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FreePlaySetup.md

FreePlay CM3 Software setup

At the time of writing of this guide, the current version of the image is Freeplay_CM3-and-Zero2_Test_22061501.img.gz

Things you need

  • FreePlay board (the board), bundled screen
  • Raspberry Pi CM3 or CM3+ module
  • at least a 2 Ampere phone charger with a Micro USB
  • microSD (one of the best for RPi 3/4 is Samsung EVO+)
  • USB keyboard
  • USB WiFi adapter Asus AC-53 Nano or Edimax EW-7822ULC (for other compatible adapters, see Readme.md at the WiFi driver's GitHub)

Before the first system boot

  • burn latest FreePlay CM3 image (I used Win32DiskImager) to your microSD card
  • copy the WiFi driver files to /boot/88x2bu on the microSD; /boot is the directory on your microSD where config.txt file is located
  • insert the card into the FreePlay board
  • attach the CM3 module, screen, battery/charger, and keyboard to the FreePlay board
  • turn the board on (hold the power switch until power LED on the board lights up), wait for it to turn off, turn it on again, wait for it to boot

After the first system boot

Good to know

  • to switch from EmulationStation to the terminal, hit F4 on the keyboard
  • to switch from the terminal to EmulationStation, execute emulationstation in the terminal
  • if you're in the terminal and want to reboot, run sudo shutdown now, when the power LED turns off - turn the board on as usual

Visual customizations

Note: if you have ghost input from the freeplay contoller in the EmulationStation menus (selection jumps from item to item, usually in one direction), you may want to go through the WiFi and Update sections first - once fully updated, ghost input should go away.

If you're doing fullscreen mod, go to RetroPie Configuration -> Freeplay Options -> Freeplay Change Display Driver, select fullscreen driver, this will result in a shutdown - turn the board on manually.

To remove black borders, if any, around text in the terminal and get a crisp font, go to RetroPie -> raspi-config -> Advanced options -> Overscan, enable overscan compensation (disables overscan).

If you want an arguably more pleasant font in the terminal, launch terminal, run sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup, go through the wizard leaving everything by default except the font, set it to Terminus 6x12.

Reboot

WiFi

  • copy the WiFi driver to home folder: open terminal and run cp -r /boot/88x2bu ~/88x2bu
  • build and install the WiFi driver, see how on its github page or follow these steps:
    • cd ~/88x2bu to change working directory to the one with WiFi driver
    • make and wait for the build process to finish
    • sudo make install to install the compiled driver
  • reboot
  • go to RetroPie -> WiFi and connect to a WiFi network, if it doesn't connect - manually modify /etc/network/interfaces and reboot

Update

In EmulationStation, go to Retropie -> RetroPie Setup, run Update and wait for the operation to finish. Reboot.

Note: if WiFi stopped working, the Update script might have downgraded the OS kernel. In this case rebuild and reinstall the WiFi driver.

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