Kodi with emulation packages

monr0e · 2024-04-20 23:38:25

I'm attempting to build a boxen with the capability of playing emulated games in addition to media playback. I'm having some trouble getting... well, anything working. I am mainly focused on Playstation emulation - Xenia is, unfortunately, a pipe dream and probably wouldn't work on this hardware anyway.

Platform: Arch Linux, dated within the last month or so
Hardware: recent-gen i3, no legacy boot support (grumble grumble), 8gb ram, mostly managed over SSH but with the possibility of direct terminal access after a fashion. This is a generic boxen bought from a store.

So far, I've managed to get Retroarch to launch, which required killing kodi and gdm. After launch, the emulator did not respond to inputs from either a controller or the keyboard. After logging in via SSH and killing the process, I noted that the TTY behind the emulator had intercepted all keyboard inputs for some reason. Launching the emulator from SSH resulted in the same issue. Attempting to launch while Kodi and gdm are active results in a xorg error. I also tried both Advanced Launcher, and Advanced Mame Launcher - but documentation on creating custom launchers is non-existent at present, and I have no idea how to launch an emulator from within them without using their own existing plugins. I also tried to get Swanstation to work through Retroarch, but AKL could not detect it and attempting to launch it from terminal with args resulted in no significant change in behaviour. I have also attempted psx-reloaded as a standalone emulator, but this dropped a bunch of issues into journalctl and promptly stopped.

Caveats:
- The media centre relies on a standalone package which launches Kodi on boot. This is provided by kodi-standalone-service package (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/kodi … ne-service), although it is installed in combination with v20, not v21
- The window manager in place is GDM. It is launched with the service unit provided by kodi-standalone-service, not the normal GDM unit. This unit is demonstrated here: https://github.com/graysky2/kodi-standa … bm.service
- The emulator can not stop the kodi-gbm service. Doing so breaks system integration, meaning kodi cannot send shutdown or reboot signals when the service is restarted.
- I prefer a non MAME solution, but if this is unavoidable... well, so be it.
- The emulator must have physical disc support alongside ROM support - I have a collection of discs that I'd prefer not to have to rip myself.
- This is an x86 system, so stuff like reARMed is probably not going to work.

Burning issues:
- The standalone service package requires a semi-existent nopasswd user to be created. The user has no real home directory, although I have created one in some attempts to provide configuration for the emulator. It has no .bashrc file at present. This is also the only user that can seemingly access the screen, which may present an issue. I could possibly create some configuration for this user, but it is possible that doing so will break the kodi-standalone-service package.
- I can't update to v21 at the moment, because a number of addons I rely on for things like library ordering and beautification have no candidates for v21 yet. I can usually find packages from archives if necessary - btw, where did all the package stuff for v20 go? The repo doesn't seem to contain anything for nexus anymore, which is kinda annoying.

Any advice on what I should try next? I ask because what documentation exists seems focused primarily on either ARM platforms in general, LibreELEC in particular, or platforms other than Arch Linux.

Last edited by monr0e (2024-04-20 23:39:33)

Lone_Wolf · 2024-04-21 11:06:57

GDM is not a window manager but a display / login manager . You probably meant GBM which is also not a window manager.

The service starts kodi instead of plasma, gnome, lxqt , openbox, xfce, hyprland etc which results in kodi having to manage everything .
(The gbm suggests kodi runs on the underlying protocol used by wayland with kodi replacing wayland.)

It looks very much like kodi standalone is not suitable for your purpose.

I'm attempting to build a boxen with the capability of playing emulated games in addition to media playback

Please elaborate on that.

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2024-04-21 11:08:11)

monr0e · 2024-04-22 03:06:55

You might be right, I don't keep up with all the differences too well. I'm somewhat used to xfce/xfwm and occasionally compiz or kwin. I don't know about Wayland, though - I installed xorg most definitely, although loginctl seems to think the session is a TTY session? take a look: https://paste.debian.net/1314778/ - for clarification, the kodi user is the account that the standalone service runs under, the media user is the user with which I login to ssh or tty.

Anyway, the point behind the standalone service is that I don't really want to have to fuck around with a keyboard or logging in or any other nonsense like that. I simply want the machine to power on and boot straight in to kodi. I'd also prefer to avoid any logos or splash screens - the one for Kodi is quite enough. There's also a secondary point - launching Kodi from the standalone service like this allows Kodi to send shutdown and restart commands. Having to grab a keyboard and ssh in just to restart is not something I want to mess around with.

Elaboration:
This is my media centre. It needs to play videos and streamed television (I will get around to installing terrestrial functionality later). That is it's primary function, but I also want to be able to play emulated playstation games on it. I'd like to launch those games preferably from within Kodi, but launching the emulator proper and then launching the game is fine too. Regardless, I'd prefer not to have to mess around with closing Kodi first.

V1del · 2024-04-22 14:28:52

Technically kodi can have libretro integration itself, not sure how integrated this is on Arch/in general but this could be an option, see e.g. for a selection on the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages?O=0& … &submit=Go

But IMO the best way to go about this without relying on something like that would be to use a minimal Window manager where you configure shortcuts to start/switch between kodi and retroarch.

Last edited by V1del (2024-04-22 14:30:22)

monr0e · 2024-04-23 18:13:08

Yes, this is what I was attempting with retroarch. You might be right about loading some sort of WM other than what is already in place. Are there any up to date window managers/compositors around that don't have dependencies on DE packages? I'd go with kwin but I'm not interested in installing anything from plasma on this particular machine. Maybe compiz idk. Still have to salve the passwordless auto-login and the autostarting of kodi, though - and then find a way to fix what doing this breaks, which is being able to shutdown or restart the machine from within kodi's own menu... among many other things.

Lone_Wolf · 2024-04-24 11:13:47

NOTE : assuming X11

passwordless autologin : use a drop-in file for getty service, see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Getty# … al_console

you should also look into https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xinit# … X_at_login
Note: works best with systemd default boot target set to multi-user, not graphical .

autostarting kodi : put it in ~/.xinitrc .

Shutting down / restarting from kodi mneu : https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_ … o_shutdown
(you may need to configure polkit) .

Compositors are in my opinion overrated, simple WM's are better .
Look at openbox, fvwm, twm, i3 , icewm etc.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-04-20 23:38:25

Kodi with emulation packages

#2 2024-04-21 11:06:57

Re: Kodi with emulation packages

#3 2024-04-22 03:06:55

Re: Kodi with emulation packages

#4 2024-04-22 14:28:52

Re: Kodi with emulation packages

#5 2024-04-23 18:13:08

Re: Kodi with emulation packages

#6 2024-04-24 11:13:47

Re: Kodi with emulation packages

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