[ALL IN ONE] Ultimate Raspbian - XBMC, Gaming, Desktop

[Takenover83]

A while back I read about a image called Ultimate Raspbian. It included Raspbian, RetroPie, XBMC, etc... But a release never surfaced. But I loved the idea of it. So I set out to build it myself with some more stuff thrown in.



Minimal LXDE install
XBMC (Frodo 12.2)
RetroPie (boots into EmulationStation)
Quake III Arena (just add pak files)

You boot into EmulationStation. From there you can choose what you want to do. Want to watch media? Load up XBMC. Want to switch to something else? Just quit out of XBMC and you are thrown back into EmulationStation. Want to surf the web? Load up LXDE. Logout and you are thrown back into EmulationStation. No rom's are included for legal reasons. Feel free to add your own to the correct directories (/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/). I compiled Quake III Arena myself, with a custom patch to disable AA, for more FPS. Just add your PAK files to the proper directory (/home/pi/q3a/baseq3).

LIRC is enabled on boot. Just add your own lircd.conf to (/etc/lirc/).

You will need atleast a 4GB card to use this image.
Download - Ultimate Raspbian [700MB]

The first thing you need to do after mapping keys for EmulationStation on first boot, is to hit F4 to exit it. Run "sudo raspi-config" to expand your file system, set regional settings, etc..

Username = pi
Password = raspberry

Gpu memory is set to 128, and it is OC'ed to 900/450/450/2). If you do not want the overclock, then edit (/boot/config.txt).

Enjoy!

[dan3008]

Nice. I was looking at doing something like this a while back. Think i might have to get back to it, make my smart TV at last lol

[geejay25]

I just tried your all in one image on my 8gb SD card and I'm getting black screen after "ultimate raspbian" splash screen.

EDIT: I tried this image on another 4 GB and it booted into emustation fine.

[Takenover83]

Can some test this for me? Worked on 2 of my SD cards, but my brother could not get it to boot. I need to know if it was a error on his part or my image. Thanks. He says he just got a blackscreen after splash. Usually after splash, you should only see black screen 10-15 seconds.

VERSION 2.1
http://www.mediafire.com/?uliyjfygyyh46yj

[mistertml]

Hi

is it possible to change the boot order so that it loads XBMC first?

[Takenover83]

The list order in emulationstation? I am actually not sure how emulationstation decides the order.

[mistertml]

Hi

What I mean was that I would like XBMC to load first instead of Emulation Station if that is possible.

[Takenover83]

Yes, it is possible but kinda defeat's the purpose of the setup. If you load XBMC first, emulationstation will not be loaded. When you exit XBMC, you would be at the terminal.

First you need to disable emulationstation loading on boot. You can do this in the Retropie script.

Code: Select all

sudo /home/pi/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh

Choose option #3 (Setup), then option #4 (Start emulation Station on boot?), and then option #1 (Original boot behavior).

Then you need to enable xbmc on boot.

Code: Select all

sudo nano /etc/default/xbmc

Change "ENABLED=0" to "ENABLED=1"
Crtl+x and y to save.

[mistertml]

Hi

Thanks for that.

I take it we cant load retropie from xbmc?

Thanks for your help

[Takenover83]

I believe not. You would want to exit XBMC anyway (not leave it running in the background), as those emulator's need all the resources they can get. You ofcourse, can exit XBMC and start emulationstation from the terminal.

[PiIsSquare]

Hi all, I recently downloaded and installed the image for ultimate raspbian. A few things got me as soon as i tried to do anything
I have all of my add ons working in xbmc accept onechannel. I di a few of the fixes for the onechannel add on and it still gave me the failed script error. I was using raspbmc this morning and the onechannel add on was working fine. Any ideas as to why it wont work in the ultimate raspbian image?

Nevermind, it wasnt an os problem it was within 1channel, everything is running smoothly now. Great job

[wanderingmind25]

Nice! I cant wait to give it a shot. I've been working on building this very thing for myself but yours may be cleaner.

[nidas]

Can some test this for me? Worked on 2 of my SD cards, but my brother could not get it to boot. I need to know if it was a error on his part or my image. Thanks. He says he just got a blackscreen after splash. Usually after splash, you should only see black screen 10-15 seconds.

VERSION 2.1
http://www.mediafire.com/?uliyjfygyyh46yj

I tried with the version 2.1 image and I get the black screen after the splash with my 8gb card.

[Phill Rymer]

I have the same problem with image 2
on image 1 when I exit xbmc it goes balnk the boots back into xbmc cant get back to desktop or emulater any idea why please

[Mikumiku747]

This looks very cool, but can I ask, will it run OK at low resolutions? I'm making (another) portable raspberry pi, and don't want to spend 30 mins downloading it if it looks bad on a small screen. Otherwise, I'll use this as my gaming card, for my portable pi.

[wanderingmind25]

Little late to the party but yeah soon as i boot your version 2.1 I see a ultimate raspbian splash screen then blank screen. I have a 16GB SDcard with a rev.B PI.

[19misiek88]

Hi
could be used something like this to choose what I want to run

https://github.com/dweeber/bootmenu

[dnormX]

Okay so!!

I've installed all the things, seems to be working! Yay me! My Sabrent USB Game Controller seems to play my chosen rom just fine so all is well on that front.

