Running LaunchBox and Big Box on Linux

[Jason Carr]

On 11/27/2021 at 9:35 AM, Hifihedgehog said:

If we bought an Android license, is that valid for this Linux port or will it require a Linux license? I don't mind either way since this is a fantastic product and is always worth shelling out the $.

Appreciated. We honestly haven't made any decisions on pricing yet, or whether it will be under the same license as Android. It will probably depend on how much additional development is required for the Linux version, which we're not fully clear on yet.

[stupidtoneed2accounts]

Will the port to linux have a slightly more desktop feel to it? While im very happy this is finally happening in some regard, and I understand why you cant just bring the windows version over, the android interface as is isnt suited at all for desktops sadly.

[Jason Carr]

11 hours ago, stupidtoneed2accounts said:

Will the port to linux have a slightly more desktop feel to it? While im very happy this is finally happening in some regard, and I understand why you cant just bring the windows version over, the android interface as is isnt suited at all for desktops sadly.

It will have the same or a similar feel to the Android port, but the Android port will feel more and more like Big Box on the desktop as time goes on. We are definitely planning to focus more on Raspberry Pi/single board/portables though than on the classic desktop. There are many, many more users with Linux on those types of devices than users who use Linux on the desktop, by a mile.

[slaapliedje]

On 12/3/2021 at 9:30 AM, Jason Carr said:

It will have the same or a similar feel to the Android port, but the Android port will feel more and more like Big Box on the desktop as time goes on. We are definitely planning to focus more on Raspberry Pi/single board/portables though than on the classic desktop. There are many, many more users with Linux on those types of devices than users who use Linux on the desktop, by a mile.

Downside of this is that the SBCs already have decent support via things like Retropie, Big Box style stuff may be a bit heavy for them?  I think more people that run Desktop Linux would use the software vs people with SBCs, since there are already so many solutions for those.

[Jason Carr]

5 hours ago, slaapliedje said:

Downside of this is that the SBCs already have decent support via things like Retropie, Big Box style stuff may be a bit heavy for them?  I think more people that run Desktop Linux would use the software vs people with SBCs, since there are already so many solutions for those.

That makes sense, but unfortunately we already tried to cater to the desktop Linux crowd. It resulted in interest from only a handful of people, even after emailing the majority of our audience about it. I'm sure there are more than a handful of users who are interested, but at this point the desktop Linux audience has already been proven to be much too small to be able to focus on.

[DavrosKaled]

On 12/6/2021 at 2:18 PM, Jason Carr said:

That makes sense, but unfortunately we already tried to cater to the desktop Linux crowd. It resulted in interest from only a handful of people, even after emailing the majority of our audience about it. I'm sure there are more than a handful of users who are interested, but at this point the desktop Linux audience has already been proven to be much too small to be able to focus on.

This app is better than every frontend on Linux combined. If I were a billionaire I would literally bank roll a native Linux port. I really don't want to have a Windows Partition at all anymore and this app is the only reason I do. It's just THAT good.

Though, if it's true that the Android build is coming to Linux I will buy my third license. Y'all deserve it. I love Launchbox.

[slaapliedje]

7 hours ago, DavrosKaled said:

This app is better than every frontend on Linux combined. If I were a billionaire I would literally bank roll a native Linux port. I really don't want to have a Windows Partition at all anymore and this app is the only reason I do. It's just THAT good.

Though, if it's true that the Android build is coming to Linux I will buy my third license. Y'all deserve it. I love Launchbox.

Seriously.  In my mind doing a full on distribution on a stick for this would be amazing.  get a little NUC, stick it in an arcade cabinet with a preconfigured setup.  You can't really do that with Windows without it costing a lot more.  Plus all the extra overhead, etc.  Android on the other hand... well x86 android is pretty terrible, and android in general is not a great operating system.  I should just try launchbox again in Wine, it's always getting better.

[Bananasplit]

I have finally bailed on Windows. The telemetry in win10 that couldn't be disabled was the point when I knew I had to jump ship and Win11 being a complete dumpster fire is beyond my last straw. And thanks to Steam OS Linux support for gaming is rapidly growing. Steam has said it is their goal to get all of the top games working on Linux. I think we will shortly see a lot of people that are fed up with Windows realizing that Linux can be daily driven by a gamer and that will result in a huge departure from Windows.

I'm absolutely devastated that there is no Launchbox on Linux yet. And hope that you won't overlook the fact that the Linux community is going to be growing explosively as Steam OS improves the gaming experience and Windows continues to upset many people.

