Pinephone-Gaming-Chroot

Guide to setup a MultiArch Chroot container to run Steam and Wine.

NOTE: I have tested multiple Desktop Enviroments/Shells and SXMO/SWMO has the best fps with both PMOS and Arch Linux. (Mobian yet to be tested)

You can use other desktop enviroments but perfomance can vary depending on the users distro settings.

Please make sure to read, I put alot of time to try to make this as newbie friendly as possible.

To see a list of games I've tested: PinePhone(A64), PinePhone Pro(RK3399s)

Pictures of Steam and a few games running at bottom.

Launch scripts and possible auto installer script coming soon.?.?.?.?...

Getting Started!

Install desbootstrap and xhost

For Arch-based Distro(Arch Linux, Manjaro): sudo pacman -S debootstrap debian-archive-keyring xorg-xhost

For Debian-based Distro(Mobian, Ubuntu Touch??): sudo apt install deboostrap debian-archive-keyring x11-xserver-utils

Navigate to a directory and Deboostrap container

This will create a secondary root directory that we can use the chroot command to switch to.

sudo debootstrap --arch armhf --components=main,universe bullseye gaming https://deb.debian.org/debian

Mount container & chroot into it.

Here we navigate into the secondary root directory, then mount necessary device and system folders to use the secondary root.

We enable X11 connectivity so we can use graphical applications.

cd gaming

sudo mount -t proc /proc proc/

sudo mount -t sysfs /sys sys/

sudo mount --bind /dev dev/

xhost +local

sudo chroot .

Note: When using sxmo/swmo, you will need to install your DE's terminal: apt install foot stterm and chroot back into the container to fix backspace and arrow keys.

Inside the chroot, add PATH and other variables to /root/.bashrc

vi /root/.bashrc or use nano if you are new to linux. /bin/nano /root/.bashrc

You can just copy and paste this.

export LC_ALL="C"

export LANGUAGE="C"

export PATH=$PATH:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/games:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin

export STEAMOS=1

export STEAM_RUNTIME=1

This will source the changes to be used

source /root/.bashrc

Install some packages and create user.

apt install sudo vim make cmake git wget gnupg libx11-dev libgl-dev libvulkan-dev libtcmalloc-minimal4 libnm0 zenity chromium alsamixergui libsdl2-dev unzip libgles-dev

You may have to do this for other Desktop Enviroments.

Set chroot's user and password for root and user

Note: Replace your_user with your preferred username when creatinging a user.

adduser --home /home/your_user your_user

Next add your_user to users group

usermod -g users your_user

These next commands set your passwords in combination with the corrisponding user.

passwd your_user

Remember to set root to something complex.

passwd root

Add your_user to visudo then change to your_user

EDITOR=vim visudo or use nano if you are new to linux EDITOR=nano visudo

root	ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

your_user 	ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Note: There is a bug where the home folder doesn't always get created. We must create one ourselves. mkdir /home/your_user Then chown it to your_user chown your_user /home/your_user

Now change to your user.

su your_user

When you change to your_user, it will still be in the previous direcotry you were in as root. We must change to our home directory. cd ~/

So we can launch gui applications and steam without so many errors

Edit ~/.bashrc with your favorite text editor

vim ~/.bashrc

Copy the stable source for box86 and then compile it.

git clone https://github.com/ptitSeb/box86

For PinePhone (A64)

cd ~/box86; mkdir build; cd build; cmake ../ -DA64=1; make -j$(nproc); sudo make install

For PinePhone Pro (RK3399s)

cd ~/box86; mkdir build; cd build; cmake ../ -DRK3399=1; make -j$(nproc); sudo make install

Outside the chroot container

Here we must copy box86.conf from chroot to host and restart host systemd-binfmt so BOX86 will run automatically when launching x86 applications.

NOTE: You don't have to quit the chroot. Just open another terminal.

sudo cp -r PATH_TO_CHROOT/etc/binfmt.d/box86.conf /etc/binfmt.d/

sudo systemctl restart systemd-binfmt

Inside the container install steam and libappindicator1, then add i386 multiarch after steam has launched.

