Hello, I wanted know if someone can answer me some questions about Lakka. Can I browse a directory and copy / import it instead of scanning?
you can browse a directory from load content, but for copy/import stuff you need external access through SMB or SSH/SFTP.
Understood. That makes it quite a mess to add ROMs. Windows can’t read Linux but Linux can read Windows, if they added the ability to copy / import directories, or just created a FAT partition to store ROMs, everything would be SO much easier.
Well the storage partition (where the roms go) is going to be a ext4 partition (obviously can’t read it from windows reliably) but there are ways to deal with it. The good old Live Linux Distro trick works pretty good. That said you could just get a Raspberry pi, or even an Android phone/tablet can do the job. For my Raspberry Pi based Lakka system, I use a chromebook and an android tablet (ES file Explorer) to edit the configuration files as needed, send SSH commands (connect-bot) and to copy game files to Lakka. The Chromebook can do it too but it takes a lot of configuration and it’s not as clean as the Android side, but it is nice to be able to use it multi window style.
But if this is not an option for you, there is always using retroarch instead of running lakka by itself. Mainly because Lakka is Retroarch running on a modified Libreelec OS.
Thank you for the tips. It was mainly the idea of having my game library in a single USB flash drive that I can play everywhere that appealed to me, but I couldn’t find options to reliably add ROMs to the USB flash drive. Tried to find software to write in ext4 partitions without success. Tried a Ubuntu virtual machine. Could never make the contents of shared folders appear. So, got a spare USB flash drive and transferred the ROMs from Windows to the USB flash drive to Ubuntu virtual machine and finally to the Lakka USB flash drive, only to find that from 27 ROMs, only 4 were readable probably due to corruption. Tried to manually create partitions in the USB flash drive before adding Lakka but the USB flash drive stopped being recognized after trying to create partitions. I give up, just too much work, I guess I will just use Retroarch instead.
I also think they should add easier ways to add roms/bios/cheats. If they created a FAT partition to store them, it would be great.
Every time I rebuild my Lakka box, I use an NTFS formatted external HDD to copy large quantities of files from the PC to Lakka. You just plug it in before Lakka boots. It will auto-mount the drive. Reference: http://www.lakka.tv/doc/Accessing-Lakka-filesystem/
One of my past builds booted from SSD, and had a secondary internal NTFS hard drive for ROM storage. I used that hard drive to move files from PC to Lakka. You should be able to do the same thing with your USB stick.
I use Lakka in a Raspberry Pi 3. For me the easiest solution was to put in an USB flash drive the roms, thumbnails and playlists. So when I want to add new games and thumbnails I just plug the USB drive in my PC and copy the files.
it is very easy to point the directories to the USB drive folders using Lakka configuration menu.
So you are saying that I would be able to copy files to Lakka with a NTFS formatted drive?
[QUOTE=juga64;51882]I use Lakka in a Raspberry Pi 3. For me the easiest solution was to put in an USB flash drive the roms, thumbnails and playlists. So when I want to add new games and thumbnails I just plug the USB drive in my PC and copy the files.
it is very easy to point the directories to the USB drive folders using Lakka configuration menu.[/QUOTE] That’s not a bad idea. Can it also be sued for BIOSes?
[QUOTE=juga64;51882]I use Lakka in a Raspberry Pi 3. For me the easiest solution was to put in an USB flash drive the roms, thumbnails and playlists. So when I want to add new games and thumbnails I just plug the USB drive in my PC and copy the files.
it is very easy to point the directories to the USB drive folders using Lakka configuration menu.[/QUOTE] That’s not a bad idea. Would it work for BIOSes?
[QUOTE=juga64;51882]I use Lakka in a Raspberry Pi 3. For me the easiest solution was to put in an USB flash drive the roms, thumbnails and playlists. So when I want to add new games and thumbnails I just plug the USB drive in my PC and copy the files.
it is very easy to point the directories to the USB drive folders using Lakka configuration menu.[/QUOTE] That’s not a bad idea. Would it work for BIOSes?
Hi Dani, sorry for my late reply.
I added also the bios folder to the USB drive (formated in FAT32) but I haven’t verified if they are read or not. The BIOS folder also can be pointed to the USB drive.
The only problem I have saw with using an external flash drive is that when I plug in it in my PC, Windows 10 complains that there it is some error in the USB drive and offer to check it. I never check it, and just continue editing my roms and thumbnails.
The other problem seems to be that sometimes Lakka doesn’t boot very well when I re-mount the USB drive on it (Raspberry PI off -> plug in the USB drive -> turn it on). Some messages with red notices appears in the first booting screen. But I am not totally sure if this is related with the USB drive unit.
Anyway, for me this is the most comfortable method for adding my roms and media collections to Lakka.