NOW! Would it be possible, supposing anyone with knowledge of such things still reads this, for me to configure XBMC to be controlled by that same Sabrent USB controller? If so how? I'm smart, but still very new to Linux in general so please be gentle with my brain.

D

[stunner2002]

Can some test this for me? Worked on 2 of my SD cards, but my brother could not get it to boot. I need to know if it was a error on his part or my image. Thanks. He says he just got a blackscreen after splash. Usually after splash, you should only see black screen 10-15 seconds.

Same problem like your brother got. Now copying version from #1 post. I'm going to install rPlay under LXDE to have a AirPlay Server. If everythink works correct I got a AppleTV with EmulatorStation and XBMC - **** YEAH

[retropie_n00b]

Hello

First: THANK YOU! All this hard work for the benefit of others. Truly inspiring

I am having a bit of problems with my setup. I successfully got it installed on a SD card (the one I was supplied had NOOBS and I formatted to flash the img... but it never worked So I just bought another SD card and it worked...)

Anyway, the TV I am using seems to cut off the sides of your screen. I cannot adjust it. Would you be able to:

a) Tell me exactly what words are being asked when setting up the controllers (in my case SNES)
b) Tell me how to reset it so that it asks me to configure my controller (and I also forgot to press F4)
c) Tell me exactly what words esconfig asks (this was a bit easier but still too much was cut off) and how to reset it as I cannot redo it.

Thanks I hope it isn't too much of a bother.

[retropie_n00b]

Hello again

Well it looks like I've been successful. I realised that the initial config questions for controls were just for the Emulator Station and not for the (SNES) joystick Mind you, I had to reverse-engineer the actual buttons as what it asked me to map seemed to be completely wrong in the config file. Very strange but everything is solved. Just took a while

Mind you, I have now run into another error which is more serious. I have put a number of SNES roms that work on my linux computer using zsnes but they do not work on the pi. Some do though! In fact, the first 5 games work and the rest do not. I found it a bit peculiar that the first five worked and nothing else so I removed the top game and only the first 4 worked. So it must have been one heck of a coincidence?

The error I get after pressing F4 is the same for all games, whether they work or not! It reads:
Retroarch [WARN] :: system_directory is not set in config. Assuming system directory is same folder as game: "/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/".

For those that do not work, these two lines appear afterward:
[???ibretro]: Rom loading failed
Retroarch [ERROR] :: Failed to load game.

The ??? is unreadable as the screen is still cut off on the left and on the right. I looked around for solutions but I could not find any Some roms work, most do not (but they all work on my linux laptop under zsnes) Any ideas?

[retropie_n00b]

I fixed the problem by:

1) reflashing the img
2a) putting the roms on before inserting it into the pi
2b) kept the roms in zipped format for SNES instead of in smc format! There were sum check fails with unzipped smc files
3) started up the pi

Wanted to post the solution if anyone else had these problems I am still having some errors in the ROM for pi for Star Ocean while the same ROM plays perfectly on my linux machine. All it shows are fuzzy boxes. That will be the next issue to tackle

[sparksthehuman]

Hi,
This is exactly what I'm looking for. I can't wait to get it working.
The issue I'm having is that when I boot up for the first time, I eventually arrive at "press button on the device for player one". But it doesn't recognize that I have any input device plugged in. I was hoping to use my logitech gamepad, but I'm willing to purchase a different one if need be. I also tried two different wireless keyboards. One is the Rii mini keyboard and the other is just a GE full-sized keyboard. Can anyone tell me what I'm missing here?
Again, simply, my keyboards and my gamepad are not being seen, it appears.
Thanks

Update: I was able to get it to detect my keyboard. Still can't get it to detect input from my logitech gamepad though. I see it recognized in the checks performed on boot, but the buttons don't register. Any suggestions?

[buguibu]

I'm other happy raspimaniac that had found the right distro! Thanks so much for the job!

I've just installed a PiTft touch screen but not 100% working:

1. No "/dev/input/touchscreen" file

• By the moment, i'm only able to use launching it by the console using "EXPORTBUFFER0/dev/fb1"

My linux knowledges are few , i'm lucky of having reached this point, anyone wants help me? Not telling me the exactly commands, but any kind of clue or guide for understanding, troubleshoting and being able to run this Ultimate Raspbian on that lovely tiny touchscreen will be eternally thankfully.

[sparksthehuman]

I gave up on my logitech gamepad and bought a ps2 to usb converter (you can find them on Amazon), so I'm now using an old Playstation 2 controller, which is recognized, although it does seem to cause several errors to appear during boot. :/
The problem I'm having now is that I can't use WinSCP to add roms. Actually, the problem is that the pi isn't connecting to the network, probably because I'm using a usb wireless adapter; I'm guessing it's not recognized and/or needs drivers??? This same dongle is plug+play with Xbian, once I enable wireless in the xbmc settings, but I'm not sure of the process for getting it working with Ultimate Raspbian. Part of the problem is that I'm not sure which settings to edit. Do I change things in the config.txt (nothing pertaining to wifi there, from what I can see) or in raspbian's settings? Or emulation station? Or retropie? All of the above? I found this link: https://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse and thought I would try to follow the instructions there, but I'm not sure if I'm on the right path.
Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks