7.x too much hassle

[fonzman]

No upgrade path from 6.x is very sad
Tried a new install of 7.1 anyway.

• a lot of my bios files which did fine on 6.1 are now invalid - because 7.1 looks for CASE SENSITIVE FILENAMES! Why would you do that on a FAT file system, which has no real case sensitivity? After renaming them, most work. Some are still invalid (PCEngine for example)
• Kodi 18.9 does not connect to my samba share. I don't know why, it works fine with Kodi 17 on RecalBox 6.1...
• My IR remote does not work in Kodi any more (again). Going through the whole IR setup process is too much work for me now ...

so, in the end, too much work for no apparent gain. I'll pass this release. Thanks anyway for the effort.

[ian57]

@fonzman Sorry to hear that ... but lots of things have changed between 6.x and 7.x, that's why its a major release. After 7.0 upgrade will be easier.

Now filesystem is exfat, and Case sensitive filenames is the right rule on recent filesystem
For kodi, the reason is samba 1 is unsecure and banned by default.

So you can stay at 6.x if you don't want do give time.

[fonzman]

Thanks @ian57 for the clarification.

Kodi and Samba 1.0 could be the issue. I can't find out what smb-version my NAS (a LaCie 5big network 2) has on board. Though I don't have any issues connecting Win10, Mac Catalina or Ubuntu Focal to it, which seems strange is smb 1.0 is such a big problem.

exFat is actually good news, concerning bigger files. But even on exfat it is not possible to have multiple files with the same name but different uppercase/lowercase letters - they would still be treated as the same file! (unlike on linux filesystems for example).
So giving errors for not finding files according to different case sentitivity is simply a dumb design decision.

Perhaps I will go through all the pain again and try to set up recalbox 7.1 on my pi. Lockdown gives me plenty of time anyway. Just looking for the good (no, I don't say "positive" ) things.

[villeneuve]

Why was exFAT chosen? It's a horrible filesystem, prone to issues and corruption, just like FAT32! What's the reason to not use something robust like ext4?

So what is the correct filename writing of the BIOS files? All in small letters?

SMB 1.0 is insecure, yes, but how does that matter in a multimedia environment? And just not allowing Recalbox connecting to SMB 1.0 actually doesn't stop the samba server from offering SMB 1.0 so the actual security inside a LAN isn't improved at all. I know people having their videos and stuff on very old & dumb SMB-only NAS boxes which still work perfectly fine for the purpose but are made obsolete by software enforcements like that.

Greets!

[RustyMG]

@villeneuve Hi, the Recalbox team do not decide upon the name of the required bios files. As v7 of Recalbox uses the latest "b*mp" of the emulators, its whatever files the emulators look for that have to be present, not what the Recalbox team want.
If new or alternative cores are used in Recalbox, they may require new / different / updated bios files - and this has always been the case with emulation.
If the emulator being updated is really old, chances are, new bios files will be required. If its a bug fix / minor update of the core, chances are the bios files will stay "as is" etc.

Re using exfat, this is, for me, fantastic news. The Pi's I setup for friends n family, in the past, Id need to network transfer over 100gig of files to the microSD card sitting in the Pi, powered up. This took in some cases literally a day.

Now, there is a shared partition on the microSD card that's readable on a PC. I simply drag n drop the files from my "master" HD of files over to the roms folder on the microSD, job done. A god send.

[villeneuve]

First of all thanks for your reply

I know that Recalbox doesn't decide BIOS filenames, but I just wanted to know what the correct naming scheme. So this question still stands.

Your usage pattern of the microSD benefitting from exFAT is ok though you'd get the exact same comfort using NTFS which for 99% of people world wide would also be perfectly fine in terms of compatibility with the added benefit of having a robust filesystem. The best would be if the user could decide during the install process which filesystem he wants to use. Recalbox installer could still propose exFAT as default. Btw exFAT is a devil send

[RustyMG]

@villeneuve Hi, re exFAT, vs NTFS, on removable media exFAT doesn't support file ownership and permissions thankfully, as this on NTFS has caused me no end of problems in the past, with files being locked, or I can't do anything with them as I'm not the file's "owner". This is a non issue on exFAT.

Also, I stand to be corrected, but I'm sure that files on exFAT take up FAR more space on the media due to the cluster size used in the format (if you have an exFAT device with hundreds of tiny files, right click and check out the properties, and see their size compared to the actual space taken up on the storage due to his very reason - exFAT is very inefficient).

Plus, isn't NTFS still proprietary to Microsoft ?

[RustyMG]

Not able to edit above. I meant to clarify better, ie that the only real downside to exFAT is the space small files take up.

[villeneuve]

NTFS file ownership on a Linux-based os like Recalbox should be no issue at all. You could even copy the files to the SD card ignoring NTFS file properties.

NTFS is proprietary and does even cost license fees AFAIK when used in a commercial product, but for Recalbox that doesn't apply.

