How to make a dedicated MAME 0.250 Appliance on a Raspberry Pi 4/Pi 400

[monsieurarcade]

Hi,

Been through almost all the steps up to changing file system to read-only.
Created and executed the script:
~/scripts/read-only-rootfs.sh

After execution, Pi boots but stops at some point.
I don't have console access, neither directly with a keyboard or with putty.

Is there something I can do to correct this or revert back to rw so I don't have to start the whole process again ?
Thanks.

[24-7-testing]

I am currently building MAME 0.262. I will upload a fresh image once the build is successfully completed.

Hi bbegin, just wondering if you have any progress you can share on the latest version of the prebuilt SD image? Any luck building the latest version yet?

[jametheth]

Registered here just to comment on this thread!

Love this concept and project, I hope its not dead!

I would love to see AttractMode integrated into the version checker and update scripts!

Also, I have so far been unable to use the mame-updater script successfully.

Attempts to upgrade to 0265 fail because gcc version is to old, even after a dist-upgrade.
Attempts to upgrade to 0264 get much further along, but ultimately fail (after 8 hours of compiling)

Code: [Select]

/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Raspbian) 2.35.2 assertion fail ../../bfd/elf32-arm.c:9876
/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Raspbian) 2.35.2 assertion fail ../../bfd/elf32-arm.c:9876
/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Raspbian) 2.35.2 assertion fail ../../bfd/elf32-arm.c:9876
/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Raspbian) 2.35.2 assertion fail ../../bfd/elf32-arm.c:9876
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [mame.make:269: ../../../../../mame] Error 1
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1111: mame] Error 2
make: *** [makefile:1300: linux] Error 2
Build time took: 8h 8m 46s.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build FAILED.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


While I am quite comfortable with linux in general, I am not that familiar with the manual compiling and building process, so I am not sure how to best troubleshoot this.



Anywho, thanks, and I hope to see further updates!




EDIT -   I realized I only upgraded from buster to bullseye when I tried to compile 0265 and 0264, I went ahead and upgraded to bookworm, and am now compiling 0265 using mame-upgrade.sh


Hopefully it completes succsesfully!

[jametheth]

Mame 0265 build failed on bookworm as well, same output as posted above more or less

Code: [Select]

/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Raspbian) 2.40 assertion fail ../../bfd/elf32-arm.c:9885
/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Raspbian) 2.40 assertion fail ../../bfd/elf32-arm.c:9885
/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Raspbian) 2.40 assertion fail ../../bfd/elf32-arm.c:9885
/usr/bin/ld: BFD (GNU Binutils for Raspbian) 2.40 assertion fail ../../bfd/elf32-arm.c:9885
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make[2]: *** [mame.make:269: ../../../../../mame] Error 1
make[1]: *** [Makefile:1120: mame] Error 2
make: *** [makefile:1300: linux] Error 2
Build time took: 8h 48m 25s.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Build FAILED.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I am now attempting to set this up from scratch, following your guide on GitHub, and starting from a fresh bookworm image.

MAME 0265 compiling now, will find out what happens in 10 or so hours lol.

[jametheth]

So after much fiddling around, I managed to get a working install of 64bit Raspbian Lite 12 Bookworm, MAME 0265, Hypseus 2.11.2, and the latest Attract-Mode Plus 3.0.8 frontend.

I decided to share this image here to show some love to this project, not to step on the OP's toes in anyway!

I will gladly remove the link if this is problematic!


Download Here
rpi4b.raspios12.mame-0265.base-image.tar.xz

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aZezfTQ0WjprF3GveErC1UuoNzzCRU5u/view?usp=sharing


I have all the same scripts that the OP included in his setup / guide, all of the original stuff applies.

My changes are;


No AdvancedMenu
Note - I didn't bother with AdvancedMenu, as I see it as pointless when AttractMode exists.

Attract-Mode Plus instead of Attract-Mode - https://github.com/oomek/attractplus/tree/master
Note - I changed the executable name in /usr/local/bin/ from "attractplus" to "attract" rather then change the name in all the original scripts.

Launch Decorator plugin for AttractMode added. - https://github.com/matteocedroni/am-launch-decorator-plugin?tab=readme-ov-file
Note - I use this as a way to trigger a script on rom launch.  In particular I use it to trigger a TOS GRS switchable 4 to 8 way restrictor to switch mode based on the game being launched.  This is configured already for this purpose if you turn it on in AttractMode and set the script directory to /home/pi/.attract/plugins/LaunchDecorator/scripts/.


TOS GRS Switchable 4-to-8 way restrictor plate software installed in /home/pi/roms4way/   -  https://thunderstickstudio.com/products/tos-grs-4-to-8-way-restrictor-all-in-one-kit
Note - This is used in conjunction with the Launch Decorator plugin in AttractMode.

GPIOnext installed for use of GPIO as buttons.  -  https://github.com/mholgatem/GPIOnext
Note - Installed, daemons running, not configured.

AttractModePlus is set up as default frontend.
Note - MAME emulator was auto configured and setup by AttractMode.  It seems to be all good, though I wonder about the dir it chose for "emulator working directory".  Surely wrong, but everything seems to work.


Everything is in horizontal "non-rotated" configuration.
Note - I included the notes from the original guide for switching everything to a vertical rotation.  Located in /home/pi/notes.txt


I think that is about all I changed from the original design.


There are some differences in parts of the system and setup process when using the latest Raspbian 12 Bookworm, but I everything seems to be working right, though I have not tested Hypseus.

While setting all this up, I had some issues with the RO file system setup script in particular, but I seem to have got it all sorted out.

I have shrunk this down as small as I could, this could be flashed to an 8gb sd card in a pinch.
The root partition is pretty small, but should be fine for most uses.  It might be a problem if you try to compile new versions of MAME in your home DIR or elsewhere on the root partition.


SSH is on.
Hostname is arcade.
User pi, password raspberry.


Don't forget to do the included "expand-data-partition.sh" script, setup wifi, locale, hostname etc as needed with raspi-config.

Enjoy!