[Tutorial] Run x86 apps on l4t switch with box86

Hello everyone, if you have been in the official switchroot discord you would have noticed that @Heasterian have managed to run opengl x86 apps on l4t. This tutorial will cover what he did in the most noob-friendly way possible.



Tested games after UPDATE:
GTA Vice City: Average 15 fps, unstable, stutters when driving and fps drops when loading the map
Star Wars Battlefront II: stable 10 fps on the spawn screen, Xephyr has an issue with mouse input so could not get into the game
Worms 4 mayhem: stable 25 fps
Warcraft 3 demo: stable 27 fps

Green Joy-Con D-Pad Shells for Nintendo Switch

Green Joy-Con D-Pad Shells for Nintendo Switch

Outcome
If you follow this guide step-by-step you should be at the very least capable of running x86 apps on l4t. FPS will vary depending on what app and configurations you use (See above for tested games). For this tutorial, we will run Warcraft III demo on the switch.

Setting up schroot and box86
Source rna on armbian: http://forum.armbian.com/topic/16584-install-box86-on-arm64/

1) Open a terminal on l4t and enter the following commands one by one:

Code:

sudo apt install schroot debootstrap

sudo mkdir /srv/chroot

sudo mkdir /srv/chroot/debian-armhf

sudo debootstrap --arch armhf --foreign buster /srv/chroot/debian-armhf http://debian.xtdv.net/debian

sudo chroot "/srv/chroot/debian-armhf" /debootstrap/debootstrap --second-stage

2) Create a config file for the chroot by entering the following command:

Code:

sudo nano /etc/schroot/chroot.d/debian-armhf.conf

3) Copy and paste the following and replace <username> with your ubuntu username: (to save in nano press CTRL+X, Then Y, then Enter)

Code:

[debian-armhf]
description=Debian Armhf chroot
aliases=debian-armhf
type=directory
directory=/srv/chroot/debian-armhf
profile=desktop
personality=linux
preserve-environment=true
root-users=<username>
users=<username>

4) Edit the nssdatabases like so:

Code:

sudo nano /etc/schroot/desktop/nssdatabases

5) Overwrite what is already there with the following: (Use CTRL+SHIFT+6 with the cursor in the beginning of the file then use the arrow keys to move to the end of the file, then press CTRL+K to delete the selection)

Code:

# System databases to copy into the chroot from the host system.
#
# <database name>
#passwd
shadow
#group
gshadow
services
protocols
#networks
#hosts
#user

6) Edit the stateoverride like so:

Code:

sudo nano /srv/chroot/debian-armhf/var/lib/dpkg/statoverride

7) Overwrite what is already there with the following:

Code:

root root 2755 /usr/bin/crontab

8) Now you can schroot with:

Code:

sudo schroot -c debian-armhf

9) Edit the bashrc like this:

Code:

nano ~/.bashrc

10) Add the following: (if the file is not empty, add the following at the end of the file)

Code:

export LANGUAGE="C"
export LC_ALL="C"
export DISPLAY=:1
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1
export GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe

11) Edit sources.list in chroot like so:

Code:

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

12) Overwrite what is there with:

Code:

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free

deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib

13) Run update and upgrade like so: (enter y when prompted after apt upgrade)

Code:

apt update

apt upgrade

14) Install some required packages like so: (enter y when prompted)

Code:

apt install git wget cmake build-essential python3

apt install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf

apt install python3-setuptools

apt install sudo

15) Clone and compile box86 like this:

Code:

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

cd box86

mkdir build; cd build; cmake .. -DARM_DYNAREC=ON -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo; make

16) Install wine like this:

Code:

wget http://twisteros.com/wine.tgz

tar zxvf wine.tgz

17) Install Zenity like this:

Code:

apt install zenity

18) Exit schroot with:

Code:

exit

Build mesa on schroot

1) Enter schroot with:

Code:

sudo schroot -c debian-armhf

2) Install build dependencies like this:

Code:

apt-get build-dep mesa

3) Clone mesa and build: (run these commands one by one):

Code:

git clone http://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa.git -b 20.1

cd mesa

meson build

cd build

ninja && sudo ninja install

4) Exit schroot:

Code:

exit

Build virglrenderer on host

1) Open a new terminal window and run the following commands:

Code:

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade

sudo apt install python3-pip

sudo pip3 install meson

Code:

sudo apt install libegl1-mesa-dev

sudo apt install libgbm-dev

sudo apt install ninja-build

git clone http://github.com/anholt/libepoxy

cd libepoxy

mkdir _build && cd _build

meson

ninja

sudo ninja install

Code:

git clone http://gitlab.freedesktop.org/virgl/virglrenderer.git

cd virglrenderer

git checkout c7c102ba

meson build

cd build

ninja && sudo ninja install

2) Mount host tmp to chroot like this:

Code:

sudo mount --bind /tmp /srv/chroot/debian-armhf/tmp

3) Close the terminal window

Run a game

1) Open a terminal window and enter schroot with:

Code:

sudo schroot -c debian-armhf

2) Open a new terminal window and enter the following commands:

Code:

cd virglrenderer/build/vtest

./virgl_test_server --use-glx

3) Open a new terminal and enter the following command:

Code:

sudo DISPLAY=:0 Xephyr :1

4) Download W3demo.exe from http://archive.org/details/WarcraftIiiReignOfChaosDemo

5) On the schroot terminal run: (replace path to exe with where you downloaded W3demo.exe)

Code:

sudo ~/box86/build/box86 ~/wine/bin/wine 'path to exe'

UPDATE : virgl server was not using the gpu but was doing software rendering. To fix this delete the lines in nano ~/.bashrc, restart the switch then type the following lines on a terminal then run schroot in that terminal.

Code:

export LANGUAGE="C"
export LC_ALL="C"
export DISPLAY=:1
export LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1
export GALLIUM_DRIVER=virpipe

Note: I do not know if this is safe so proceed at your own risk. Afterwards, overclock your switch and use

Code:

sudo jetson_clocks