MiSTer_misc

This is a script to install and update miscellaneous software on a target device. The default distribution is meant to be used on a MiSTer FPGA, however it is designed to be easly adapted to other systems. Read the dedicated section to more information on such scenarios, the rest of this documentation will assume a MiSTer FPGA target with default miscellaneous software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Features

The features of the script are:

• It is very simple: you can read and fully understand it in minutes
• The packages are distributed as github repository
• It automatically creates links and wrapper scripts to recall package functionality
• It keeps the filesystem clean: all the software is installed the /media/fat/misc folder
• TODO : automatic boot script ! ?

Installation

To install or update all the software, you can download the MiSTer_misc_update.sh to your device and run it. Alternatively you can run

curl -L -k "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pocomane/MiSTer_misc/master/MiSTer_misc.sh" | bash -s update

in a shell on the target device.

Both the methods will download the last script from the repo and install it in the default path: /media/fat/misc/MiSTer_misc. It will also generate some script in the default path: /media/fat/Scripts. One of this is the updater script itself: /media/fat/Scripts/MiSTer_misc_update.sh.

Contained software

This is a list of the software that will be installed.

• webkeyboard - It let you to control the device from a remote keyboard. The scripts webkeyboard_start.sh and webkeyboard_stop.sh will be created to launch and stop the service. Connect http://ip.addes.of_the.device:8081 from any computer in the network to send keystroks through the web.
• webmenu with wrapper - It is a GUI served as a web-page. Connecting a browser from any computer to it, you can launch core and roms, search your collection, etc. The script webmenu_start.sh and webmenu_stop.sh will be created to start/stop the app.
• mbc - It is an utility to control the MiSTer from the command line (e.g. launch a rom).

How it works

The script is very simple. It just download a list of software from the github repos (defined by the owner and its name) into an Installation directory. In case there is already something in such directory, it first remove it, so it always got the latest revision. Each package will be placed in the sub-folder of the Installation one with the same name of the package.

The list of packages to download, with their repo_type and package_name can be quickly changed in the script, as described in the following sections. The repo_type defines how download the software from it.

For each installed software, some functionality script are linked in the Scripts and Links directories to be easly recalled. The difference between the two directories is that the Links will contain proper links, while the Scripts one will contain wrapper script that perform some auxiliary work ( change the current dir, and wait a keypress at the end). Note, by default, Scripts and Links directories are the same, so you get a single directory with a mix of wrappers and links.

TODO : implement automatic boot script ! ?

Adapt the script to other devices

To adapt the script to other device and software, you can fork this repo, and change the following variables in the main script

• PACKAGE_UPDATER_OWNER and NAME define the github repo of the owner of the uptade script itself; you should place here you github username (in OWNER) and forked repo name (in NAME);
• MISC_DIR defines the Installation directory, where the software will be copied;
• SCRIPT_DIR defines the path for the Scripts folder; an empty value will disable the creation of the script wrappers;
• LINK_DIR defines the path for the Links folder; an empty value will disable the creation of the links;

You can also change the following variables for some advanced configuration (some of them tweaks the package specification, so refer to the relative section for more details):

• PACKAGE_UPDATER_TYPE is the type of repo containing the updater script itself; (the default "github.master" should be good for most of the scenarios, see next section for other options):
• EXPOSE_HOOK specifies which subfolder in a package contains the scripts to be place in the Links folder;
• ACTION_HOOK specifies which subfolder in a package contains the scripts to be wrapped in Scripts directory;
• BOOT_HOOK si not implemented yet ! ? ;
• QUICK_HOOK_NAME contains the name of the script that will be linked with the same name of the package (default is __unnamed__, wihout any extension)

After that you have to find the package list definition function: just search for PACKAGE LIST to find it. You have to clean-up the function and refill it with the list of the packages you want to include. The exact syntax is defined in the next section, in general each package must correspond to a github repo.

Finally you can regenerate the shortcut script with

./MiSTer_misc.sh show_shortcut > MiSTer_misc_update.sh

Obviously you can rename the scripts as you wish.

Package Specification

As said in the previous sections, in the script there is a list of package to install. Each line define one package. The general sintax is:

us_package_do "$1" github_user github_repo opt_pattern repo_type package_name

The first two terms must be always the same. Then there is the user name of the owner of the github repo containing the software, and the repo name. If any of the other options is dot (.) or it is missing, a default value is used.

The package_name is the name you want to use to refer to the software (e.g. for naming the package directory); as default it the same string passed as github_repo. The opt_pattern define a regex pattern used for some repo types (details in following) and they have; its default is github_repo too.

Each package will be installed in its Target directory, i.e. the package_name subfolder of the Installation directory. What is placed inside such directory depends on the value of repo_type (which default is "gz.tar"):

• "github.master" - the target repo is simply cloned inside the Target directory; the .git auxiliary folder is removed (note: opt_pattern is ignored); the master branch is checked-out;

• "bare" - it looks in the last github release page for the first file matching the opt_pattern; it is downloaded in the Target directory;

• "uudecode.xz", or "gz.tar", or "tar" - it behaves like the "bare" package, but the file is decompressed according to the desired algorithm (uuencode, gz, etc);

Once the software is installed, some sub-folder are treated in the followng special way:

• hook/action - all the script in this subfolder are linked in the Scripts folder, to be quickly searched and launched; the content of the package_name is used as prefix for the target name, so, for example, if two packages pkg_a and pkg_b provide a start.sh script, in the desired subfolder you will fined two files pkg_a_start.sh, pkg_b_start.sh; the __unnamed__ script is a special case since it will be linked in pkg_a or pkg_b without any suffix;

• hook/boot - it is currently ignored (to be implemented yet ! ? )