L4T Ubuntu - A fully featured linux on your switch

Silent_Gunner · May 22, 2019

Silent_Gunner said:
Alright, I got everything updated, upgraded, some games transferred (not everything I'd like to test, but what I have will do for now), and my Joy-Cons are paired...but it seems like it isn't detected by RA or Ubuntu itself if what I've heard about the Joy-Cons controlling the mouse is any indication. I know RA, upon loading it up, has some error message I can't quite read entirely because it disappears too quickly for me to maximize the window, but it was something like, "Joy-Cons aren't connected," from what I saw and could make an educated guess about what it's saying. Is anyone else having this problem? I know I'm late to the L4T train, but this thing came out at a time when I was busy. (still am, but it's not "college finals and trying to avoid Endgame spoilers busy") Not even pushing the buttons while the Joy-Cons are attached in portable mode will keep the screen from falling asleep.

I hate to do this, but bump.

Ninn · May 22, 2019

bylaws said:
no need, shutdown already works fully from just unity shutdown button

It does shutdown properly in handheld mode with AutoRCM enabled , but goes back to RCM if you do it while docked.

Silent_Gunner · May 22, 2019

OK, got the controller configured (because how dare you expect at least the basics to be configured like they are in Windows and RetroPie? I guess Linux is just different). But I'm confused. Everyone is raving on about the performance of RetroArch on this, and it's struggling to run even SNES9X (latest version), let alone the xmb menu at full speed with no frame drops! Hell, I loaded up Super Castlevania 4 and it was just giving me a black screen with the FPS reading 30!

Are there a bunch of updates and other things that need to be downloaded before Ubuntu unleashes its full potential on the Switch? Because I have spent the past day trying to get this to work and deal with other shit on the side unrelated and I'm honestly kind of exhausted especially given I'm not gonna be able to look at this again until I get back home from work tonight, hence why I'm more impatient atm.

Deathscreton · May 22, 2019

Silent_Gunner said:
OK, got the controller configured (because how dare you expect at least the basics to be configured like they are in Windows and RetroPie? I guess Linux is just different). But I'm confused. Everyone is raving on about the performance of RetroArch on this, and it's struggling to run even SNES9X (latest version), let alone the xmb menu at full speed with no frame drops! Hell, I loaded up Super Castlevania 4 and it was just giving me a black screen with the FPS reading 30!

Are there a bunch of updates and other things that need to be downloaded before Ubuntu unleashes its full potential on the Switch? Because I have spent the past day trying to get this to work and deal with other shit on the side unrelated and I'm honestly kind of exhausted especially given I'm not gonna be able to look at this again until I get back home from work tonight, hence why I'm more impatient atm.

Few questions:

1. Did you enable Swap? (I haven't seen a necessary use for it yet as my RAM hasn't gotten to the point where Linux needs to swap out)
2. Did you enable performance mode? (I don't know what the switch defaults to if you don't do this, but it's slow as all hell)
3. Did you enable 2.0GHz mode? (Performance mode only gives you 1.78GHz, you have to enable 2.0 every time you reboot unless you add it permanently with file edits)

MartianMSK · May 22, 2019

Silent_Gunner said:
OK, got the controller configured (because how dare you expect at least the basics to be configured like they are in Windows and RetroPie? I guess Linux is just different). But I'm confused. Everyone is raving on about the performance of RetroArch on this, and it's struggling to run even SNES9X (latest version), let alone the xmb menu at full speed with no frame drops! Hell, I loaded up Super Castlevania 4 and it was just giving me a black screen with the FPS reading 30!

Are there a bunch of updates and other things that need to be downloaded before Ubuntu unleashes its full potential on the Switch? Because I have spent the past day trying to get this to work and deal with other shit on the side unrelated and I'm honestly kind of exhausted especially given I'm not gonna be able to look at this again until I get back home from work tonight, hence why I'm more impatient atm.

I spent two full days... Yeah dolphin performances are quite impressive, but aside from that it's all just freaking complicated, even a simple copy and paste could be. And yes, retroarch performance are quite awful, no matter what. It's interesting for the fact that we have all the standard functionality a Ubuntu laptop would have, in the switch, but it's just super gimmicky at the moment...

spocksbrain · May 22, 2019

I installed a bunch of stuff trying to get openMW working and now I think the graphics are broken and can't get past the login screen. Anyone find a way to fix this or should I re-image?

Is it safe to run 'sudo apt upgrade' on this distribution? I did that too at some point.

