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Play video arcade games (view source)
Revision as of 00:15, 30 October 2004
, 00:15, 30 October 2004→More Links
==Choosing a Method==
You can [http://packages.debian.org/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?exact=0&searchon=names&version=all&case=insensitive&release=all&keywords=xmame&arch=any install XMAME on your Debian system ] using apt-get, but you have to set your apt configuration file use a 'non-free' repository due to the license determination. I chose to install a project called AdvanceMame, which adds extra video support features to the MAME project. <nowiki>[Aside: AdvanceMame projects, although free software, cost an estimated $2,671,244 to develop. Just another example of the tremendous dollar value that is available in free software, never mind the other values that come with the 'freedom' of the software]</nowiki>
==Installation& Configuration==Installation is fairly straightforward and typical of many Linux programs, although certainly not at the level of a polished Installer. You go through the basics, namely:
*Download the source,
*Untar it
*./configure
*make
*make install
And then you have to go through some configuration steps, plus add your ROMs.
The [http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-install.html#1.1 website has an install doc] that you can follow.
Here is what I did. I installed the software in the /usr/local directory, according to the 5 steps listed above. Then I changed to my home directory and created folders to hold my personal configuration file (will generate in a minute), plus my roms etc.
<pre>
greg@liberty:~$ cd
greg@liberty:~$ mkdir .advance
greg@liberty:~$ cd .advance/
greg@liberty:~/.advance$ mkdir artwork cfg diff hi image inp lowcase memcard mp3 nvram rom sample snap sta
</pre>
Once the directories were setup, I copied my artwork, rom and image folders off my Windows machine (where I previously setup AdvanceMame).
The next step was to run advanceMame from the command line, in order to generate the default 'Resource Configuration' file.
<pre>
/usr/local/bin/advmame
</pre>
Note: the software installed itself into /usr/local by default, like the documentation says. However, because the documentation doesn't mention it, I wasn't sure exactly what command I was supposed to issue to run the program. Ie. what is the name of the program executable file? I took a look in the /usr/local folder where there was now an advancemame folder, and in that folder were a few executable files (actually symbolic links) to the same-named files that are installed into /usr/local/bin. The main program executable is called '''advmame'''. So if you've followed me so far, but are unsure of what it all means, I'm just saying that '/usr/local/advancemame/advmame' is equivalent to the command listed above.
Here's what the program told me:
<pre>
Creating a standard configuration file...
Configuration file `/home/greg/.advance/advmame.rc' created with all the default options.
The default rom search path is `/home/greg/.advance/rom:/usr/local/share/advance/rom'. You can change it using the
`dir_rom' option in the configuration file.
</pre>
This was perfect, because I had already created the '/home/greg/.advance/rom' directory, and put all my ROM files in there.
Next, I tried a similar command to setup the AdvanceMenu program (to enable me to run the whole thing from a Graphical User Interface, rather than launch games from the command line.
<pre>
/usr/local/bin/advm
Unable to initialize the mouse driver. The errors are:
event: No mouse found. Check the /dev/input/event* permissions.
raw: No mouse found. Check the /dev/mouse and /dev/input/mouse* permissions.
</pre>
As you can tell, I had some sort of problem with my mouse setup that AdvanceMenu didn't like.
http://www.bernieberg.com/mame/advmame.rc
==Creating a dedicated Arcade Machine==
See [http://www.bernieberg.com/mame/linuxmame.htm this page] for information on how to tweak your start-up script, shutdown script and environment to make a PC-based Arcade Machine
==More Links==
[http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/ The project homepage]
[http://easymamecab.mameworld.net/html/links.htm more links]