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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : PC emulator for Micropython on the Pico Computer 3

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dddns
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Joined: 20/09/2024
Location: Germany
Posts: 874
Posted: 08:41am 19 Jul 2026
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  okwatts said  I tried the setup under Mint21.3 Cinammon and got it to build following the instructions but upon starting got the banner, >>> prompt, a window flashed open and then seg faulted.


I'm using Mint21.3 Cinammon as well and have compiled and packed it with this version.
This runs perfect on Mint21.3 Cinammon (my PC) itself but also on unmodified Mint22.3 live session and on Ubuntu 26.04 Desktop-amd64 live session if you install libsdl2-dev, both tested under Oracle Virtual box.
 
okwatts
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Joined: 27/09/2022
Location: Canada
Posts: 76
Posted: 03:04pm 19 Jul 2026
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@matherp
I tried both of the environment settings and still seg faulted. The gdb output refers to a library for the nvidia card driver I have in that box. I am trying to revert to the standard xserver and will give that a try. In the mean time I have installed on my Win11 box and that works fine. I will keep trying to sort this out. I take some comfort from @dddns that this is possible so I will try again with a clean install on another system.
 
okwatts
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Joined: 27/09/2022
Location: Canada
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Posted: 09:55pm 19 Jul 2026
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I can report that reverting to the standard xserver solved the problem. The emulator works amazingly fast, which could be a real challenge for developing animations to run on the actual Pico Computer 3.
I know that Nvidia drivers are not supported well on older versions of Linux and especially for older graphics cards (In my case an NVIDIA GEForce GTX 1050Ti). There is obviously some incompatibility in the libraries for those cards. It's a shame as I use those older machines running Linux for experimenting with CUDA to take advantage of the compute power in the GPU. My Win11 desktop has a RTX5060 Ti with 16GB memory for playing around with local AI models and the emulator under WSL and Ubuntu26.04 works great there.
 
LeoNicolas

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Joined: 07/10/2020
Location: Canada
Posts: 595
Posted: 12:15pm 20 Jul 2026
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I have test it on Fedora 44. It ran without any issues.
 
scruss
Senior Member

Joined: 20/09/2021
Location: Canada
Posts: 105
Posted: 08:46pm 20 Jul 2026
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like @okwatts, built from source, but emulator crashed despite any startup options. MicroPython thread crashed in gdb, with similar nvidia library yelling.

I'm running current Debian with Wayland, and won't be going back to X11 to try other options. It was enough work getting this new(ish) machine working with the latest nvidia graphics that I don't want to mess with it any further.
 
matherp
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Joined: 11/12/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 11635
Posted: 10:01pm 20 Jul 2026
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  Quote  This is why I despise Linux...


Too many different distros, multiple releases LTS/current etc., totally impossible to ship an executable that just works. The source is there, if you can make it work fine, if not sorry but nothing I can do. If you use windows and follow the WSL instructions it will work and I've also tested building on a basic Ubunbtu machine and that also worked perfectly. Various users above have made it work on various flavours of Linux as reported above so there is clearly nothing fundamentally wrong. All I can suggest if it doesn't work is to use a VM with a known good environment and build within that
This runs perfect on Mint21.3 Cinammon (my PC) itself but also on unmodified Mint22.3 live session and on Ubuntu 26.04 Desktop-amd64 live session if you install libsdl2-dev, both tested under Oracle Virtual box.
 
TassyJim

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Joined: 07/08/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 6546
Posted: 04:54am 21 Jul 2026
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If I can get it working, anyone can...

Mint22.1 Cinnamon in a virtualbox on W11

Did an update to my Mint system.
copy and paste the instructions from Peter.
I then made a launcher which also worked out-of-the-box

Jim
VK7JH
MMedit
 
dddns
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Joined: 20/09/2024
Location: Germany
Posts: 874
Posted: 06:26am 21 Jul 2026
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  scruss said  like @okwatts, built from source, but emulator crashed despite any startup options. MicroPython thread crashed in gdb, with similar nvidia library yelling.

I'm running current Debian with Wayland, and won't be going back to X11 to try other options. It was enough work getting this new(ish) machine working with the latest nvidia graphics that I don't want to mess with it any further.


I think it's due to the interaction between the NVIDIA drivers and libsdl2. My desktop runs on an old Intel onboard chipset, and VBox has its own as well.
As a test, you could log in to the NVIDIA machine from a second non-Nvida PC via SSH and set up an X tunnel or forward/export the display to the test PC.
 
Mixtel90

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Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8964
Posted: 07:19am 21 Jul 2026
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Nvidia has a long history of complete non-cooperation with the Linux project. Don't ever expect full and accurate operation of any Nvidia hardware, The Linux driver(s) that exist have been painstakingly reverse-engineered from the hardware and are very basic.

Use any other video system on Linux, just not Nvidia.
Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs
 
dddns
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Joined: 20/09/2024
Location: Germany
Posts: 874
Posted: 12:03pm 21 Jul 2026
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  matherp said  All I can suggest if it doesn't work is to use a VM with a known good environment and build within that


Last thought: if this would run under your NVIDIA/Wayland setup within Virtual box it would be almost a proof.
 
JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4352
Posted: 01:31pm 21 Jul 2026
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Here a pc3emu-bin which is happy with a much earlier GLIBC.

John
pc3emu-bin.zip
 
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