Make a multiple purpose system from PINN and Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite

🕐🕐 Duration: 2 to 3 hours

🔧🔧 Difficulty: Medium

🌟🌟🌟 Interest: Interesting

Should you use Retropie, Lakka or RetroArch on your Raspberry Pi?

When talking about emulation on Raspberry Pi, there are four options:

• RetroPie and RetroPie-inspired systems (Batocera and Recalbox)
• Lakka
• RetroArch on top of Raspberry Pi OS (I've finally decided to split Lakka and RetroArch)
• Direct emulation (inline or in LXDE/RPD). This will be only briefly discussed in this article as it would otherwise almost need one post per emulator.

Both Lakka and RetroPie have an integrated system and an in-system installation solutions and are really different from each other. This gives its uses to both of them.

While RetroPie focuses on customization and eye candy, Lakka prefers a very simple and clear interface and a thinner layer than emulationstation.  Lakka is also more compatible with drivers like OpenGL.

RetroArch gives a quite complete answer to the uncompleteness of Lakka due to the fact you will truly have access to the OS therefore will be able to install about everything that's not covered in Lakka and execute it via shell scripts.

RetroArch on Raspberry Pi OS 32 Bits with bash core installed

RetroPie with Wine emulator entry installed

Performance

Lakka uses a LibreElec base which is faster than RetroPie. Don't get me wrong, RetroPie is still faster than a Raspberry Pi Desktop base but so far:

• LibreElec is faster
• Lakka uses OpenGL so is faster than Emulationstation with legacy driver
  
• Emulationstation doesn't support KMS on older Pi's (won't start at all)

On newer Pi's, Lakka wins by a short hand on RetroPie. On older Pi's Lakka is just the emulator to use for performance. It's lighter and supports all the graphic drivers including dispmanx for older devices and OpenGL for Pi 3. 

 

However on Lakka since it isn't possible to do scripts, you will not have any control on your CPU governor which can make you sometimes miss an opportunity of using your Pi at its full potential. You can still overclock Lakka in config.txt.  RetroArch being almost the same as Lakka but on top of a Raspberry Pi OS, it scores the same but it has the scripting advantages: you can customize it with bash script and you can overclock or change governor inline before starting the gamebrary.

Scripting and customization

RetroPie wins here, although RetroArch scores very well. Lakka is the last (and by far) of this ranking.

Here Lakka is really far behind because the only way to go to console is through SSH. It doesn't execute shell scripts from its menu basically meaning that you will never be able to create a custom emulator. Actually, only RetroArch cores will run on Lakka which restricts its list of emulators.

RetroArch on top of Raspberry Pi OS defends itself not too bad: it has the same features as Lakka, you can add bash script core to it: https://github.com/SwedishGojira/libretro-bash-launcher

The bash core on RetroArch

This core is pretty easy to install and will allow you to run any linux executable from RetroArch.

This bash core has a good coverage:  you can actually install a xserver on your system if you are in RetroArch and run X based games like all the Wine games and VCMI. The only game that I haven't successfully started so far on bash core is Diablo2-arm. But Diablo2-arm is also very bitchy to start in RetroPie. 

Since RetroArch has a KMS support you won't need to use tvservice or xdotool. You can install an xserver following my new guide: https://thepigamer.blogspot.com/2021/06/making-xwindow-wine-and-box86-work.html

You can also try to install that core on Lakka but you won't be able to run apt-get in Lakka. It means you will not be able to install for example xserver on Lakka. This brings an end to hopes of customizing Lakka further.

DOSBox

I would give it to RetroPie due to easeness of use and customization options.

Indeed, RetroPie will allow you to start a DOSBox standalone quite easy, directly start .exe files and allow .sh files while RetroArch and Lakka only allow .conf and .exe files without the bash script core.

You will also probably meet heavy DOSBox mapper issues when first starting in RetroArch. Think about making saves of your mapper file so you can use them in RetroArch/DOSBox.

You might also want to install a standalone DOSBox in RetroArch and install the bash script core to be able to run shell scripts for DOSBox games: https://github.com/SwedishGojira/libretro-bash-launcher

Other than that, both solutions perform are pretty similar. However Lakka will only follow .conf files or DOS executables leaving shell out of scope. This can annoy you if you like the "perfect DOSBox execution". Dirty games like Ultima 7 who don't have a "quit game" option and which you will quit by interrupting (in current case ALT+X quits Ultima 7 and breaks the running batches) will stay in DOSBox and will not automatically quit to Lakka.

