Do you have an old computer laying around ? While it may not be powerful enough for 2024, it can still find some interesting uses, and possibly bring hours of fun to your family. We’re talking about turning it into an all-purpose retro-game console !

We’ll use Ubuntu Mate which is quite fast on old hardware, and still allows you to use the computer for other things if you wish. The performance gain from Windows should be significant especially if it was running Windows 10 or the likes.

For the games we’ll setup RetroArch, which includes nearly all consoles from early arcade systems to the PlayStation 1. Since we’re using old hardware, we won’t focus so much on newer consoles but keep in mind that it is reasonably possible to emulate up to the Nintendo Switch if your GPU can handle it.

What you’ll need

• A decent old computer. Depends on what you will play but let’s say it needs at least
  • Core duo processor
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 8GB storage for Ubuntu, + a few GBs for the emulators and games
  • A USB 2.0 port
  • A DVI/VGA/HDMI port, and audio jack or builtin speaker if it doesn’t use HDMI
• An internet connection
• A game controller and some cable or Bluetooth adapter to connect it (cable is better, because some cheap Bluetooth dongles don’t work well with Linux systems.)
• Optional : another computer.
• (If you’re a man : a good explanation to your wife as to what in the hell you are doing there)

1. Installing Ubuntu Mate

Download the live image from Ubuntu Mate website : https://ubuntu-mate.org/download/

For most people, it will be Amd64. Choose the latest LTS version (in 2024 it is 24.04)

(Note :Even if you’re using a 32bit architecture, it can technically work since Intel Core 2 can run 64 bit programs.)

Once the download is complete, insert your USB Flash drive. It will be formatted so backup if needed.

sudo apt install usb-creator-gtk

usb-creator-gtk

Once it is finished, insert the USB drive in the old computer you want to use, turn it on.

During the boot process, you should enter the BIOS, by pressing F12 or Del during the launch sequence. (See picture for clearer explanation)

Choose your USB drive to boot.

Choose Try or Install Ubuntu mate. It can be slow depending on your hardware, because this is a complete Operating system booting from a Usb drive. (Before it was on CDs, it was even slower so don’t complain !)

The installer will launch after all is ready.

(If you want to play around before, close the window and go ahead… When ready click on install Ubuntu Mate)

Select your language, keyboard layout, time zone.

Connect to the internet, either by Wifi or by ethernet, it will be needed to install support for your graphics card.

Choose interactive installation, then default selection (minimal install) because we don’t need LibreOffice and all desktop tools on a game console (If you want them click Extended).

Click both boxes to install Proprietary software (namely, your graphic drivers, very useful for later games) and additional media software (like mp3 and video codecs, useful if you plan to use the machine for watching movies or listening to music).

Now you can choose to erase the disk and install Ubuntu, or install Ubuntu alongside our other operating system (Windows most likely). The choice is yours, you will have a boot selection on startup if you keep windows installed.

We’re not using advanced options, as we’re not handling disks of dozens of TB (if you are, maybe use ZFS indeed but this tutorial doesn’t cover it).

Create your login details. Since we’re using the computer as a game console, untoggle require password to log in.

Chose your timezone, doesn’t matter really.

Review your choices and click install !

Once finished click restart now

Congrats, you have a Ubuntu Mate computer !

2. Set up the machine

Now if your machine is connected to the internet you should receive a prompt to update. It is nice to do to correct some issues with Mate, but not critical, so choose yourself.

If you didn’t do it yet, connect the computer to your TV or display you want to play on. On the Mate menu select display settings and make sure your screen is set to the correct resolution. If it’s a laptop, you can disable the laptop’s main screen by toggling it off.

3. Install Retroarch and setup folders

Terminal mode

Open a terminal by pressing ctrl+alt+T
Type in the command
sudo snap install retroarch
You will be asked for your password, type it and press enter, Retroarch will now install

Visual mode

Go to the application center in your menuSearch for RetroarchClick install.Enter your password when prompted.

When you launch Retroarch for the first time, it creates a directory tree in its installation folder (In our case /home/gori/snap/retroarch/2879/.config/retroarch) In order to find the .config folder, you will have to toggle the “Show hidden files” options in the View tab of Caja.

