Installing Linux Mint and Batocera on your Upgraded Atari VCS 800

by Mike Knotts · Published January 1, 2025 · Updated January 27, 2025

Atari VCS 800 system with the Classic and Modern Wireless Controllers

Now that the hardware in the Atari VCS 800 has been upgraded, and the system and controllers patched and updated, it is time to put all of that extra storage space and RAM to good use. There are lots of different ways to take advantage of the expandability of the Atari VCS 800; some people want to install Windows, Linux and other operating systems to run the Atari as a mini PC, others want a unique media steaming box, and others want to do all-of-the-above and more.

My particular use case for the Atari is pretty simple, and that’s to replace my RaspberryPi 4 RetroPie box as the living room retro-gaming system. To do that, I’ve settled on only installing Linux Mint for system maintenance and Batocera for the retro-gaming, and to replace RetroPie; which I remain a fan of, but which hasn’t had a release in years. Batocera has a very similar front-end UI to RetroPie, so it’s easy to use, and it continues to be in active development. It does not have quite the range of available emulators as RetroPie, but it covers what I’m looking for very well – which are classic arcade, console and computer games from the 70s through 90s.

Another component of my use case is that the Atari is going to be in the living room, and I don’t want a keyboard out every time I use the thing, so I want it to boot into Batocera exclusively. If I need to do any system maintenance, I can always use the keyboard, but for the most part, I only want to use a controller to interact with the system. So, I am not going to set up a graphical boot manager. The one built into BIOS is fine for when I need to boot to Linux.

For Atari OS; unless the games available in the Online Store increase in quality, I don’t see much need to boot into Atari OS, and it can also stay on its own 32GB eMMC drive. Besides, how we’re going to partition the SSD will allow Atari OS to take advantage of the additional storage. And, there’s always the keyboard and the BIOS boot-manager for getting to Atari OS when needed.

Also note that this reference and checklist are for the particular versions of Linux Mint (22 – Wilma) and Batocera (40) that I worked with. Your experience may may not be the same, sometimes slightly, other times significantly, based on differences in hardware, software, etc., so I offer no guarantees, but this has worked for me.

You will need to have:

A wired keyboard, or non-Bluetooth wireless keyboard
A wired mouse, or non-Bluetooth wireless mouse
Your Atari Modern Controller and included USB cable
A USB Flash Drive for the Linux Mint installer
A 2nd USB Flash Drive for the Batocera installer
A 3rd USB Flash Drive for the data-files used by Batocera, but only if you do not already have a computer on the network to copy the data-files from

To prepare for the upgrade, you will need:

To have added an SSD to your Atari VCS 800 and removed/changed/memorized the BIOS Supervisor Password already
The latest version of Linux Mint – downloadable here
I am using the Lightweight Edition, but you may use the full version if you have a large SSD installed.
To write that downloaded Linux Mint to a USB Flash Drive, following the instructions here
The latest version of Batocera – downloadable here
To write that downloaded Batocera to a USB Flash Drive, following the same instructions as above for Linux Mint, but selecting the Batocera ISO as the Source instead of Linux Mint
To connect the Atari VCS 800 to a TV/monitor, the keyboard, mouse and power – but leave the VCS turned off for now

Step 1 – Boot to Linux Mint

Plug your USB Flash Drive with Linux Mint into any USB port
Turn on the Atari VCS 800 and press the ESC key on the keyboard until you get to the BIOS screen
From the BIOS menu, select “Boot Manager“
From the Boot Manager menu, select your USB Flash Drive
This will automatically restart the Atari and boot the system into Linux Mint from the USB Flash Drive.
From the Linux Mint boot menu, select the 64-bit version of the Linux Mint release number that you downloaded
In my case, “Start Linux Mint 22 64-bit”