Easeness of setup

For this one, Lakka wins easily:  you just install it from PINN and its done. If you want to install it in-system, download the package and install it this way. Everything works and all the cores are there. 

In RetroPie, you will have to setup your keyboard and then crawl RetroPie-Setup with all the packages you will want to install. Also the configuration options of RetroPie are sometimes unclear and Lakka has a better setup interface although you are more limited in the possible settings. If you try to install RetroPie on top of Raspbian, it will be even worse. You will have to pull a setup script from its git and run it during hours. And in the end, RetroPie will notify you that you have to let your Fake KMS driver and revert to legacy driver in order to get it to start. 

If you are installing RetroArch over Raspberry Pi OS, you will unfortunately have to download your cores manually from https://buildbot.libretro.com/nightly/linux/armhf/latest/. All of them will have to be unzipped and placed in /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libretro/

Useful tip: Download a full directory with wget

Useful tip: unzip '*.zip' 

Also note that there are two ways to install RetroArch: with apt-get and by compiling. The apt-get version is quite buggy but works and does what is asked from it.

Finally in RetroArch, you have chances that your keyboard won't be working. In that case you should search for "input_driver" in ~/.config/retroarch/retroarch.cfg and set a working config. I used "udev" but you might try "x" or "sdl2" (the latter didn't work on my machine). 

To conclude, this ranking is a bit odd: Lakka is easier than RetroPie which is easier than RetroArch.

Easeness of use

I would say RetroPie on this one but it can be discussed. 

 

Overall the good points in Lakka is that you don't need to configure your keyboard at the very beginning for browsing the menus. In RetroPie, there's no real keyboard support: you will have to configure it like it was an xbox or a playstation controller. A bit silly and you'll find yourself trying to start a DOSBox game by hitting a key you defined as "east button": this can be S, M,... depending where you have defined the controller buttons on your keyboard.

However once your controller has been defined and you got used to it, RetroPie usually detects roms, sorts them out automatically, and a few arrow keys pressing will guarantee that you will reach and launch the rom.

In Lakka, you will have either to load a core in a long list and then load a rom by browsing your whole filesystem or vice-versa. Thankfully you have an history of roms to run the last ones but the first time that you are going to look for your rom, it will sure take more time to find it. This is a bad downside in my humble opinion.

"Twice Escape" to quit is nice in Lakka.

RetroPie has a bookmarked rom system which I don't use.

Arcade gaming

Lakka already has 4 cores installed by default: Daphne, MAME2003, MAME2010 and FinalBurn Neo. In RetroPie, everything has to be installed through RetroPie setup. All the cores that are available in Lakka can be installed on RetroArch.

Lakka doesn't really give more click-and-play than RetroPie but is less confusing since you don't have to look for emulators and restricting the scope in this case might actually help new arcade players figure things out better.

Also in RetroPie, you will find yourself with 5 arcade emulator entries (Arcade, 3x MAME, Neogeo) in no time losing your mind about where to go to run your rom. Not very tidy. Only advantage so far of RetroPie is support of lr-mame2016. 

I would give it to Lakka/RetroArch here due to tidiness.

Scope

This will give the same results as scripting and customization: since Lakka can't run anything else than what's been ported to libretro, RetroPie will easily win on this one. A lot more emulators and ports will run on RetroPie than Lakka.

Once again everything can be added in RetroArch assuming you install it on top of an OS.

Design

I personally like RetroPie a lot more although Lakka is far from being ugly. RetroArch can here show some problems with icons if it's installed from package. If "look and feel" is an important matter for you, make sure to install RetroArch through compiling. Otherwise you will end disappointed by the glitches on the icons.

And RetroPie as an app?

RetroPie as an app almost has the same features as RetroPie as a system. The main difference is that you will have to install it on your Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits via RetroPie-Setup. It will then work exactly like RetroPie as an OS except that it will be started within Raspberry Pi Desktop. It will not support KMS where RetroPie as an OS didn't. Finally, it will kill your Raspberry Pi OS splash screen and replace it by RetroPie (it kind of sucks since it will look odd to start your Raspberry Pi OS with a RetroPie splash).

Finally, you can force emulationstation to run within Fake-KMS by installing it manually. If you choose to do so you won't have any RetroPie-Setup entry in emulationstation and you will have to add all the emulators in es_systems.cfg by hand, one by one. Not a very friendly solution but you might in the end have the eye candy and the KMS support on your older Pi.

