Made the jump to Linux. Experiencing complications

RetroArch Linux devices
#1

I found the looming prospect of being pushed into upgrading to 11 too dystopian, so I took the plunge, erased windows 10, and installed Linux. To be more specific: Manjaro Plasma.

This was largely without sacrifice because I keep everything I actually care about on (and run off of) external hard drives. Steam, GOG, Important docs, the kitchen sink, and my RetroArch setup.

I like EXE files, they operate where I put them. Application images (RetroArch being the first and only one iv’e encountered so far), however, seem to get picked up and ferried by “AppImage Launcher” to the internal hard drive. Or at least I think so, I’m not sure if I know what I’m doing. Let me recount the bumblings of a Linux noob.

When I first “ran” the appimage I think I may have set “external hard drive/Emulation/retroarch” as the central hub for all appimages. Thankfully I do believe I have undone this and set the applications directory to something more appropriate. Then, forgetting it came from the 7z and mistaking it for something AIL did , I deleted “RetroArch-Linux-x86_64.AppImage.home” (I hope you got a laugh from that). Sure enough running retroarch again showed the assets were missing. Since I still intend to set this thing up I went back to the 7z and realized my mistake. I then extracted the files back to “external hard drive/Emulation” and merged “Emulation/retroarch” into “Emulation/RetroArch-Linux-x86_64.AppImage.home/.config/retroarch” (Do I hear laughing? Should I hear laughing?). Executed RetroArch again and assets are still missing. Obviously I could just use the online updater, but I have much bigger problem then missing assets.

I don’t know what victory looks like here! I don’t know enough to recognize if it’s running with resources from the desired directory or if it’s running with AIL shenanigans, and I’m working in circles.

Ideally, I want to create a shared folder in the external hard drive from which both the Linux and Windows versions can operate, preferably using the same resources (Don’t bring up the playlist files I’ll worry about those later). If that’s not possible then at least I’d like the Linux version to be as portable as the windows version was.

I chose Manjaro for two reasons. 1: It seemed like good distro to grow from beginner to super user. 2: Proprietary Nvidia driver support. I’m not so invested I couldn’t switch though (the EHDs help). I you guys think I’d be better off with something else I’m open to suggestion.

#2

My brain just came back. I’m going to return Emulation/retroarch to it’s original location and set the directories manually in RetroArch settings.

#3

Hello. When you unzip the AppImage it creates the executable and the configuration folder together, that’s enough to run it “out of the box”. But you already know that.

When you delete the AppImage configuration folder, the executable will look in the default folder which is
/home/USER/.config/retroarch
and there, there is nothing there, you have to download/update everything.

If you returned the folder, but you are still missing things, it is because you modified the default directories. If you press the space key on the option, it puts the default value.

The configuration file is where everything related to the interface is stored. /home/USER/.appimage/RetroArch-Linux-x86_64/RetroArch-Linux-x86_64.AppImage.home/.config/retroarch/retroarch.cfg

If you delete only the ‘retroarch.cfg’ file and then start RetroArch, it is created again with the default values. This is useful if you misconfigure something.

“One more thing…”
Windows has the bad habit of ‘locking’ your hard disk. There is no way to access it again from Linux. And there is no way to fix it, it happened to me with Windows 10 and NTSC disks.

Arch to begin with? you are brave. :man_facepalming:t2:

#4

And I’m loving it! RetroArch has never been so smooth. Windows’s bloat was holding everything back. I still have to correct the playlist files, though.

None of my physical hard drives seem to be locked in any way. I did, however, make a VHD and a VDI of the old windows installation; those are probably locked. If windows throws a fit after finding itself an OS under another OS, I’ll buy a key if I have to.

The original windows installation is no more. I had Manjaro Installer erase it. I figure if I can follow instruction on the internet then I can do just about anything.

Also all the the time I spent making dosz for pure files has completely eradicated any fear of command-line.

Back to to the matter of the playlist files, is there a linux equivalent to removing the drive letter in file path? It’s not the easiest subject to search for.

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#5

What was the path before and what do you want it to be after? You replace text in files with the sed tool. Like:

sed 's|C:\old\path\|/new/path/|g' playlist.lpl

Which will print the changes. If it looks good, you can actually modify the file with:

sed -i 's|C:\old\path\|/new/path/|g' playlist.lpl

This will save a backup to playlist.lpl.orig.

#6

Can’t you disable “Fast Startup” in Windows power settings (“Choose what the power buttons do”) to avoid this?

#7

If you deleted Windows, you don’t have to worry, that’s when that system accesses the disk.
If you are going to use Linux only, I recommend formatting the disks with a native system.

This really made me laugh. :grimacing:
Welcome to Linux.

nope… Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing that can be done. :pensive:

#8

In most cases it will probably the completely typical D:\\Emulation\\Games\\*system nickname*\\*file* to /run/media/*user name*/My Passport/Emulation/Games/*system nickname*/*file*. Most cases, but not all.

By “removing the drive letter in file path” I’m referring to something I’m fairly certain I learned at the bottom of https://networkencyclopedia.com/relative-path/.

For example my Alisia Dragoon entry looks like this

{
      "path": "\\Emulation\\Games\\Genesis Games\\Alisia Dragoon (USA).md",
      "label": "Alisia Dragoon (USA)",
      "core_path": "D:\\Emulation\\RetroArch\\cores\\genesis_plus_gx_libretro.dll",
      "core_name": "Sega - MS/GG/MD/CD (Genesis Plus GX)",
      "crc32": "00000000|crc",
      "db_name": "Sega - Mega Drive - Genesis.lpl"
    },

Notice the missing “D:”? Without the drive letter the file is found in whatever drive RetroArch is running from. Alisia Dragoon is one of my favorite games for testing shader configs on genesis, so I can vouch for the “portable” file path’s efficacy.

Despite this, I stopped bothering to remove the drive letter. Even with notepad++ to help clean up en masse afterwards It was still part my regular procedure to remove the drive letter while making the entry… in the desktop menu. And that became tedious.
There might have also been some cases where relative file path didn’t work all the time. But it was mostly just tedium, so I stopped.

@hunterk, if there aren’t any actual problems with it, then there should be an option in windows version somewhere to change generated file paths from “absolute” to “relative”.

I don’t think I have to worry about the OS assigning the wrong drive letter with LInux, but it’s file paths seem to contain the drive’s model… at least by default. The files together with the drive would be portable, but if the drive itself changes something would need to be edited. Thus I asked if Linux has anything in kind.

Since I was willing to let my windows playlist entries have the “D:” I’m not too worried. It’s just that these are things that I and any other external hard drive enthusiast making the jump and/or lurking this topic ought to know.

Also, given that some of my playlists have a mix of absolute and relative paths in addition to the differences in slashes, how awesome is sed going to be here?

#9

Well, there is a different option in RA that’s supposed to help with making playlist portable:

Settings->Playlists->Portable Playlists

I’m not sure how it works and I haven’t used this myself, but it kinda sounds like what you want?

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#10

How the hack did I never notice this for several years.