VICE on DietPi 7.8.2 on RPi 2B v1.1

Community Tutorials
1

So, steps to install VICE on DietPi v7.8.2 on a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B Version 1.1.
This is the DietPi-image based on Bullseye with Amiberry installed.
Installed packages:

  • Amiberry: Optimised Amiga emulator for ARM-based SoCs
  • Python 3 RPi.GPIO: Control Raspberry Pi GPIO channels in Python 3
  • OpenSSH Client: Feature-rich SSH, SFTP and SCP client
  • MC: midnight command
  • ALSA: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
  • Build-Essential: GNU C/C++ compiler, development libraries and headers
  • Git: Clone and manage Git repositories locally
  • Python 3: Runtime system, pip package installer and development headers

Config:

  • Display resolution: vc4-fkms-v3d: OpenGL | 1920 x 1080
  • GPU/RAM Memory Split: 128 MiB GPU | 896 MiB RAM

Updated all packages on the DietPi to the latest version:

  • dietpi-update
  • apt-get update
  • apt-get upgrade

Installed dependencies:

  • sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev
  • sudo apt-get install byacc
  • sudo apt-get install flex

Possible dependencies:

  • libsdl1.2-dev
  • byacc/yacc/bison
  • flex/lex

Downloaded and extracted Vice 2.4.20

And executing the following commands:

  • ./configure --enable-sdlui --without-pulse --without-resid --enable-arch=no
  • make -j4
  • sudo make -j4 install

And to execute:
x64 -sdlbitdepth 8
or
x64



The problem I haven’t been able to solve is that my RPi runs in OpenGL, which is preconfigured in the Amiberry DietPi image: vc4-fkms-v3d: OpenGL | 1920 x 1080
When I start x64, only 1/4th of the screen (the upper left corner) displays a full screen x64, the rest of the screen is black.
I would like to have the x64 running full screen.

Update: all attempts to get this working properly failed (I’m a beginner when it comes to working with Linux and compiling code).

2

Many thanks for your guide. Just in case someone wonders what VICE is:

VICE is an emulator collection which emulates the C64, the C64-DTV, the C128, the VIC20, practically all PET models, the PLUS4 and the CBM-II (aka C610).

So like Amiberry, just for other retro platforms :slight_smile:.

About the resolution issue. You can try to play with the graphics driver, e.g. switch from fake KMS to full KMS by changing in config.txt vc4-fkms-v3d to vc4-kms-v3d. Also assure that no framebuffer resolution is forced, the resolution selection in dietpi-config is still misleading about this, actually the console framebuffer resolution can be completely independently set and the legacy/fKMS/KMS driver selection needs to move into a dedicated menu.

You could also try to use the special SDL2 libraries that we ship with Amiberry. Check systemctl cat amiberry about how we add them to the library path. But most likely VICE would then also need to be compiled against those.