Conclusion

Proud of its emulator and game coverage, RetroPie stays a safe bet for people who want to build up a full gamebrary quite easily with a very beautiful GUI.

Lakka might seem good for the trashbin at the very first glance compared to RetroPie as it suffers much from the concept "Just enough OS for". While LibreElec did an awesome job with Kodi with a plentiful heap of available plugins, Lakka is just lost without any option to customize it and is missing one of the main features of emulation. However if you give a second glance and give a chance to the application version "RetroArch", the game is completely reshuffled.

RetroArch on top of an OS will just give you one of the most lightweight interfaces, will start without RPD/LXDE and will support Fake-KMS. In terms of performance it simply puts RetroPie KO. Considering that you can run bash scripts (and even use startx in your bash script) using this excellent core, you might completely rethink your gamebrary and junk RetroPie to prefer RetroArch as an app on top of a Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite. You will certainly have to devote some time installing the GUI, the autoboot and the cores but you will finally get a very interesting and performant result.

The last solution, single emulation, is preferred when you just want to run one game maybe on an arcade machine replica while using a minimum possible OS in order to maximize performance. In that case, you will look for a DietPi or Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite base and compile the emulator yourself.

As a summary, just check hereafter the pros and cons for RetroPie, Lakka, RetroArch and Direct emulation

RetroPie

🙌 TEH eye candy

🙌 Many customization options

🙌 Huge game coverage

🙍 KMS support is not full on older versions

🙍 Not the fastest system

🙍 Rom repository is FAT32-based: RetroPie might actually become the #1 enemy of your disk space

🙍 Uneasy to install and configure on "one single OS"

🙍 Scripting with bash core to get xwindow games running is difficult

Lakka

🙌 Neat and clean

🙌 Fast

🙌 Easy to install and to use

🙌 KMS support

🙍 No real customization option besides the provided cores

RetroArch

🙌 Neat and clean

🙌 KMS support

🙌 Raspbian-based: everything can be started

🙌 Best "one single OS" solution: will be the friend of your disk space

🙍 dpkg -i version is a little buggy: some config options don't work, a few icons show black

🙍 Frequent input driver issues (but that can be fixed by editing retroarch.cfg)

🙍 Very manual installation: OS, then Retroarch, then cores

🙍 Scripting can be abit bitchy with bash core to get xwindow games running

Direct emulation

🙌 Meteoric

🙌 Most of time can be compiled with KMS/GL/GLES/... support

🙌 OS-based: everything can be started

🙍 You will have most of the time to compile your emulator manually

🙍 Not an ideal solution to store a whole gamebrary

I must admit I will miss the eye candy when leaving RetroPie. I am nevertheless eager to gain a few more FPS on my Heroes of Might and Magic IV installation when I will run it from RetroArch on top of Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite.

The pi gamer

 

Disk space on your SD card: best practices

When you start your career as a Raspberry Pi user you know that you will face at some point the following situations:

• You will play games
• You will try OSes
• You will brag about what you can do on your Pi
• You will try things that are almost impossible. Almost impossible is not impossible.
• You will repartition your SD Card
• You will play games on RetroPie
  
• You will reinstall OSes
• You will run out of SD card disk space

You will eventually run out of SD card disk space and if you are seriously using your Pi, you will have to think to several things on how you manage your storage. Not keeping storage in mind can give you performance and usability issues and if you are caught by surprise you might end having to repartition your SD card and lose some data and some work. Here we are going to browse a few pointers on how to avoid critical disk space situations.

1. Be reasonable in your expectations

First of all, make an inventory of the different storage devices you are going to provide to your Raspberry Pi. 

Here is a quick check-list to help you:

• Your system storage (SD Card) with 4 to 512 GB (or even more)
• USB keys that you find in your drawers and realize that you could put them to good use.
• External hard drive
• Your desktop PC's hard drives, shared via samba
• FTP's are mostly out of scope since you can only download and upload from FTP's. From a samba server you can for example operate an executable.

Following how much GBs you have got, you can consider more or less usage.

Be reasonable:

• For example, don't expect to store lots of games like Final Fantasy VII (4 CDs) if you don't have decent storage like an external hard drive. If you are poor on external storage but have a good hard disk on your desktop PC, you might want to use that hard disk but keep in mind that hard disk+network is the slowest possible storage ever.
• Keep a decent objective with how many OSes you are going to install on your SD card depending on its size. See next paragraphs "2. Think your storage directly when partitioning" and "4. Repartition your storage if needed" for more info on this.
• If you are using multiple partitions, store your data and games at one single place. You can either use a project partition from PINN or access a foreign /home/pi from another OS. No need to store your wineprefixes on your 4 OSes; it will just multiply by 4 needed storage and won't bring any added value.

