Post by wryly on Aug 27, 2017 18:18:43 GMT
As there are a lot of strange questions still remaining (how do you get x or y to run? etc), I decided to get out of my depth a bit.
The problem with this kind of hobbyist stuff like emulation and Linux generally is that it's not very accommodating to those of us who are functionally technical idiots like myself, and I have reverse engineered custom BASIC programs and re-written them for programmed automation, as well as worked with (on a very shallow level) stuff from BBC machine code, CPM, DOS, Unix and about a dozen varieties of Linux. That said, I really don't know too much about all this stuff and as a use it or lose it kind of guy, I've probably forgotten more than I'll ever know again. The problem I've always found about this stuff is that even when the hobbyists try to give 'basic' instructions about how to fix something, they expect you to have a fairly good working knowledge to start with.
"How do I get this controller recognised?"
"Oh that's simple, you just need to compile a script that says......"<my eyes start to glaze over>
Over on the users group at Facebook, we're lucky to have RetrOrangePi developers giving us good advice and guidance about things, but there are so many questions and as a natural fiddler, I can't help mess around with the things that present themselves to me. I've been fiddling. I can't say that I've noticed any benefits yet, but here's what I did. If anyone else has tried it and not had the accident I'll mention later, please add to this thread. It may help idiots like myself learn something.
I'm running RetrOrangePi 3. On the Retropie menu, there's a RetroPi Setup selection. In there there's a selection to update installed packages. No one was looking, so I selected it.
Initially, I thought that it wasn't going to do anything as it said that a 'github' link was invalid (or something of the like, I'm going from memory here). I hit the OK to continue, but the it did start to do things.
It looks like the basic image is about 8 months old, so there have been component updates and it started to download them.
After about 30-45 minutes, I was invited to interact. I didn't really know what to do with the information it gave me, so I opted to just continue with everything.
A couple of hours later, it was still going. I went to the pub.
Cut to 6 hours later, it was still going. I wandered back in with a coffee and some toast to see what it was up to. I caught the cable of a controller between my toes in the darkened room, and in one step, pulled the RES of the stand and disconnected the power cable. After turning the air momentarily blue, I plugged it back in and it booted OK. I tested a couple of games. All was still well.
Before going to bed, I set it off again.
In the morning I had a bit more button pressing to do, but it was soon over. I rebooted. It still worked, but I noticed there was more text on screen before it went into an emulation.
I decided to run the updates again, to see if there was anything left to do. In amongst the scrolling text on the previous attempt, I'd seen than some things had failed, so what the hell?
That was all some hours ago. It's still going. I expect that it will still work on completion, but wonder if anything will work better.
I'm also going to try out a whole new operating system on it that sounds very interesting. I'll report back on that and give full instructions for it, if it works out.
Well, the upshot of that is that it spent a long time trying and failing to update things. The only 'damage' I've done is that it will not shutdown through software any more, but simply reboots.
I guess my failed fiddling is inconclusive. Maybe if someone tried it without kicking the power cable out in the middle of things, they would get different results. If anyone tries it, please let the rest of us know how you got on. Did it do anything useful?
The problem with this kind of hobbyist stuff like emulation and Linux generally is that it's not very accommodating to those of us who are functionally technical idiots like myself, and I have reverse engineered custom BASIC programs and re-written them for programmed automation, as well as worked with (on a very shallow level) stuff from BBC machine code, CPM, DOS, Unix and about a dozen varieties of Linux. That said, I really don't know too much about all this stuff and as a use it or lose it kind of guy, I've probably forgotten more than I'll ever know again. The problem I've always found about this stuff is that even when the hobbyists try to give 'basic' instructions about how to fix something, they expect you to have a fairly good working knowledge to start with.
"How do I get this controller recognised?"
"Oh that's simple, you just need to compile a script that says......"<my eyes start to glaze over>
Over on the users group at Facebook, we're lucky to have RetrOrangePi developers giving us good advice and guidance about things, but there are so many questions and as a natural fiddler, I can't help mess around with the things that present themselves to me. I've been fiddling. I can't say that I've noticed any benefits yet, but here's what I did. If anyone else has tried it and not had the accident I'll mention later, please add to this thread. It may help idiots like myself learn something.
I'm running RetrOrangePi 3. On the Retropie menu, there's a RetroPi Setup selection. In there there's a selection to update installed packages. No one was looking, so I selected it.
Initially, I thought that it wasn't going to do anything as it said that a 'github' link was invalid (or something of the like, I'm going from memory here). I hit the OK to continue, but the it did start to do things.
It looks like the basic image is about 8 months old, so there have been component updates and it started to download them.
After about 30-45 minutes, I was invited to interact. I didn't really know what to do with the information it gave me, so I opted to just continue with everything.
A couple of hours later, it was still going. I went to the pub.
Cut to 6 hours later, it was still going. I wandered back in with a coffee and some toast to see what it was up to. I caught the cable of a controller between my toes in the darkened room, and in one step, pulled the RES of the stand and disconnected the power cable. After turning the air momentarily blue, I plugged it back in and it booted OK. I tested a couple of games. All was still well.
Before going to bed, I set it off again.
In the morning I had a bit more button pressing to do, but it was soon over. I rebooted. It still worked, but I noticed there was more text on screen before it went into an emulation.
I decided to run the updates again, to see if there was anything left to do. In amongst the scrolling text on the previous attempt, I'd seen than some things had failed, so what the hell?
That was all some hours ago. It's still going. I expect that it will still work on completion, but wonder if anything will work better.
I'm also going to try out a whole new operating system on it that sounds very interesting. I'll report back on that and give full instructions for it, if it works out.
Well, the upshot of that is that it spent a long time trying and failing to update things. The only 'damage' I've done is that it will not shutdown through software any more, but simply reboots.
I guess my failed fiddling is inconclusive. Maybe if someone tried it without kicking the power cable out in the middle of things, they would get different results. If anyone tries it, please let the rest of us know how you got on. Did it do anything useful?