Edit: Also if you are looking for an easy way to support Linux make LaunchBox snap app. They are universal so they can be used on any distro and will greatly decrease your dev time. I hope you don't miss your chance to be there when the Linux userbase grows.

Edited January 23, 2022 by Bananasplit

[slaapliedje]

19 minutes ago, Bananasplit said:

I have finally bailed on Windows. The telemetry in win10 that couldn't be disabled was the point when I knew I had to jump ship and Win11 being a complete dumpster fire is beyond my last straw. And thanks to Steam OS Linux support for gaming is rapidly growing. Steam has said it is their goal to get all of the top games working on Linux. I think we will shortly see a lot of people that are fed up with Windows realizing that Linux can be daily driven by a gamer and that will result in a huge departure from Windows.

I'm absolutely devastated that there is no Launchbox on Linux yet. And hope that you won't overlook the fact that the Linux community is going to be growing explosively as Steam OS improves the gaming experience and Windows continues to upset many people.

Edit: Also if you are looking for an easy way to support Linux make LaunchBox snap app. They are universal so they can be used on any distro and will greatly decrease your dev time. I hope you don't miss your chance to be there when the Linux userbase grows.

I agree (though Flatpak is the universal app or appimage, snap is very much tied to being a Canonical thing.)

[WhyMe69]

Oh man I've stopped using Winblows almost 6 months ago and do NOT miss it! I can't wait for the Linux build of LaunchBox! 

[snarfel]

There was an article in a big gaming news site about LaunchBox on Steam Deck (but running on a dual boot w/ Windows 10): https://kotaku.com/steam-deck-valve-emulation-ps1-ps2-dreamcast-xbox-emula-1848652981

The actual demo video on Invidious (FOSS Youtube Frontend) instance: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jIw9GfM-WKw

Youtube:

Generally looks great despite Windows 10 drivers being very new and on a new device less than a month old. Hopefully LaunchBox will work great on SteamOS. Perhaps there's value in being able to purchase LaunchBox in the Steam Store once a Linux native version is stable enough? Especially given RetroArch is avail in the Steam Store. Would improve discoverability and ease of installation of LaunchBox. Of course, if the dev takes the release as a Flatpak that requires a paid license path similar to what FileBot does that could work too I guess

Edited March 16, 2022 by snarfel

[Sydonai]

6 hours ago, snarfel said:

There was an article in a big gaming news site about LaunchBox on Steam Deck (but running on a dual boot w/ Windows 10): https://kotaku.com/steam-deck-valve-emulation-ps1-ps2-dreamcast-xbox-emula-1848652981

The actual demo video on Invidious (FOSS Youtube Frontend) instance: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=jIw9GfM-WKw

Youtube:

Generally looks great despite Windows 10 drivers being very new and on a new device less than a month old. Hopefully LaunchBox will work great on SteamOS. Perhaps there's value in being able to purchase LaunchBox in the Steam Store once a Linux native version is stable enough? Especially given RetroArch is avail in the Steam Store. Would improve discoverability and ease of installation of LaunchBox. Of course, if the dev takes the release as a Flatpak that requires a paid license path similar to what FileBot does that could work too I guess

I'd love to see that! Steam Store availability would be amazing for both Steam Deck and plain 'ol Windows desktop. I wouldn't even mind paying a second time, if we got native Deck compatibility out of it.

[Hifihedgehog]

Likewise! I have a Steam Deck right now and while the Steam Rom Manager is alright for basic game launching, it is way behind LaunchBox and BigBox in navigating and managing a library.

[Hifihedgehog]

On 2/23/2021 at 3:36 PM, Sterophonick said:

I have been performing experiments with running LaunchBox on Linux through Wine, and I gotta say, with a bit of tweaking, it might be viable!
I was able to import games through the Tools menu, and was able to launch a game!

However, because it is being run through Wine, actually launching native Linux versions of emulators is a little bit tricky. With that in mind, I was able to write some batch scripts that will do just that!

The example I'll put here is the one I wrote for RetroArch,

for /f "delims=" %%i in ('winepath -u %2') do set content=%%i
if %1=="gba" (
    set core=RetroArch-Linux-x86_64.AppImage.home/.config/retroarch/cores/mgba_libretro.so
    set config=RetroArch-Linux-x86_64.AppImage.home/.config/retroarch/config/default.cfg
)

echo %core%
cmd /c start /unix RetroArch/RetroArch-Linux-x86_64.AppImage --verbose -c %config% -L %core% "%content%"

(You will need to edit this yourself if you want more than just the Game Boy Advance)

 

And the entry in the emulation menu looked like this

Make sure that you avoid naming it "RetroArch" otherwise you'll set off a flag that will make setting parameters a little more cumbersome.