2. Think your storage directly when partitioning

Each partition will divide your original storage when created. Assuming you have a SD card of 64 GB as a system holder, every partition will be of:

 

- 32 GB if you install 2 systems

- 21 GB if you install 3 systems

- 16 GB if you install 4 systems

- .. 8 GB if you install 8 systems

A system where you manage space carefully can live with around 10GB of disk space. If managing space is not your thing, I would not recommend going below 20 GB per system (in case of a 64GB SD card you will install 3 systems)

3. Prefer lean OSes

If you install multiple OS, think about "base". On what is my OS based? 

Example:

• TwisterOS
• DietPi
• Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits
• Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite
• Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits full

All of these 5 are currently based on Raspbian Buster. Raspberry Pi OS Full and TwisterOS are both extremely demanding in terms of disk space. If you need comfort over all, you should install TwisterOS (or Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits full) alone and leave the others.

If you are more into managing your Pi and going in-depth, you might actually prefer 2 or 3 Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite + RPD desktop instead of having TwisterOS and Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits full. DietPi is even more sober considering that but you might have compatibility problems with DietPi that you won't meet with Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite.

Keep in mind that everytime you will try a compiling adventure you will probably need to redo your config. This is thus important to start on healthy basis. TwisterOS and Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite are two diametrically opposed approaches of the same OS.

    3.a. Consider getting a lean Wine version

    Wine bottles are getting huger and huger as newer Wine versions are implemented. If you are not running complicated programs like RPG Maker RGSS1/2/3, you can avoid installing a late wine-x86. 

• Get your lean Wine-x86 from TwisterOS site: https://twisteros.com/faq.html

4. Repartition your storage if needed

    4.a. Backup your /home/pi and your important files before repartitioning

    Depending on your setting, you will have several choices to backup your folders. From easiest to             hardest:

• If you have an external device on your Pi:

          cd /media/pi/externaldevice/save/path
            env GZIP=-9 tar cvzf homepi.tar.gz /home/pi

• You have nothing but your Pi:
• Make sure you are using less than half of your SD card space. You will have to junk useless files. then go to root and tar your directory.
• Do as above:

                sudo su

                cd /root

                env GZIP=-9 tar cvzf homepi.tar.gz /home/pi

                chmod 777 homepi.tar.gz

                cd ..

                chmod 777 /root

                exit

• You can upload your saved homepi.tar.gz to any free cloud service (eg. Google Drive).
• If you have an external windows PC, you can install samba on your Raspberry Pi and pull the files from your /home/pi. See guide there: https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-samba/

    4.b. Use one single OS for all

    If you are really short on space, you will want to use one single OS. You have a few choices.

• TwisterOS has it all but is quite slow and works mainly on Pi4
• Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits lite and regular are both good alternatives
• You may install kodi inside this OS:

                    sudo apt-get install kodi

• Installing RetroPie is a bit out of scope since RetroPie's compatibility is not assured with Fake-KMS so either you will have to use Lakka/Retroarch or you will use a completely manual emulationstation configuration (I don't advise the latter except if you have a lot of time to lose) 

A good alternative to RetroPie is Lakka/Retroarch:

                You can install RetroArch this way.

Beware that it will be quite buggy as foreign install doesn't take in charge all the specificities of the Raspberry Pi. A better way is to clone the git and compile it. I will make an article about it since the disable and enable flags on the configure are subject to a study but for starters you can go there.

• Debootstrapping meets bugs in Raspbian buster so you might see mikerr's qemu fork if you need debootstrapping
• Since debootstrapping is not an option, you will have to swap wine versions especially if you play Diablo 2 and x86 games. A full guide to swap wine versions is available on ptitSeb's git: https://github.com/ptitSeb/box86/blob/master/docs/X86WINE.md
• If you need android, you can install anbox. See guide there: https://snapcraft.io/install/anbox/raspbian
  Use: 
  sudo snap install anbox --edge --devmode
  instead of
  sudo snap install anbox --beta

Anbox is not simply Plug-and-Play. It is a time-consuming experience and you should go to https://anbox.io/ in order to get more information about it, load kernels and run emulated apps. This is out of scope of the current guide.