The Disks application from Linux Mint, for partitioning storage

Step 2 – Use Linux Mint to Partition the SSD

Open the “LM” menu in the lower-left corner of the screen, click in the search box and search for “disks”, then select the Disks app with the mouse or keyboard
From the Disks app, in the Disks window on the left, click on your SSD to select it
In my case it was “/dev/sda”, my Western Digital Blue 250GB M.2 SSD¹
From the Volumes window, click on the “VCS_Bundles” partition, then click on the minus (“-“) button to delete the VCS_Bundles partition
You will not need this partition. We’ll set up a SHARE partition that Atari OS can use later, if that is something you may need in the future.
Click on the plus (“+”) button to create a new partition
From the New Partition window, select “EFI boot volume” and allocate at least 1GB to that partition. This partition does not need to be large, 1-2GB is fine
1. Give the partition a volume name, something like “boot”
2. Format the partition for use in all systems in FAT
From the Volumes window, click on your new boot partition that was just created, then click on the Gears icon (next to +) and select “Edit Partition”
1. Under the Type menu, select “EFI System”
2. Click on the “Change” button
Click on the plus (“+”) button to create a new partition
From the New Partition window, create a new Linux swap partition that Linux Mint (and maybe Batocera, since it is Linux too) can use
This should be a small partition. I allocated 16GB, half of the systems RAM, of my 250GB SSD for the Linux swap partition.
1. Give the partition a name, something like “swap”
2. Select “Other” under Format the partition, then click on “Next“
3. Select “Linux Swap Partition“, then click on “Next“
4. Click on “Format“
From the Volumes window, click on your new swap partition that was just created, then click on the Gears icon (next to +) and select “Edit Partition”
1. Under the Type menu, select “Linux Swap” if not already selected
2. If “Linux Swap” is not already selected, click on the “Change” button. If “Linux Swap” is already selected, you can back out and cancel this.
Click on the plus (“+”) button to create a new partition
From the New Partition window, create a new partition where Linux Mint will be installed, leaving significant space left for Batocera and shared data.
I allocated 32GB of my 250GB SSD for the Linux Mint install
1. Give the partition a volume name, something like “mint”
2. Format the partition for use with Linux only in Ext4
Click on the plus (“+”) button to create a new partition
From the New Partition window, create a new partition where Batocera will be installed. You should only need to allocate 32-50GB for the Batocera install. All of the data-files used by Batocera (BIOS, roms, art, etc) will be stored on a SHARE partition we will set up next.
I allocated 50GB of my 250GB SSD for the Batocera install
1. Give the partition a volume name, something like “batocera”
2. Format the partition for use with all systems in FAT
Click on the plus (“+”) button to create our final partition
From the New Partition window, create a new partition for shared data accessible by Batocera, Linux Mint, and Atari OS.
This should be the majority of the SSD, and the rest of the available space on it
1. Give the partition the name “share”
2. Format the partition for use with Linux only in Ext4
In turn, click on each of the partition you have created, and then click on the Stop (“square”) button to unmount each partition that the system automatically mounted when it was created
Close the Disks app

Step 3 – Install Linux Mint

In the upper-left of the desktop, double-click on Install Linux Mint
Select your geographic location and WiFi Network details (if using WiFi)
If asked, select that you wish to Install Multimedia Codecs
On the Installation Type screen, select “Something else“
Select the partition you created for Linux Mint, and then click on the “Change…” button
Leave the Size unchanged
Select “Ext4 journaling file system” for the Use As
Select “Format the partition“
Select “/” as the Mount Point
Select your new SSD drive, in my case “/dev/sda”, under “Device for boot loader installation“
This can be confusing and is important to note – do not select your Linux Mint partition or any partition, which are indicated by a number appended at the end of the drive identifier (such as “/dev/sda2”). Only select the drive (like “dev/sda”), not a partition on the drive (like “dev/sda2”), as the device for boot loader installation. The installer will know to put it into the EFI Boot partition automatically.
Follow the rest of the on-screen prompts to complete the installation of Linux Mint