 

 

Here are some other issues that I noticed:

The appearance of context menus are bugged.

 

Dragging and dropping games will cause LaunchBox to crash.

 

Some fonts are looking a little rough and are missing certain glyphs

 

Menus such as the "Edit Game" menu will turn black except for the option you are highlighting.

The LaunchBox window will force itself to the front of the screen if the screen is ever updated.

This is visible in the above YouTube video, where it takes me a bit of time to switch to RetroArch after launching it.

 

This could use a little bit of work, but I am impressed with what I have been able to accomplish so far!
I hope this eventually becomes an option, at the cost of a little extra maintenance.

 

On 2/23/2021 at 8:51 PM, Sterophonick said:

I got Dolphin emulator to work

for /f "delims=" %%i in ('winepath -u %1') do set content=%%i
cmd /c start /unix Dolphin/dolphin-emu -e "%content%"

Keep the emulator command line parameters empty.

Have fun!

 

On 2/24/2021 at 4:11 PM, Sterophonick said:

MAME Script

cmd /c start /unix MAME/mame64 -verbose -rompath %1 %2 %3

Emulator settings:

 

Edit these settings to fit the system you're trying to emulate.

 

Currently working on a script that will run Windows games in Wine, however it's getting a bit frustrating. Dunno if I will ever get it to work

This is incredible work! I will be referencing these scripts over the next week as I get my Steam Deck configured to run all my roms. I wonder if a plug-in could be created to use these Linux scripts. Right now, the only option for rom management on the Steam Deck is Steam Rom Manager. When used with the Steam Deck’s UI, it at best just presents collections of roms by console. It displays box art, title, and not much more—very drab and droll. It is not at all granular, pleasing or robust like BigBox is. Right now, we have an incredible opportunity to grab a good chunk of Steam Deck users who want to emulate their games. I think if we concentrate on getting scripts written and we curate them and publish them, that should be a good starting point. Perhaps eventually a more user friendly option will present itself. I will focus on getting scripts adapted and made that use the Discover Flatpak emulator path locations for the emulators as well as rom file paths that point to either parent “Roms” folder under the “Deck” user home directory or a “Roms” folder under the MicroSD path. Offering ready-made scripts for these two folder paths schemes, that should make this as plug and play as possible for the Steam Deck users who want a slick interface with scrapping capabilities leagues better than anything else out there.

Edited March 19, 2022 by Hifihedgehog

[slaapliedje]

On 3/16/2022 at 5:00 PM, Sydonai said:

I'd love to see that! Steam Store availability would be amazing for both Steam Deck and plain 'ol Windows desktop. I wouldn't even mind paying a second time, if we got native Deck compatibility out of it.

Valve have stated that they won't directly be supporting Windows on the Deck.  Which is interesting to know that for once, Windows will be the second class OS on it. 

[Sydonai]

3 hours ago, slaapliedje said:

Valve have stated that they won't directly be supporting Windows on the Deck.  Which is interesting to know that for once, Windows will be the second class OS on it. 

Yeah, Steam OS is definitely the way to go. Aside from the lack of Windows support, Steam OS has a ton of granular options that give you a lot of control over the Deck. I was more talking about how Steam Store availability would increase visibility for Windows users, just like how Retroarch is on the Steam Store. Steam Auto-updating would also be quite handy.

[DavrosKaled]

With the SteamDeck looking to be a smash hit. I hope this leads to interest in a native Linux Port. 🥰

[Monsterclip]

I'm using Emulationstation on my Deck as a decent substitute, but man I'm really hoping there's some solution for Big Box on the Deck in the future. It's by far my frontend of choice.

[Djungelurban]

On 4/6/2022 at 6:53 PM, Monsterclip said:

I'm using Emulationstation on my Deck as a decent substitute, but man I'm really hoping there's some solution for Big Box on the Deck in the future. It's by far my frontend of choice.

Couldn't care less about BigBox, it's as clunky as all the other frontends out there. BigBox, RetroPie, EmulationStation, HyperSpin, they all just trade meaningless flash for usability. What I want is desktop mode on Steam Deck, that would be the dream.

[The_Keeper86]

3 hours ago, Djungelurban said:

Couldn't care less about BigBox, it's as clunky as all the other frontends out there. BigBox, RetroPie, EmulationStation, HyperSpin, they all just trade meaningless flash for usability. What I want is desktop mode on Steam Deck, that would be the dream.

Wow I've never had a problem with any of these frontends! Honestly BigBox has performed the best for me!