An Introduction to Batocera Linux
Batocera is a Linux-based operating system with a focus on retro gaming. The OS is designed to run on virtually all computers, from desktops to laptops to single-board computers like the Raspberry Pi. In addition, Batocera can be installed on a USB flash drive (or SD card), which allows you to boot your device directly from the Batocera USB. Having all of your games and settings already configured like controller preferences effectively turns the USB drive into a portable video game emulation powerhouse – all you need is a computer, a screen and a controller. Ultimately, this allows you to avoid altering your hard drive in any way, which means that the existing operating system can stay intact.
What You Will Need
Computer: any PC will do; it just needs to connect to the Internet and have a working USB port.Batocera OS: this is free and can be downloaded from the official Batocera website. See the section below for more information.balenaEtcher (or similar image-writing program): this piece of software will write the Batocera OS to your USB flash drive.USB Flash Drive or External Hard Drive: you’ll want to place all of your ROMs on a separate drive to make the process of transferring the ROMs to Batocera faster and easier. Furthermore, we recommend placing your ROMs into subfolders organized by console.USB Flash Drive for Batocera: USB 2.0 or 3.0 will work. Regardless of the option you pick, you won’t notice a difference in performance when running Batocera. That being said, it may take less time during the initial flashing of the OS if using 3.0. As far as the storage capacity of your USB, it depends largely on the number of games you wish to include on your portable installation of Batocera. The file size of games varies wildly, with games for older consoles like the NES coming in at mere kilobytes, and for newer consoles like the Wii U, they can weigh in at multiple gigabytes. Generally speaking, we recommend using at least a 16GB USB. If you want to include games from newer consoles (e.g. PlayStation 1 and above), we suggest opting for something larger to accommodate the larger ROM sizes.
1. Download Batocera
Once you have all of the elements listed above, you can get started. Download the Batocera OS from its website. The goal is to create a portable installation of Batocera on a USB drive that can be booted on multiple computers. Therefore, consider locating the architecture of your device (e.g. x86_64 for most PCs) and downloading the OS image file. You can download the appropriate file for your device via a direct link or torrent. Note: the OS file will be a compressed .img with the extension .gz.
2. Download and Install balenaEtcher
Once you have downloaded the Batocera OS image file, you’ll need to install a piece of software that will write it to your USB flash drive. We recommend balenaEtcher, as it has a good reputation for low rates of failure. There are other utilities that will create bootable USB flash drives from an OS image, so feel free to use an alternative.
3. Flash the Batocera OS to Your USB
Now that you’ve downloaded the Batocera OS image file and have balenaEtcher installed on your PC, you’re ready to put them to use. Note: balenaEtcher will completely erase the selected drive. Ensure that you are selecting the correct target drive.
4. Boot Into Batocera
Now that the Batocera OS has been flashed onto your USB drive, you’re ready to boot into it. There are a couple of ways to do this, and this is the easiest. 4. Select the USB that was flashed with the Batocera OS image file and press Enter. Your PC will reboot, but this time it will use the Batocera USB as the startup disk instead of the normal Windows OS disk.
Boot Into Batocera on an Older PC
If you don’t see the boot option discussed above, or if you are running an older OS like Windows 7, you’ll need a few extra steps to boot into your Batocera USB. This requires access to your PC’s BIOS, where you can alter some basic settings, like the boot device. To access the BIOS, you need to hit a specific key before the PC loads the operating system. Unfortunately, not all BIOS look the same and not all of them use the same language. This might necessitate some hunting around on your part. Alternatively, consult the website of your PC/motherboard’s manufacturer for documentation on how to change the boot device within the BIOS. Note: practice caution when changing values within your PC’s BIOS. Many of the settings within the BIOS alter how your PC behaves.
Boot Into Batocera on a Mac
Booting from a USB on a Mac is quite simple.
5. Booting Batocera for the First Time
When your PC reboots using the Batocera USB as the startup disk, you will see the Batocera splash screen. Depending on whiich build you have flashed to the USB, the splash screen may look different. However, all of them utilize some variation of the Batocera logo. Upon first boot, Batocera automatically creates the necessary partitions for ROMs and configures other settings. Give it time to finish.
6. Adding ROMs
Once Batocera has finished setting up, it’s ready to use. If you navigate around the UI, you’ll notice that Batocera comes with a handful of games preinstalled. These mostly consist of various homebrew games and freeware. These are nice editions; however, you may want to add your own collection of ROMs to get the most out of Batocera. There are a couple of ways to do this, including transferring your ROMs to Batocera over your local network. However, there is a much faster and easier way. Image credit: Batocera Wikiand Pexels Downloading game ROMs is arguably the easiest way to get your hands on them, but downloading games you do not already own physical copies of is considered illegal. Yet there are ROMs that are free and legal to download, as they either fall in the public domain or their copyright holders have allowed them to be distributed freely. In some cases, you’ll be able to run the game without the BIOS file that corresponds to the console. However, in other cases, you won’t be able to launch the game at all. Unfortunately, for legal reasons, we can’t tell you how to get your hands on the BIOS files. However, if you navigate to Batocera’s System Settings menu and select “Missing Bios,” you’ll see a list of all the BIOS files that are missing from your build. With this information, you should be able to track down the ones you need. Once you have the BIOS files, simply copy them to your Batocera USB’s BIOS folder using the same method you used to copy your ROMs. However, the Batocera team has compiled OS images compatible with 32-bit CPUs, low-powered processors like the Intel Atom, and PCs with old Nvidia legacy drivers. To find them, head to the Batocera download page and scroll all the way to the bottom. After you download the correct file, simply follow the instructions outlined above to make a new Batocera USB that will work on your old PC.