Last question: If I install the joystick mouse package, does it tie up the joycons and make them unusable in other software? I couldn't get it working anyway for some reason even after pairing them and pressing L+R to enable.

bylaws · May 22, 2019

FAST6191 said:
Is there some way I can run this on a PC emulator/virtual machine? I am quite good with Linux but don't have a Switch I care to use for this right now. That said if I can get at least a package list and some idea of the things available by default I can help some people with what are fairly common tasks in other distros (things I am seeing crop up time and time again in this thread and others), however if it is going to be like some of the raspberry pi stuff and other embedded machines, or different things need a sudo or something I don't want to send people down the wrong path. For android I have the likes of https://www.android-x86.org/ but I am not sure what I might have here.

No graphics but:
install binfmt qemu for arm64
run losetup then partprobe on image and mount the second partition. chroot into that.

Milenko said:
Any tips how to do this?

open /usr/bin/dock-hotplug (or along those lines)
remove the -o DSI-0 --off part

megamanxx said:
Does this only work by connecting the dongle directly to the Switch or also work by connecting the dongle to any USB port of the Dock?

Thanks.

just connect to any dock usb

Liv2MsTrb8T said:
XFCE/LXDE are lovely.
LXDE has the quickest boot. (instant for me)

Both of them have issues rotating the touch coordinates to match the screen making it really annoying to use.

delete the switch touch rules file in /lib/udev/rules.d

thegameksk · May 22, 2019

MartianMSK said:
I spent two full days... Yeah dolphin performances are quite impressive, but aside from that it's all just freaking complicated, even a simple copy and paste could be. And yes, retroarch performance are quite awful, no matter what. It's interesting for the fact that we have all the standard functionality a Ubuntu laptop would have, in the switch, but it's just super gimmicky at the moment...

So only Dolphin runs well on this is what im gathering from reading the thread?

dixeflatline · May 22, 2019

Silent_Gunner said:
OK, got the controller configured (because how dare you expect at least the basics to be configured like they are in Windows and RetroPie? I guess Linux is just different). But I'm confused. Everyone is raving on about the performance of RetroArch on this, and it's struggling to run even SNES9X (latest version), let alone the xmb menu at full speed with no frame drops! Hell, I loaded up Super Castlevania 4 and it was just giving me a black screen with the FPS reading 30!

Are there a bunch of updates and other things that need to be downloaded before Ubuntu unleashes its full potential on the Switch? Because I have spent the past day trying to get this to work and deal with other shit on the side unrelated and I'm honestly kind of exhausted especially given I'm not gonna be able to look at this again until I get back home from work tonight, hence why I'm more impatient atm.

https://gbatemp.net/members/deathscreton.219833/
as @Deathscreton asked:

1. Did you enable Swap? (I haven't seen a necessary use for it yet as my RAM hasn't gotten to the point where Linux needs to swap out)
2. Did you enable performance mode? (I don't know what the switch defaults to if you don't do this, but it's slow as all hell)
3. Did you enable 2.0GHz mode? (Performance mode only gives you 1.78GHz, you have to enable 2.0 every time you reboot unless you add it permanently with file edits)

Also, you did update to the 1.2 bugfix, deleted boot folder and boot.src before applying the update? Your SD Card has a lot to do with your performance as well, have you tried different cards?

BruhBoy · May 22, 2019

Is this still being developed? Just a question I haven't payed much attention lately.

dixeflatline · May 23, 2019

BruhBoy said:
Is this still being developed? Just a question I haven't payed much attention lately.

@bylaws stated a few times he is working on CPU/GPU/Fan scaling, I also read somewhere in this thread about a 2.0 release but I dont believe that was from bylaws himself. I would assume so but you cant take my word for it. Either way, as it is now is pretty fu**ing awesome!

EmulateLife · May 23, 2019

Is Yaba Sanshiro (or any other Saturn core) working properly in this? In Lakka games start but they crash the swich within a period of time (5-15 minutes)

RiceAlex · May 23, 2019

giogio5 said:
I just wanna know, can it run Java minecraft? Why? Because A. Portable Java Minecraft would be great. B. My PC literally can't run it kek.

Also can we run steam and dolphin and all that stuff?

I managed run Minecraft Java Edition 1.12.2 at 180fps (with ucapped frame rate ,Fully Overclock via jetson_clocks,OptiFine) but fullscreen doesnt work correctly due to bug related to Ubuntu,can only play it in maximum windows wtih the left side Launcher hidden
Sound works too.
But there s no way use Joycon to control ,since MCJoyPad mod uses windows exculusive api to work , I can not find a method to do key mapping, I noticed L4T Switch can read joycon input defaultly,but I cant find a good method of key mapping, can U help me?

ZachyCatGames · May 23, 2019

RiceAlex said:
I managed run Minecraft Java Edition 1.12.2 at 180fps (with ucapped frame rate ,Fully Overclock via jetson_clocks,OptiFine) but fullscreen doesnt work correctly due to bug related to Ubuntu,can only play it in maximum windows wtih the left side Launcher hidden
Sound works too.
But there s no way use Joycon to control ,since MCJoyPad mod uses windows exculusive api to work , I can not find a method to do key mapping, I noticed L4T Switch can read joycon input defaultly,but I cant find a good method of key mapping, can U help me?

