RetroPie / Rasplex Dual-Boot Image

[smithers]

Hi.

Hope you don’t mind a separate post for this but I felt it would get lost and be out of sight in my Retropie / KODI post.

So here is a link to my Rasplex / RetroPie dual-boot installer:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1ZwtIpB1lqZUXQ5eHZ0RGNuN1E/view?usp=sharing

And a video of it in action:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFP6THVNLWY

It uses NOOBS to install both partitions and provides seamless switching between both operating systems. I created a Plex theme and designed a Rasplex logo myself, as the ones I found on the net didn’t quite fit right in Emulation Station.

Its worth noting that Rasplex, whilst fundamentally based on OpenELEC, does not contain all the same functionality as OpenELEC does, in fact OpenELEC can directly use ‘Bash’ scripts where Rasplex uses ‘Python’. This means that the script I created to switch over to RetroPie from within Rasplex is not as ‘fancy’ as the script I made for use in KODI (OpenELEC). It still does its job, and does it fine, but there is no message displayed or anything like that, its just a case of clicking on ‘Games’ and you boot straight into RetroPie, as shown in the video. Nothing wrong with that, just not as snazzy as I would have liked. :geek:

Please read the readme file for full instructions on how to install etc. but in case you are the type who doesn’t read readme files then please [b]do not change the skin in Rasplex!! [/b]If you change the skin from ‘Aeon’ which I have purposely set then you will lose the script to boot into RetroPie and be stuck in Rasplex for everrrrrrrr….

Anyway – I hope you find this useful. There are no other alternatives to Rasplex dual-booting as far as I can see, so this is probably your only option! :shock: Please let me know how you fair but bare in mind I know nothing about Rasplex so I won’t be able to answer any general usage related questions. :oops:

All the best.
Steve

[lilbud]

Awesome, you also said something about a triple boot with Retropie, Raspbian, and openelec, is that going to be like that miniemu kickstarter a couple months back?

[smithers]

Hmmm, I didn’t see any mention of Raspbian in that video? But yea, I am working on a triple boot build and will release it soon as I have ironed out a few kinks. No Kickstarter will be involved or anything like that, just a link to download and install.

[herbfargus]

[quote=106098]Awesome, you also said something about a triple boot with Retropie, Raspbian, and openelec, is that going to be like that miniemu kickstarter a couple months back?

[/quote]

Except smithers isn’t a greedy dirtbag that prostitutes the work of others for his own financial gain and smithers actually knows what he’s doing.

Good work smithers. You’re a stand up chap.

[grizzlema]

Smithers,

You once again provide good products! I had my doubts of what the Aeon Skin would look like on the plex build since the XBMCplex addon is kinda garbage, but this is really clean looking. You really must stop coming out with all these different builds b/c its takes me to long to setup my retropie each time.

Any plans on a Retropie/Rasplex/Openelec build?
I might tinker with what you have released now. to add in the third booti just need to find the boot partion number for each after it gets installed through noobs and make the scripts?

[smithers]

[quote=106100]

lilbud wrote:

Awesome, you also said something about a triple boot with Retropie, Raspbian, and openelec, is that going to be like that miniemu kickstarter a couple months back?

Except smithers isn’t a greedy dirtbag that prostitutes the work of others for his own financial gain and smithers actually knows what he’s doing.

Good work smithers. You’re a stand up chap.

[/quote]

Thanks Herbfargus. :) I believe in sharing with the community and not withholding information which I think can only lead to bigger and better things for everyone, myself included. Already there are folks commenting on how they are modding their own builds now off their own back, which means they are taking the time to learn Linux and the Pi in general, which in fairness is the Pi’s goal – a learning tool. :)

I take it ‘Kickstarter guy’ wasn’t very popular around these parts then? I can certainly understand why. I think its fair enough to offer something for sale if it is something special and all your own doing, but if all you are doing is building upon the (vast) foundations of others hard work and putting your badge on then its just not cricket.

[smithers]

[quote=106114]Smithers,

You once again provide good products! I had my doubts of what the Aeon Skin would look like on the plex build since the XBMCplex addon is kinda garbage, but this is really clean looking. You really must stop coming out with all these different builds b/c its takes me to long to setup my retropie each time.

Any plans on a Retropie/Rasplex/Openelec build?
I might tinker with what you have released now. to add in the third booti just need to find the boot partion number for each after it gets installed through noobs and make the scripts?

[/quote]

Yeah I think it looks fine. I too had my doubts when I was building it because of my lack of knowledge of Plex. When I set it up and was presented with a black screen with 4 options I thought… hmmm.. this is not good! I persevered and registered for a Plex account and as it transpires the thing comes alive once you set it all up and looks good!

I have heard a few people calling for a Triple-Boot with Plex and KODI alongside RetroPie and it should be pretty straightforward. You are right in that all you need to know is the partition numbers really, but you will only know these once you have set it up ‘blind’ for the first time. Then you can create a new ‘autoboot.txt’ (or amend existing) for each partition, create a new script for each partition (by copying my existing scripts), assign the script to a menu item in Plex / KODI and away you go! I will create a triple-boot myself though too, just as soon as I am finished with the Raspbian triple boot.

