Hello

I use NixOS on my PCs and was able to start Pico-8 using the script https://nixos.wiki/wiki/PICO-8. Unfortunately I have no success with the script when starting Picotron. The console gives me the error "could not create renderer" and there is nothing helpful in the log.

[000000 000] Starting Picotron 0.1.0d
[000000 000] build: 240327-042435
[000011 000] creating process [root]
[000013 001] mount: [/] [/home/user/.lexaloffle/Picotron/drive]
[000048 001] Reading controller mappings: /home/user/.lexaloffle/Picotron/sdl_controllers.txt
[000048 001] searching for joysticks
[000048 001] found 0 joysticks
[000048 001] ok

Can someone tell me which packages Picotron needs to run on Linux?

Greetings TinBlock50

We're also curious - right now we're using steam-run like it's a videogame, but that feels a little hacky.

i don't have a nixos desktop env set up, so i can't say for sure, but it might be SDL that you're missing? an internet search for "could not create renderer" turns up a bunch of SDL, i'm pretty sure i've seen mention of SDL somewhere while interacting with picotron, and the script you linked didn't seem to include it

Hi Amagineer. Thank you for your input. Unfortunately adding the SDL packages did not work. I can run Picotron with Steam for the moment but it would be nice to be able to run it without steam.

After some trial and error and strace, I finally had success. The nix-shell script to start Picotron on NixOS is:

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
let fhs = pkgs.buildFHSUserEnv {
  name = "picotron";
  targetPkgs = pkgs: (with pkgs; [
    xorg.libXrandr # for renderer
    libGL # for renderer
    alsa-lib # for audio
    udev # for gamepads
  ]);
  runScript = "bash -c ./picotron";
};
in pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "picotron-shell";
  nativeBuildInputs = [ fhs ];
  shellHook = ''
     exec picotron
    '';
}

Have fun.

Thank you so much!

Oh, update: you also want to include wget for downloading BBS carts! I remember that was what PICO-8 used, too.

Thank you for this, TinBlock50! Just got Picotron running on my NixOS desktop thanks to the above. :D