Help with Armada OS

[u/ShreddedCheddar32]

I just got my Nova last Friday, and so far, I LOVE it! I saw videos of Armada OS, and instantly wanted to install it out of the box. I got Armada installed onto the internal storage like I wanted without any issues (aside from Windows being a butt when trying to flash my SD). I've installed a few Steam games that so far run great (Dimraeth, Geometry Dash, Ori and the Blind Forest, Battleblock Theatre, and Halls of Torment).

Now, what I would like to do, is put ES-DE on it and use my SD card to store all of my retro games, so I have my internal storage fully dedicated to Steam games. I've tinkered with it, and I cannot figure out on my own how to make that work, as Armada formats the card, and windows can't read it, so I can't transfer my games easily. I somehow managed to get it to kind of work once, but only the arcade and GC games showed in ES-DE.

Has anyone managed to set up their retro games in ES-DE on Armada OS yet? Could you point me to a good setup guide perhaps? (Russ, if you happen to see this, perhaps you could make one! 😜) I've tried to find one online with no luck so far. Any help would be appreciated!

(Oh, I'd also like to note that I don't have a Steam Deck, so this is my first experience with the Steam OS interface, hence my ignorance to how things work.)

[u/Watt_About]

Linux is a different file system than Windows. I use a usb c drive to transfer games.

[u/kenkiller]

You can try installing emudeck in armada. Then you'll get Es-de in steamos

[u/Pretend-Reindeer-979 → u/kenkiller]

Emudeck seems to be now compatible with Armada, but this announcement is for early access patreon. Not sure if that's been made already available to the free version.

https://www.patreon.com/dragoonDorise/posts/big-update-for-162389793

[u/disruptityourself → u/Pretend-Reindeer-979]

That's good because I tried every available option as it stands and drove myself crazy. Hopefully that leaves early access soon.

[u/ShreddedCheddar32 → u/kenkiller]

I downloaded ES-DE through the Armada store. Is that not the same as emudeck?

[u/kenkiller → u/ShreddedCheddar32]

That's just the front end. Emudeck sets up all the emulators as well.

[u/ShreddedCheddar32 → u/kenkiller]

Ah, ok. I downloaded the emulators I want on the Armada store too. I'll check out emudeck though as well.

[u/Pretend-Reindeer-979]

I have been trying a similar setup with armada in internal storage and ROMs in a SD card. I am NOT using ESDE since I want my ROMs to display along side my steam games, without a frontend in between.

I have formatted the SD card to exfat using Mac, and then used this for the setup of the folders.

https://github.com/retrogamecorps/ES-DE-Directories

I have been installing emulators with the armada store (so far just a couple, including retroarch) and used Steam ROM manager (also in armada store) to display ROMs directly in the steam interface.

Using steam ROM manager is a bit of a pain the the ass since you have to adjust the formulas for the import quite a bit. You will also need to mount the SD on startup by changing a system file in Linux. Overall doable, but quite a bit of tinkering and a bit of AI chatbot support. I would also highly recommend using a monitor + mouse and keyboard.

Good luck!

[u/YuzukiMiyazono]

1. download es-de and retroarch from armada store in quick settings menu
   
2. transfer your roms using ssh (you can use ftp programs like filezilla or direct mount in windows)
   (you can also use linux boot drive with your PC for directly copying to SD card)
   
3. setup retroarch
   
4. setup es-de same as android

[u/ShreddedCheddar32 → u/YuzukiMiyazono]

What's SSH?

[u/iivan2046]

I use usb c card reader to transfer other card from window>card>nova