This How To Use iPad As RetroPi Screen helps you to leverage on your iPad as the screen or monitor for your RetroPi. Its actually very simple to get there.
Use iPad As RetroPi Screen
Index of How To Use iPad As RetroPi Screen
Background
I own a very nice iPad whilst I hate to connect / disconnect my TV or office screen for just playing a couple of minutes some RetroPi games. I thought there must be a solution for this and there must be an option by which I simply can leverage on my iPad. After some research, try and error, I found a solution that works for me and that I like to share with you.
To make this work you need:
- Raspberry Pi
- RetroPi installed on your Raspberry Pi
- An iPad
- NoMachine software
How To Use iPad As RetroPi Screen
Two steps are required, number one, install software on your iPad and number two do the same on your Raspberry.
Install NoMachine on your iPad
Simply open the AppStore and search for NoMachine. Install the NoMachine App issued from the NoMachine developer.
Install NoMachine on your Raspberry Pi
This one is easy too, but there are more steps required then with the iPad. Lets get it done:
- Open an SSH connection to your Raspi or, open on your Raspi a terminal
- Type the below command to download the relevant NoMachine software package
sudo wget https://download.nomachine.com/download/7.7/Raspberry/nomachine_8.2.3_3_armhf.deb
Please note, this will download version 8.2.3_3 for Raspberry Pi 3+ ARMv7. There is meanwhile maybe a newer version. Please check the Additional Information chapter that helps to identify whether the right and the newest versions. - Once you downloaded and installed the right as well as the newest version of NoMachine, then you need to install it. Run:
sudo dpkg -i nomachine_8.2.3_3_armhf.deb
Now we are ready to go.
Connect using NoMachine
Start the NoMachine App your iPad. Enter the IP Address of your Raspberry. Enjoy to Use iPad As RetroPi Screen!
Additional Information to How To Use iPad As RetroPi Screen
Select the right and the newest version of NoMachine
Newer versions of NoMachine can be found on the NoMachine website in the Raspberry Pi section. However, you have to be careful with which version you select. This is depending on your Raspberry. First of all, you need to find out which Raspberry ARM version you have. This can be done by a simple command:
cat /proc/cpuinfo
The command will output something like this:
processor : 0 model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l) BogoMIPS : 89.60 Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32 CPU implementer : 0x41 CPU architecture: 7 CPU variant : 0x0 CPU part : 0xd03 CPU revision : 4 processor : 1 model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l) BogoMIPS : 89.60 Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32 CPU implementer : 0x41 CPU architecture: 7 CPU variant : 0x0 CPU part : 0xd03 CPU revision : 4 processor : 2 model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l) BogoMIPS : 89.60 Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32 CPU implementer : 0x41 CPU architecture: 7 CPU variant : 0x0 CPU part : 0xd03 CPU revision : 4 processor : 3 model name : ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7l) BogoMIPS : 89.60 Features : half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32 CPU implementer : 0x41 CPU architecture: 7 CPU variant : 0x0 CPU part : 0xd03 CPU revision : 4 Hardware : BCM2835 Revision : a020d3 Serial : 000000009815af3f Model : Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3
On the second line of this output you find “model name” that is “ARMv7 Processor rev 4 (v7i). Furthermore, on the last line you find “Model” and “Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus Rev 1.3”. On your Raspberry Pi this might look different, but this is the information (obviously from your Raspberry) that you need. Leveraging on your browser now, surf no wo the download website of NoMachine: downloads.nomachine.com . In this section you will find the versions available, as indicated by the below picture.
NoMachine for Raspberry Versions for ARM
There now is a simple match needed. Basically, we know that in this case we have a Raspberry Pi 3 Plus with an ARM v7. For this reason we select “NoMachine for Raspberry ARMv7 DEB”. Clicking the link gives us additional information, including how exactly the package is called. In this case “nomachine_8.2.3_3_armhf.deb”. This is what was used in the chapter “Install NoMachine on your Raspberry Pi”.