Can you post how you got it to run?

ZeroFX · May 23, 2019

ZachyCatGames said:
Can you post how you got it to run?

Would be nice.

Silent_Gunner · May 23, 2019

dixeflatline said:
as @Deathscreton asked:

1. Did you enable Swap? (I haven't seen a necessary use for it yet as my RAM hasn't gotten to the point where Linux needs to swap out)
2. Did you enable performance mode? (I don't know what the switch defaults to if you don't do this, but it's slow as all hell)
3. Did you enable 2.0GHz mode? (Performance mode only gives you 1.78GHz, you have to enable 2.0 every time you reboot unless you add it permanently with file edits)

@Deathscreton @dixeflatline

Also, you did update to the 1.2 bugfix, deleted boot folder and boot.src before applying the update? Your SD Card has a lot to do with your performance as well, have you tried different cards?

Now that I'm back from work, I have to ask what Swap is exactly, as I've never heard of it (I get the idea, I just never knew of it being necessary), and how to enable Performance mode. I would love to give the 2 GHz thing a try, but only if I run into something that won't run and if whatever doesn't run up to playable spec has a chance of becoming playable, because as much as I love more performance out of my hacked Switch, I'm not about to run a knife through the damn thing unless if I had more cooling than what was necessary. (Read: Conductonaut or something along those lines)

I did update to 1.2, but I didn't delete the boot folder and boot.src as I was desperate to get this to work last night and was running into every problem I didn't expect or account for, the worst being how you need to transfer everything onto the Ubuntu drive only on Ubuntu itself and not just copying it directly off of my PC like I'd expect it to work. Maybe if I had the time to deal with Proton and all that, I wouldn't run into all of these problems with Linux, as before Proton, gaming on Linux was a barren wasteland unless if it was emulators and some indie games. But that's another rabbit trail for another time. You said the update had to be applied before the update, right? Would removing those folders do nothing at this point? Because I only have a few hours tonight and I REALLY have been wanting to give this a shot for a month, but due to real life getting in the way, it simply wasn't possible to fit in with my schedule at that time.

Silent_Gunner · May 23, 2019

So, I set Ubuntu to Performance Mode, and the XMB menu had maybe one or two frame drops throughout (which still isn't good), but I was able to play NES, Genesis, and SNES games no problem once I used the SNES9x 2010 core. (The main one apparently doesn't work)

But, upon browsing the core list that came with RA, and this could just be because I used the terminal link on Libretro's page, but it didn't even have all of the cores for the systems that everyone's been raving on about. Also, the input lag and how easily the signal gets interrupted in this isn't leaving a good taste in my mouth. Either way, I'm reformatting the SD card as we speak and am going to take precautions each and every step of the way to make sure everything gets updated/upgraded correctly, I download the correct build of RA off of the Ubuntu App Store, and hopefully get what everyone else was experiencing.

trohn_javolta · May 23, 2019

Did anyone manage to get any sound output in docked mode via hdmi at all?
Tbh I didn't try the original dock yet but with 3rd party usb c hubs I cannot get hdmi sound output.
It's hooked up to my Onkyo av receiver. Strange thing is in sound settings choosing hdmi 5.1 output and trying to play test signals, I get the "klicking sound" from my avr and it also shows that the switch wants to put out 5.1 sound but no sound comes

Btw, I tested another usb c hub, StarPlayer 6 in 1 type c hub (black hub with LREGO print on it) which also works perfectly. This will be my new hub since it has 3x USB 3.0 ports (on one side, with enough space between them to also plug in broader dongles) + the usual type c port for power, hdmi port and gigabit ethernet port, all works under ubuntu and ofw.

Silent_Gunner · May 23, 2019

*sighs* So I installed the fucking update correctly, moved everything over from off of my Switch SD card because fuck my flash drive working correctly, and now there's no cores available with RetroArch, and the window flashes black for a split second every time I go to try to download the cores via RA. Tried using the terminal to download nestopia and mupen64plus, and nothing past o2em (whatever the fuck that is), is available. Not even the Dolphin core is available.

Fuck. My. Life. I just want this shit to work correctly at this point...

Gavin_Darkglider · May 23, 2019

Use l4t lakka, it is already set up to run all the retroarch cores. The only issue is the dock doesnt switch video/audio at the moment, but that is only a matter of time, as lakka doesnt use udev, as it is really stripped down, just for retroarch, so the dock doesnt work, without some extra work via ssh, support is there, but you have to switch screens, and sound from command line.

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why?

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