I first discovered this when trying to install Retropie.
I found that calling retropie_setup.sh directly from Launcher does not work. It goes to the loading screen and then black and then back to Launcher.
I have since tested it on other similar curses-style interfaces such as alsamixer with similar results. It seems that in all cases I am not able to launch any of these terminal-based GUIs from the Launcher.
Any help or insight into what is happening would be appreciated.
-biz
You need to launch them on a terminal emulator.
You are in a desktop environment where you can launch window apps, a curses script runs on a terminal. So basically you need to call a terminal (so it takes over the ´desktop´) ans run your script.
Thank you, this makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately I’m such a noob I have no Idea how to make a script that will launch a terminal and subsequently a command within that terminal. Do I need to download a terminal emulator? Any insight into how to do this would be greatly appreciated 
I have tried:
xterm -e "alsamixer"
Which actually works through ssh but not through a launcher script.
xterm -e "alsamixer" &
Seemed to work from the launcher for a 5 seconds but the window closes.
Any help is greatly appreciated.