This is a buildroot based system for the Raspberry Pi focused on libretro emulation and fast booting. Currently there is only support for RetroArch and a Pocketsnes fork, ARMSNES, but it is reasonably simple to add more packages. The base image boots to EmulationStation in about 3 seconds, or in my case less time than it takes for my TV to wake up :)
If you just want to try out the base image without bothering to build anything, there are some file system images available on the releases page. Try the following:
- Download the bootfs.tar.gz and rootfs.tar.gz images.
- Get an SD card and create 2 partitions, one small (eg 32MB) bootable FAT32 partition, and another root partition with the filesystem of your choice.
- Write the images to your SD card using
sudo tar xzf bootfs.tar.gz -C /mnt/mntpointbootand similarly for the root partition. - Copy some SNES ROMS to
/mnt/mntpointroot/usr/share/roms. - Put the card in your pi and take it for a spin,,,
The buildroot system is large but fairly straightforward. You should check out the gory details in the buildroot manual if you are interested, but if you only want to select different packages just do a make menuconfig in the root directory and pick what you want, then a make. Hey presto.
If you want to add some packages, you should check section 7 in the manual, it is a slightly involved process. Executive summary:
- Create a folder for the package in the
packagefolder. - Add a
Config.inandmypackage.mkfile (this is the tricky part). - Edit the
package/Config.infile to add your package in the correct section. - Run
make menuconfigand pick your new package in the menu, thenmake. - After fixing about 1000000 build errors, you should finally have your package, happy days.
There are some more detailed installation instructions on the wiki.
If you add any more libretro cores or any other interesting packages, just send a pull request and I'll merge them in. boom.