[BRDX]

Do we have any answer as to why the bios checking is effectively broken by unnecessary case-sensitivity? So long as the md5 is right, RecalBox should be renaming the files on its own -- at least when using the web interface. It's clunky as-is.

[Zing]

@BRDX Your question is already explained in the comments above, any other answer would be what has already been said: It is not the Recalbox that requires the BIOS, it is the emulators.

It is not recommended at this time to use the web interface to check the BIOS, since version 7.0 there is an internal BIOS check, accessible through the Emulationstation Main Menu, the developers are working to improve the web interface.

RecalBox should be renaming the files on its own

It would take a lot of development work, and this would require an unnecessary effort from the system, is much more consistent for users to have common sense and rename files correctly. I repeat: the BIOS is required by the emulators, in the name, extension, and MD5 that the emulators require, because the emulators simulate the consoles, and the consoles are produced with their native BIOS, in the predefined name, extension and MD5, so , there is not much that can be done.

It is inconsistent for the small team of Recalbox developers to spend their time and effort on a feature that does not improve system performance, and requires the user only once to add the correct BIOS, in the correct name, extension and MD5.

Something like that has already been proposed by another user, and the conclusion is the same:
https://forum.recalbox.com/topic/23200/bios-avec-bon-md5-mais-avec-nom-différent

[BRDX]

@Zing "It would take a lot of development work, and this would require an unnecessary effort from the system, is much more consistent for users to have common sense and rename files correctly." <-- This is literally the opposite of everything RecalBox is about. Perhaps that attitude would be more appreciated by Retropie users.

It is inconsistent for a team developing something such as Recalbox to not spent their time and effort on a feature that eases the burden on the user and requires the devs only once to check for a correct md5 and rename the file automatically.

Something like that has been proposed by more than one user, and is the source of ongoing complaints. Addressing it is only "Common Sense". And if the web interface is broken by this update: Why release broken updates? You need a new team.

Enjoy your attitude? It's time Recalbox got forked.

[Zing]

@BRDX

This is literally the opposite of everything RecalBox is about.

No, you’re confusing some things: it’s true that Recalbox tries to be as “plug and play” as possible, but it’s an operating system, it’s not an automation that does everything for users: you need to add the correct BIOS, and the correct ROMS, in the correct format, otherwise it will not work. This happens in any retroemulation system that I know, by the way, even if you use an emulator on windows, Windows does not do everything for you.

Perhaps that attitude would be more appreciated by Retropie users

This does not make sense: if Retropie users liked this attitude more, they would not use Retropie. I understand that Retropie is a more "Do it yourself, personalized as you want" system, but it is not because Retropie's philosophy is different from Recalbox that we cannot have ANY resemblance to Retropie, we are not enemies, we are users of systems with different philosophies, that's all.

It is inconsistent for a team developing something such as Recalbox to not spent their time and effort on a feature that eases the burden on the user and requires the devs only once to check for a correct md5 and rename the file automaticall

Once again, you’re confusing: the Recalbox Team is doing its best to ensure stability, performance, and system improvement, to make it as easy as possible for the user, but that doesn’t mean that doing this type of automation is essential / primordial / urgent as you make it seem. I did not say that this will never be done, but among the hundreds of requests from users, this is one that is less urgent / necessary, and so the team of developers will not focus all their effort just for this, at least not at the moment (but neither do I guarantee that one day it will be done).

Something like that has been proposed by more than one user, and is the source of ongoing complaints. Addressing it is only "Common Sense".

Not everything that is proposed by more than one user is really necessary / useful / urgent / essential / or even viable, and it is not because more than one user has requested that this is considered the most necessary / useful / urgent for most users : it is not because you are part of those who are requesting something, that this makes it more important, currently, the interest of the majority has a greater weight.

You need a new team.

Once again you are wrong:
I don't want to belittle the teams of the other Retroemulation systems, but Recalbox has the best team I know, the team is very committed, everyone does an excellent job, everyone tries their best to please users as much as possible.

Please do not try to offend / belittle anyone on the team, or I will ban you permanently from the Forum.

You do not have the right to underestimate all the work of an entire team that works for free just because you think the system has to do everything for you. In addition, using the space offered free of charge for this type of unnecessary insult is going too far.

It's time Recalbox got forked.

Obviously you have no idea what you're talking about, after all, Recalbox is an open source operating system: you can use the source code of Recalbox to develop your own system if you want. Although, I'm sure users who are too lazy to rename a file would never spend their time doing this: this type of user wants others to spend their time.

So, I recommend that you try another Retroemulation system, like Batocera, which is a Recalbox fork, made by another team, with another website, and they have another forum, maybe you will be more successful with your journey with their system.

As the original discussion has come to an end, as you are not wanting help, and, as you are only wanting to criticize meaninglessly (and, this last point is not something that should be done here on the forum, regardless of the reason), then, I will close the topic, to avoid further unnecessary discussions (I repeat: the forum is not the place for this, the forum is for anyone who wants help with the system).

Please do not misuse the forum again, do not try to offend or belittle anyone again or I will ban you permanently.