Also note that most Android apps will have an alternative under Linux/Raspbian. For example, you can mirror your screen to uv4l. It is slightly more difficult to set up than Android Screen Mirroring but its more performant and it doesn't need Android to run. 

• If you absolutely need debootstrapping (for example if emulating a x86_64 machine), use Mikerr's QEMU stretch Raspbian install from PINN.
• Kodi and Retroarch install the same way
• A detailed guide to install a single OS with multiple purpose and multiboot is availlable here.
  

5. If using multiple partitions, store your data on a common storage instead of in /home/pi/

This part does only apply if you are running multiple Raspberry Pi OS partitions on the same SD card.

You are tinkering your Pi, running x86 games and installing things. If your 3 systems are Twister OS, Raspberry Pi OS and Mikerr's QEMU Raspbian it is useless to install 3x your runnables or copy them to every system. This includes wineprefixes. A well complete wineprefix can size up to 500MB-1GB. If you copy your wineprefix to all 3 systems, you will have used 3GB instead of 1GB. A good option is to use an ext4-fomatted external USB key to hold your transversal bloatware.

Also, data that you store on a common storage won't be erased when you repartition.

6. RetroPie is a false friend

RetroPie allows you to store your roms to an external USB drive or key easily (see here).

The devil is in the details. Notice that sentence in the guide: "Either on linux, or on a PC, format the USB drive to FAT32 (used in this guide as it is the most compatible across different operating systems)". This is very bad because on a FAT32 drive you can't manage permissions with chmod. It means that if you are moving Linux executables on your drive, you won't be able to execute them. FAT32 uses .EXE, .COM, .BAT, .CMD to figure if a file is executable or not. You might rename your Linux executable to .EXE but if it refers a .so library you are screwed.

If you are storing your RetroPie roms on an external drive, better make it ext4 and manage the bind commands manually.

I would advise you against trying to mount your vfat drive in exec mode in /etc/fstab since everytime I tried to edit /etc/fstab, I destroyed my OS and had to reinstall it completely afterwards.

That said, you might consider using a single OS (Raspberry Pi OS 32 bits) with Retroarch installed on it if you want to shrink your OS signature to the maximum (see "3. Repartition your storage if needed")

7. Avoid Android as an OS if possible

I would place Android one step further than TwisterOS. It goes click-and-play all the way but it is even slower and if something doesn't work on Android, there is no single chance that you can think of a devilish plan to make it work (like you would in RetroPie or in Raspberry Pi OS Lite). 

So Android could be a good choice to stream screens or make an Android TV out of a Pi (and that makes a match : Android vs Kodi) but Android also offers a very poor performance on Raspberry Pi and system itself will need 10GB on disk space.

Think about it as Android could really be a pegleg for your diskspace. I personally use Android once per year to stream Pokémon Go to my main screen because I am too lazy to go to uv4l. 

If other systems can give you a solution, avoid Android.

Also Android on Pi doesn't pass Safety Net (bye bye Pokémon Go).

 

8. Keep a map of your storage

This can help you see more clearly: make a plan of all your OS partitions and virtual machines for example on an Excel file or on a sheet of paper. 

Then you can proceed as if you were debloating your house: Do I need this or not? Scrap what you don't really need. Usually, if you don't use something at all or if you did it only for a proof of concept, you can junk the result away. It is much more space-efficient to hold a diary of compilation steps than keeping the sources and the binaries if you don't use them.

9. Useful tools

The shell command "df" will help you know how much space is used and free.

df is provided on every Linux installation and gives details on
 how much disk space you still have. Here is an example on Fedora.
 Simply type "df" on your Raspberry Pi in console mode
to get a similar result.

The shell command "du" will help you know how much space (in 1K blocks) is used by a directory and all subdirectories.

du is also provided on every Linux installation.
Simply type "du" on your Raspberry Pi in console mode to get a similar result.

Finally, the shell command "sudo fdisk -l" will give you a summary of all your storage devices. While it's not directly used in space management, it will have its uses for example when mounting, unmounting and setting a samba server.

sudo fdisk -l gives a summary of your storage devices. Here is a Fedora x86 setting.

I hope these few hints hereabove will help you manage your disk space better and maybe avoid you buying a new SD card or a new disk. I have to admit that I am a bad pupil of my own advices since I recently bought a 256GB SD card so I am having at the moment a humongous disk space but trust me: these advices followed me before while I was "disk space-poor".

The pi gamer