I plan on starting my first cab soon and I have been reading a lot of materials, here and other locations. The year is 2010 and many of the threads here are several years old at this point and I just wanted to collect some more information about the current state of Linux in arcades. Linux obviously has an attractive price for newcomers to the hobby, but how does it really compare to a simple Windows setup these days?
I was hoping that this thread might be able to be used as a little reference for people considering Linux as an operating system for their box. I was interested in learning the CURRENT capabilities of Linux with hardware and software.
To start things off:
AdvanceMame seems to be the emulator of choice. SDLMAME seems to be the emulator of choice.
There are a handful of front ends these days that support Linux as well,
AdvanceMenu for example.
Not that I am trying to promote the Advance products, they just seem to be readily available and easy to use for Linux. I have no clue how they actually perform.
Is there any jukebox software out there that works with Linux?
In terms of hardware, it appears that there are several encoders that have Linux support these days. And of course, Linux can handle almost any hardware you have in the actual PC with the proper drivers (notice that I said ALMOST). One thing I did see that does not have Linux support is the
Arcade VGA from
Ultimarc. However many of the other encoder products from Ultimarc do have Linux support.
That is all the basic stuff I have for now. Please add more to the thread, and feel free to comment on things I have already listed. Let us know what does and doesn't work and what you can and cannot do on Linux.