This folder tree includes a “system” folder (/home/huhu/snap/retroarch/2879/.config/retroarch/system) . Place your bios files here, zipped. Example amiga.zip

As you may know, some consoles and systems need a bios to run the games. This is especially true of more modern and powerful systems like the Playstation, but also the Gameboy advance and many arcade machines. 

You can find BIOS files here or download a full BIOS pack of 9GB if you don’t mind data usage. (https://archive.org/details/retroarch_bios)

For the roms, you can create a folder in your /home/username/ folder, or anywhere. It might just be difficult for retroarch to acces hidden folders through the internal file explorer. (that’s why we don’t place the roms in /home/gori/snap/retroarch/2879/.config/retroarch

If you’re in need of, you can download them on archive.org 

A good romset is the “Best set” (link) or the “Tiny best set” (link) if you want the essentials only.

You can also just download single files from Vimm’s Lair for example (link).

The roms can be zipped, e.g. mslug3.zip.

4. Setup cores

Now Retroarch by itself is just a front end and cannot emulate consoles. To do so, it uses what we call cores, which are emulators that fit into the Retroarch structure.

E.g. to emulate SNES you must add the SNES core (called snes9x or so)

(It’s sometimes good to add many cores for a single system, especially for arcade machines (FBAlpha and Mame2003) because these games, despite being 2D, are in fact quite advanced and don’t run so well with certain emulators. Some will only work with FBAlpha, some with Mame.)

Go to the Load Core tab and select Download a core.

Choose the cores corresponding to the systems you want to play. If you want, just download them all.

5. Setup game library

Do you really need a game library ? No. You can just click load content and browse your / folder then go to /home/username/roms and then to /snes/supermarioworld.zip and play games like this.

If you want a clearer and more visual interface, then a game library is good, especially for children. For this the computer/console needs to be connected to the internet.

To set up the library we need to download the Retroarch games database.

Go to “Online updater” and select “Update databases”.

Then we need to scan your roms folder. On the main menu go to “Import content”, then choose “Scan directory”.

Navigate to /username/retroarch/roms and select scan this directory. All your roms will be scanned and added to your game library, depending on the number of games you have it can take a while.

To add beautiful box art, go to “Online updater” from the main menu and select “Playlist thumbnails updater”. Select the consoles you wish to get box art for. It can be quite long, but once it’s done you have a beautiful library to play from.

You can skip this step if you don’t care about having box art and other frills.

6. Setup fullscreen

Since we’ll be playing as a console, let’s set up Retroarch to always run in fullscreen mode.

To do this, go to Settings, Video, Fullscreen mode. Select start in fullscreen mode.

7.Controller support.

By default, when you plug your controller via USB, Retroarch should recognize it and map it automatically. To change button mappings you can always go to settings, controller.

If you plan to use this as a console without keyboard, set up a button or combination to exit to home screen now !

To do this : Settings, Input, Hotkeys, and set keys for Quit, or Quit (controller combo), the second one being if you want to use a combination of buttons to exit games to the menu.

To connect Bluetooth controllers, you must first, on the upper bar of the desktop, select Bluetooth, and then pair your controller. It can be problematic though, because some Bluetooth controllers are not supported. With time they will be, as what we call the Linux kernel will be updated to support the, but it’s a matter of months.

8. Setup boot on Retroarch.

If you intend to use the system as a console, you can set Retroarch to launch at boot. Thus you don’t need a keyboard or mouse, this is especially useful if you set up the computer as a console for kids.

To do this open the desktop menu, search for “boot” and select startup applications. 

Click add and let’s type Retroarch in the command field.

Next time you reboot, Retroarch will now launch automatically on start every time.

9. Play

Now, everything is set so that you can set up your new old computer to play. You can disconnect from the internet and remove your mouse and keyboard, keeping only the controller and your screen and sound system.

Go to the game library and select your title. It will ask you to select a core, now it’s hard to say which core is best so you will have to try it yourself. Press Play and let’s go.

HAVE FUN AND BEAT THEM ALL