These commands will create a Downloads Folder and use it to store required install files. You can clear this folder after install.

mkdir ~/Downloads

cd ~/Downloads

wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libi/libindicator/libindicator7_0.5.0-4_armhf.deb

wget http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/main/liba/libappindicator/libappindicator1_0.4.92-7_armhf.deb

wget http://launchpadlibrarian.net/377987065/libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1.1_armhf.deb

sudo apt install ./lib*

wget https://repo.steampowered.com/steam/archive/stable/steam_latest.deb

sudo apt install ./steam_latest.deb

cd ~/

Launch steam into mini games list

Remember that sudo chmod 1777 /dev/shm needs to be ran before running Steam, This will only have to be done after every reboot.

This command will set the architecture to linux32 to use 32bit libraries only. This is so Steam doesn't register 64bit pins right away, if it does it may cause issues later. setarch -L linux32 steam +open steam://open/minigameslist

After installing BOX64 in PART 2 you can just run steam +open steam://open/minigameslist to use both BOX86 and BOX64

Since this is a chroot, you will have to remount /dev, /proc, & /sys on reboot.

sudo mount -t proc /proc proc/

sudo mount -t sysfs /sys sys/

sudo mount --bind /dev dev/

xhost +local:

To open a specific steam game, to get $STEAMAPPID go to SteamDB

steam +open steam://rungameid/$STEAMAPPID

Note: when launching a game this way, Steam will be mimized and almost impossible to bring back up.

Adjusting audio

Since the chroot container has a seperater audio server, you can use alsamixergui to adjust the audio level.

Managing tasks.

You will probably end up having to manage tasks of crashed programs and such.

You can easily:

Kill the task with htop. Must have htop installed

Use ps a the display a list of runnning tasks and find the PID for Steam.

Example:

[your_user@your_hostname ~]$ ps a 
 PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
 835 tty1     Ssl+   0:09 /usr/lib/Xorg -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 vt1 -auth /var/run/sddm/{ce2a345f
1797 pts/2    Ss     0:00 /bin/bash
2501 pts/2    S+     0:00 sudo .xs/backs/.applications/OpenRGB/openrgb --gui

Then use kill -9 PID to kill the process.

To improve performance

Set Steam Library setting to Low Bandwisth Mode and Low Performance Mode
Disable Broadcasting
Disable Remote Play. This is broken anyways.
If you use a skin, be carefull. Some tax Steam's Interface.
Launch with:

For Pinephone (A64): BOX86_LOG=0 BOX64_LOG=0 steam +open steam://open/minigameslist 2> tee ~/steam.log

For Pinephone Pro (RK3399s): BOX86_LOG=0 BOX64_LOG=0 MESA_GL_VERSION_OVERRIDE=3.2 PAN_MESA_DEBUG=gl3 steam +open steam://open/minigameslist 2> tee steam.log

This will redirect output to a file. Improves performance a bit.

Note: I left the override for opengl 3 in there because it doesn't hurt anything, yet makes more games able to launch from library list.
Run all games on low obviously. Alot of games crash loading in from menus due to texture overloading.

Uninstalling Steam games.

To uninistall games:

Close Steam
Grab APPID from SteamDB
Delete game from PATH_TO_STEAMLIBRARY/common/
Delete appmanifest_APPID.acf from PATH_TO_STEAMLIBRARY/
Launch Steam again and the game should be uninstalled.

Notes

- Big Picture Mode Crashes on PinePhone and PinePhone Pro, even with gl4es.

+ Conrtollers Work with some games.

- Proton doesn't work

- Steam doesn't work in a arm64 chroot enviroment, that's why we start with armhf then use debian multiarch (Part 2)

PART 2 Adding Box64 for 64bit

Setup prerequisites

Here we added arm64 architecture, update debian sources, and install some requirements to install BOX64 and run x86_64 applications

sudo dpkg --add-architecture arm64 

sudo apt update

sudo apt install firefox-esr:arm64 gcc:arm64 libx11-dev:arm64 libvulkan-dev:arm64 libsdl2-dev:arm64 libgl-dev:arm64 libc6-dev:arm64 libgles-dev:arm64

cd ~/

wget https://github.com/ptitSeb/box64/archive/fbb534917a028aaae2dd6b79900425dbe5617112.zip

unzip fbb534917a028aaae2dd6b79900425dbe5617112.zip

For PinePhone (A64)

cd ~/box64*; mkdir build; cd build; cmake ../ -DA64=1; make -j$(nproc); sudo make install

For PinePhone Pro (RK3399s)

cd ~/box64*; mkdir build; cd build; cmake ../ -DRK3399=1; make -j$(nproc); sudo make install

Outside the chroot container

Here we must copy box64.conf from chroot to host and restart host systemd-binfmt so BOX64 will run automatically when launching x86_64 applications.

