Amiberry: Additional Kickstart ROM scanning paths

[HoraceAndTheSpider]

The default path for kickstarts is presently ~/kickstarts

that is overwritten by:
pandora.rom_path= from within the .uae file.

e.g. pandora.rom_path=/home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/Amiga/

I would request that multiple paths are scanned for the kickstart, in order:

• pandora.rom_path=
• ~/kickstarts
• /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/
• sub-folders of /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/ (or /home/pi/RetroPie/BIOS/Amiga)

It might need to check how $FILE_PATH is handled, if used in the configuration file and possible replace/ignore this for additional scanned paths

This would solve a few complaints and probably make the 'risk' of mis-aligned kickstarts much lower.

[ghost]

Just out of interest, why did you change the kickstarts path to BIOS/Amiga ? Everything in RetroPie says to put the kickstarts in the BIOS directory. It would probably be easier to get RetroPie to change the SymLinks.

[HoraceAndTheSpider]

Because the latest RetroPie has much more organised BIOS folder.

This includes separated folders for Machines, PPSSPP, and capitalisation of letters.

Regardless of this, the "request" still stands- it would be better practice to check multiple folders, and fairly simple to implement.

[ghost]

You don't have to sound so sarcastic in all your posts. The RetroPie BIOS folder has always been like that. There are symlinks in the kickstarts directory that point to the BIOS folder, these could simply be changed to BIOS/Amiga otherwise what's the point in them being there ?

[HoraceAndTheSpider]

It's really not my fault if you read it as sarcastic when it is not. There is very little I have commented on here.

I can post a picture of an older "messier" bios folder with othe files no longer included there if you really want, but I don't know what that will achieve.

Anyway - on topic ; i am not saying the symlinks cannot be changed.

I am just saying that doing this doesn't mean that scanning multiple folders isnta good practice and would put Amiberry in line with Fs-uae and others.

I've already discussed this with Dimitris who asked for it to be posted here as a reminder.

[Voljega]

is it really a good idea to tie amiberry so much to Retropie though ? harcoded I mean...
uae file should be enough to specify kickstart directory

[a7mag3ddon]

It's an additional directory lookup it's not a change to anything

[osvaldolove]

It shouldn't be coupled to Retropie.
But having it checking kickstart path in config before falling back to a default should be a valid use case.
Default on failed parsing of this setting should be ./kickstarts

[osvaldolove]

Maybe there is scope to have a list of search paths instead, but again this should come from the .uae config and not hard coded.

[midwan]

Nothing will be hardcoded... :)

There is already support for multipath structures in the SDL2 branch, if you look in options.h:

struct multipath {
    TCHAR path[MAX_PATHS][PATH_MAX];
};

MAX_PATHS is already defined as 8, that should be enough surely?

And actually, the interesting parts we're talking about here, are already updated to be multipaths:

struct multipath path_floppy;
struct multipath path_hardfile;
struct multipath path_rom;
struct multipath path_cd;

And they are supposed to be saved like that in the config file ("supposed" because I haven't tested it much). So it's mostly a matter of a sanity check and making sure nothing gets messed up when saving / loading the info to / from the config file.

[osvaldolove]

Sounds spot on to me 👍

[midwan]

@windale Please, let's keep the issue clean of any irrelevant disputes with other users