I have setup my Emulation Station theme to cater for Rasplex, KODI, OSMC & Rasbian so I will upload it into the ‘Themes’ section on this site for those who like to tinker with these OS’s.

[grizzlema]

So far i got it mostly working, i only have an issue with going from openelec to rasplex. i made a new autobootrasplex.txt and copied the games.sh and modified it to cp the autobootraplex.txt, configured the menu items extacly like the games menu was, i can change picutres and sounds later. However when i go to the submenu and try to launch rasplex it freezes openelec and i have to ssh into it and reboot it.
any thoughts?

[smithers]

Hmm… Hard for me to say without seeing your scripts and autoboot files. Can you post the contents of the files please and I will try and help.

[grizzlema]

Here is my rasplex.sh contents

#!/bin/bash

kodi-send --action="Notification(RASPLEX,Launching Rasplex!,4000,/storage/ss/icon.jpg)"

cd ~
mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 noobs
cp ~/ss/autobootrasplex.txt ~/noobs/autoboot.txt

sleep 2

cd ~/ss/
kodi-send --action="PlayMedia(/storage/ss/13.wav)"

sleep 1

reboot

i went into “System” “Skin Settings” Home window and changed Custom 1 to Rasplex, put a rasplex picture for the background, made the default selection action the same fakescript, and made the submenue name Launch Rasplex and custom shorcut to the rasplex.sh file. I gave the .sh 777 rights

so i got rid of the kodi send stuff and only left the commands to cp the autoboot and it works.

[sublim3]

Can I load my own version of RetroPie or is your specific to use this? Were there ALOT of config changes for this to work with Rasplex?

[darksavior]

I’m new to rasplex so maybe i’m not finding it…but how do you configure wifi on this? The rasplex faq I found refers to settings that don’t exist on this build. I’ve gone through everywhere in the Settings section. Nothing about configuring network/wifi..

[sublim3]

I can confirm this. I have not been able to find any settings in this RasPlex build to get this working with my wifi dongle. The RetroPie 3.0 build works fine with my wifi dongle and had an easy configuration in settings. Any help would be great!

[smithers]

R.e WiFi Config

I am not familiar at all with Rasplex as I don’t use it – I have only breifly used it to set up this image. It could well be that the Aeon skin I used does not include the necessary link to the wifi settings, but it won’t have been deleted. I will re-install and try to investigate at some point, but in the meantime you could try switching skins back to the original skin temporarily and setting up your WiFi in the normal manner then switch straight back to Aeon. That should work fine and you shouldn’t lose the games menu I added (no guarantees – I have never tested this but there is no reason why it would remove my custom games menu).

Please let me know if this works.

[smithers]

[quote=106948]Can I load my own version of RetroPie or is your specific to use this? Were there ALOT of config changes for this to work with Rasplex?

[/quote]

You could load your own version of RetroPie yes, no problem. You would only need to add in a ‘Rasplex’ theme and script (or just add the script into the ‘ports’ section, whatever your preference is I guess).

You would need to create a tarball of your RetroPie setup though of course. This isn’t hard if you have a linux PC available to use, but you will have to experiment to get the final ‘.tar.xz’ file-size down to less than 4GB (it is a limitation of the ‘FAT 32’ file format that NOOBS requires). That means you’d need to remove some roms, if you have a ton on there.

I have my own personal full backup of RetroPie that I can install via NOOBS and it has a ton of roms pre-loaded for MAME, SNES, Megadrive, Master System, PC Engine, Gameboy Colour, GameBoy Advance, Spectrum, C64, Amiga, 32x, Wonderswan, NES, Ports, along with screenshots etc. and when compressed it is under 4GB. I had to remove FBA, ScummVM and PSX games as the folders were just too big to include, but its easy enough to add back in again as I back up all my roms on my NAS drive.

[grizzlema]

You can always configure your wifi settings through command line. that is what i did when i couldnt find the menu. Since rasplex is based on openelec framework you can search openelec forums on how to manually configure the wifi settings.

Here is the link i used to manually configure my rasplex wifi:

https://gist.github.com/maoueh/8260199

[darksavior]

ok, I switched back to default theme in rasplex and managed to find the wifi config there. yay. I switched back to aeon theme np.

Can the retropie shortcut from aeon be installed through the default theme? That would simplify things so I won’t need to go back and forth just to tweak extra settings that aren’t in aeon.

[smithers]

[quote=107353]ok, I switched back to default theme in rasplex and managed to find the wifi config there. yay. I switched back to aeon theme np.

Can the retropie shortcut from aeon be installed through the default theme? That would simplify things so I won’t need to go back and forth just to tweak extra settings that aren’t in aeon.

[/quote]

Hi, sorry for the delay in replying. Glad you got sorted.

Unfortunately there is no way to edit the default theme, or I would have done that. If ever I build a new RetroPie / RasPlex build then I will be sure to add in a WiFi setup option though.

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