Jaapdaniels1984
I mentioned it already but the code you are looking for is in the function get_platform in RetroPie-Setup/scriptmodules/system.sh. It invokes uname --machine and parses its output to fill __platform.

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs then my __platform is " " that would make it pretty impossible to add to the list.

vbs

@Jaapdaniels1984
This is probably the point where you have to dig into the code and make it work for your platform :) What is the output of uname --machine?

BuZz

To adapt RetroPie to work on a new platform requires a good understanding of the retropie-setup code and knowledge of the underlying hardware. EG When I posted it to the ODroid-C1 it required

a custom sdl2 library with mali driver.
lots of logic changes to modules - eg building retroarch with the mali backend.

Unless the platform has the same hardware as existing supported targets, it is not going to be trivial and I don't think you will be able to do this via a Q/A thread here. EG if you hardware has hardware opengl support under X, you could use the X11 target which would work - however I think your hardware has gles only, which means you will at least need changes to the retroarch module for it and additional platform code in system.sh

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs since the installation is still running... i'll report another day. but it's at least something that is working now, and thanks to you guys i at least got to understand a bit of it all.

Jaapdaniels1984

@BuZz https://imgtec.com/blog/the-powervr-sgx544mp-a-modern-gpu-for-todays-leading-platforms/ might have the info you were thinking about... seems pretty complete to me. SDL2 should already work, at least i thought i used it in my video-player and in scummvm before...
but i see a really big log turning up, so i imagine there must be something not going as planned... but hey i didn't expect it to turn out this simple... i already made a backup of the official cubietech sourcecode for all my drivers... i don't think i'l make a fully working system anytime soon since i'm working alone and i am a OOB at this... but then again... when i was a kid coding was something i really enjoyed... so i wanna learn something.. i know it'll be a long run to walk alone... but hey i'm learning on my way a lot already... thanks for getting me as far as i am now!

BuZz

If the underlying os has software support and drivers are available/working. PowerVR support for Linux has been horrible in the past due to buggy closed source drivers etc.

Jaapdaniels1984

@BuZz my system is opensource, and so are my drivers... there are 3 versions for desktop enviroment, HDMI linaro (this is the one i use...only HDMI output works here not the PD), PD linaro (only the PD output works here not the HDMI) and there is an android version. the android version works at a lower resolution, and my keyboard didn't work with it. the linux i use is the first they made, seems incomplete but working... all is opensource witch i am allowed to share when there's a need... but i'm still a noob so it takes a lot of time to get through all the codes to undersand the part of the puzzle i need to understand...

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs uname --machine says armv7l.

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs @BuZz @backstander not tested yet, but i think my latest should work allright... as i see it everything should just function since these cards are allready used in other products... where can i post the modded system.sh?

mod 1 is:

case "$__os_id" in
Raspbian|Debian)
if compareVersions "$__os_release" lt 8; then
__has_binaries=0
fi

        # set a platform flag for osmc
        if grep -q "ID=osmc" /etc/os-release; then
            __platform_flags+=" osmc"
        fi

        ;;
    Ubuntu|LinuxMint|Linaro)
        __has_binaries=0
        ;;
    *)
        fatalError "Unsupported OS\n\n$(lsb_release -idrc)"
        ;;
esac

and mod 2 is:
function get_platform() {
local architecture=$(uname --machine)
if [[ -z "$__platform" ]]; then
case $(sed -n '/^Hardware/s/^.: (.)/\1/p' < /proc/cpuinfo) in
armv7l)
__platform="CB5"
BCM2708)
_platform="rpi1"
;;
mod3 is:
platform${__platform}
}

function platform_CB5() {
__default_cflags="-O2 -march=armv7-a -mtune=cortex-a7 -mcpu=cortex-a7 -mfpu=vfpv4-d32 -mfloat-abi=hard"
__default_asflags=""
__default_makeflags="-j$(nproc)"
__platform_flags="x11"
__qemu_cpu=cortex-a15
__has_binaries=0
}
function platform_rpi1() {

okay figured most of it out now, setup runs with an eroor before the gui starts now, but setup seems to work like a charm no errors yet and it's already installing for quite some minutes.

vbs

@Jaapdaniels1984 said in cubieboard5 (aka as cubietruck plus or allwinner h8):

@vbs @BuZz @backstander not tested yet, but i think my latest should work allright... as i see it everything should just function since these cards are allready used in other products... where can i post the modded system.sh?

The usual way is to clone the RetroPie repository on github and create a branch with your changes in your clone. Then open a PR (pull request) so your changes can be merged upstream by the maintainers.

Jaapdaniels1984

@vbs i'm not sure if i used the best available gcc settings for my board, since it's also capable for neon, 64 bits, and i'm not sure it needs qemu architecture. could maybe better, but at least this should get it to run... just wished i could get it to understand arm7 is a 64 bits processor, but i already know this would be impossible since python only accepts arm8 and up to be 64 bits designed. i'm not sure about the x11 by the way but it seems to run fine. (it's still installing)...

the -mfpu=vfpv4-d32 seems to be legit but causing problems since -d32 add isn't implemented yet in the sub projects, darn... i can however make it -mfpu=neon-vfpv4 if too much failed during install... just too bad, cause this should get it partly running at full 64 bits...