@tumbo
I've just come across GroovyArcade in the last few weeks, and I also struggled (struggle) as a Linux novice with some concepts - especially those of symbolic links, dependencies and many others.
I have an old NBA Jam cabinet with a K7000 monitor, which was, until a week ago, running Windows XP and MAME 0.117 and an AVGA5000 card. It mostly satisfied me, and I learned to live with the tearing in Wonderboy, and slowdowns in other games. However, when the hard drive went kaput in this machine, I decided to rebuild and tried GroovyArcade 2016-07-02.
I had many issues, mostly self-inflicted, and rebuilt the machine many many times when I made a mistake and locked myself out or screwed up ini or sh files.
At this point I've gotten around many of the issues that I had at the outset (no wifi, getting emergency mode when rebooting after installing etc), and have a good working cabinet with groovymame 0.171.
Many of the games I play are older, and I'm not too worried about neo-geo or new games, but I have issues with my spinner in Arkanoid, and speed problems in Kung Fu Master.
So I decided to start messing about with different GM versions and trying to find one that fitted what I was looking for. I thus have downloaded (and copied) practically every GM version from 0.151 to 0.179 into my /usr/local/bin folder, each named groovymame.1xx. I then rename any particular one to groovymame and test my games.
I mention all of this in the context of trying to show that I, as a linux know-nothing, have changed and messed with various versions of GM, as you have asked about. I will however say that all this is only for my benefit, and I'm sure many many more knowledgeable users than I on this forum may point to errors in what I'm doing, as I don't know any of the other variables that me doing this might cause (for me not that many).
I only came to the conclusion lastnight that different GM versions bring/remove different options in mame.ini, and as such I've now taken to recreating mame.ini with each version change og GM I do to ensure I have the correct options to use/change if I so need. I don't know if this process is flawed or not - others might advise.
For me at this point it's a double-edged sword with respect to GM versions. I find that GM 0.153 works perfectly for all the games I use except Arkanoid (spinner) - Kung Fu Master is back to speed, all screens are good, the no-nag entry in mame.ini works etc. However, for me to get the spinner working in Arkanoid means I have to use version 0.177, 0.178 or 0.179, but this breaks Kung Fu Master (speed and slowdown issues return). I think (from reading lots of threads here) this is due to the No_use_XInput built into older versions of GM. I did try some of the newer versions with the wiimote removed (or the no x imput added), but these were versions around the 0.161 on, which had issues with Kung Fu Master sounds - Due I believe to a change in the emulation of sound in Irem games.
So for me to get a version of GM that does what I would like means essentially I think getting a 0.153 version of GM 64-bit Linux that has no-X-input fix, and all my games should work. So I'm now trying to research how I can begin to compile my own version and how to go about it (athhough Ive no clue).
I hope maybe from this you will see that even a complete novice with GA can make some inroads, and even learn some stuff in the process - I certainly know more now than I did a week ago.
Overall GA, and GM beat any MAME emulator I have used over the years for sheer smoothness and playability on CRT cabinets, and I'll certainly not be going backwards from it. The people who developed it, and those knowledgeable folks here on these forums who give advice are to be commended in my opinion for their fantastic work - long may it continue!
Apologies for the long post - maybe it will help
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