Step 4 – Prep for and Install Batocera

Like RetroPie, Batocera is a specialized version of Linux. However, Batocera can run on a variety of hardware. The basic concept of Batocera is that it is designed to run off a USB Flash Drive, so that it’s portable and you can use that for retro gaming on-the-go. You literally just plug and play. When Batocera boots for the first time, it repartitions the USB Flash Drive and creates a new, SHARE, partition for the user to copy their files to. Since we have already created the SHARE partition, the Batocera installer won’t need to perform the repartition. To stop this process from repeatedly failing every time Batocera boots, we’ll need to make one small change to a configuration file (7 through 10 below) before installing Batocera.

Unplug the USB Flash Drive with Linux Mint and allow the Atari VCS 800 to reboot into Linux Mint from the SSD partition where you installed it in Step 3.
You should not need to interact with the system, it should boot directly to the Linux Mint desktop
Plug the USB Flash Drive with Batocera into any USB port
In the lower left menu on the screen, open File Manager and, within File Manager, select the USB Flash Drive
In the Edit menu, choose “Select all“, and then in the Edit menu, select “Copy“
From the File Manager window, select the Batocera partition on your SSD
In the Edit menu, select “Paste“, and copy all of the Batocera install files from the USB Flash Drive to the Batocera partition on your SSD
Once the copy process is complete, from the Batocera partition on your SSD, select the “batocera-boot.conf” file and right-click on the file, and then open it with the Text Editor app
Since we’ve already created partitions on the SSD for both Batocera and SHARE data, we need to turn off auto-resizing/repartitioning for user data during Batocera’s installation. Add # before the “autoresize=true” entry so that it appears like below:
```
## Automatically resize the userdata partition if unallocated space is present on the drive. Disables itself once completed successfully.
#autoresize=true
```
Save your changes to the batocera-boot.conf file.
Close the Text Editor app
In the File Manager window, right click on the USB Flash Drive and select “Eject“. After the system successfully ejects it, remove the USB Flash Drive from the USB port.
Go to the LM menu in the lower left hand corner of the screen and select “Reboot“
Press the ESC key on the keyboard until the BIOS screen appears
Plug the Atari Modern Controller into the VCS 800 using the included USB cable
From the BIOS menu, select “Boot Manager“
From the Boot Manager screen, select “EFI Hard Drive“
Wait as the system boots into Batocera for the first time, and it configures the system. This will automatically create some new folders on the SHARE partition we created in Step 2, and those are where data-files needed by Batocera will need to be copied – which is covered in Step 5 below
Batocera should recognize the Atari Modern Controller that is plugged in, so go through the process of configuring the inputs and buttons for it

Step 5 – Copy User-Data to SHARE for Batocera to use

Batocera is now installed on your Atari VCS 800, and is ready for you to begin copying over your data-files. If you plan on using a networked computer to copy to the Atari, you can go and begin that process. Simply leave the Atari on running Batocera and the SHARE partition will be available for you to access. If you plan on moving your data onto the SHARE partition via a USB Flash Drive, you will need to reboot the system into Linux Mint and use it to copy the data.

On your local network, you should find a new device named “BATOCERA”, and if you click on that there will be a “share” folder.

Within the “share” folder, are a number of sub-folders, and this is where your data-files for Batocera will be copied.

The Batoceta data folders on the SHARE partition

Inside of the “roms” folder are sub-folders for each system Batocera is able to emulate. Any system that had data in its applicable folder will be automatically be available in the Batocera UI for system/game selection. For BIOS files, you will want to refer to Batoceta’s documentation, as some emulators require BIOS files to be in a particular sub-folder within the “bios” folder, and others just need to be within the “bios” folder.

Congratulations! You now have installed Linux Mint and Batocera on your Atari VCS 800 and are ready to get down with some serious retro gaming!

If you are interested in possibly improving WiFi and Bluetooth performance on your Atari, at the very least make it easier to get inside, I’ve also replaced the WiFi antennas in my VCS 800.