Ty, but I don't know why that wouldn't be set already.. unless I had to change it for portrait mode? I don't remember and I broke something beyond repair in the mean time so will have to check the next go round
Some config change made it stop loading roms, but uninstalling and reinstalling, from source, still had the same settings and missing emulators/displays... dunno wth.
Anyway, I give the f up and am going to try a pre-built image as a base.