NOTE: You don't have to quit the chroot. Just open another terminal.

sudo cp -r PATH_TO_CHROOT/etc/binfmt.d/box64.conf /etc/binfmt.d/

sudo systemctl restart systemd-binfmt

If everything went well you should now be able to launch 64bit applications while still being able to launch steam

Installing Wine

Instructions for installing Wine for Box86 can be found here

Note: Doing this may or may not break Steam. It's worth the risk to try in my opinion.

Uninstalling the chroot

Navigate to chroot directoy, mine is /home/alarm/chroot/gaming

Inside the chroot folder umount /dev, /proc, & /sys

sudo umount ./* This is if you are inside /home/$USER/chroot/gaming directory

sudo umount gaming/* If you are in the folder /home/$USER/chroot

From /home/alarm/chroot run sudo rm -r gaming/

Removing debootstrap and xhost

For Arch-based Distro(Arch Linux, Manjaro): sudo pacman -R debootstrap debian-archive-keyring xorg-xhost

For Debian-based Distro(Mobian, Ubuntu Touch??): sudo apt remove deboostrap debian-archive-keyring x11-xserver-utils

Tested On:

Device: PinePhone & PinePhone Pro

Distro: Arch Linux Arm w/ Debian multiarch chroot

Inputs: Touchscreen, Dualsense Controller, Xbox One Controller, Power-A Switch Controller

NOTE: Touchscreen Controller input is experimental use at your own risk.

TabPad must be ran from a seperate terminal.

Recommend to launch another terminal and chroot into the container again for this. You can try to run this from the host, but TabPad relies on X11 and won't launch with wayland currently. Looking into modifying or just a new touchscreen controller.

Checkout ptitSeb's BOX86, BOX64, & GL4ES githubs at these links. This project is the real hero here!!!!

BOX86 Here

BOX86-COMPATIBILITY-LIST Here Go to issues.

BOX64 Here

GL4ES Here

Steam

Steam-DST

Steam Team Fortress Classic

eggplantredrage/Pinephone-Gaming-Chroot

Pinephone-Gaming-Chroot

Getting Started!

Install desbootstrap and xhost

Navigate to a directory and Deboostrap container

Mount container & chroot into it.

Inside the chroot, add PATH and other variables to /root/.bashrc

Install some packages and create user.

Set chroot's user and password for root and user

Add your_user to visudo then change to your_user

So we can launch gui applications and steam without so many errors

Copy the stable source for box86 and then compile it.

Outside the chroot container

Inside the container install steam and libappindicator1, then add i386 multiarch after steam has launched.

Launch steam into mini games list

To open a specific steam game, to get $STEAMAPPID go to SteamDB

Adjusting audio

Managing tasks.

To improve performance

Uninstalling Steam games.

To uninistall games:

Notes

- Big Picture Mode Crashes on PinePhone and PinePhone Pro, even with gl4es.

+ Conrtollers Work with some games.

- Proton doesn't work

- Steam doesn't work in a arm64 chroot enviroment, that's why we start with armhf then use debian multiarch (Part 2)

PART 2

Adding Box64 for 64bit

Setup prerequisites

For PinePhone (A64)

For PinePhone Pro (RK3399s)

Outside the chroot container

If everything went well you should now be able to launch 64bit applications while still being able to launch steam

Installing Wine

Instructions for installing Wine for Box86 can be found here

Uninstalling the chroot

Tested On:

NOTE: Touchscreen Controller input is experimental use at your own risk.

TabPad must be ran from a seperate terminal.

Checkout ptitSeb's BOX86, BOX64, & GL4ES githubs at these links. This project is the real hero here!!!!

Steam

Steam-DST

Steam Team Fortress Classic