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Windows 98, XP, DOS, or Linux?
vputz:
--- Quote ---what sort of issues did you have? I'm planning to use AdvanceMAME in my cab using a TV (RGB or SCART hopefully). I'm not a Linux newbie and my machines all run it well, but I am curious to know how hard it was to configure.
--- End quote ---
I'm overstating the difficulties a bit (my "absolutely would not use it for the casual cab builder" meant "someone who has never used Linux but heard from a friend that it was good for cabs").
My problems ALSO were more difficult because I was doing an HTPC with a relatively new motherboard (so had to do a custom kernel with both ALSA and Lirc modules) as well as coordinating the freevo home-theater software, XV video overlay stuff, TV-in and TV-out.
The actual MAME stuff was honestly not bad at all once I decided to just use xmame.x11 with XV output and not worry about trying to use framebuffer, sdl, whatever. As with most Linux problems, the trick is finding the right hardware. I wound up using an nvidia GeForce4mx440 after flailing for WEEKS to get an ATI Rage 128 to have proper TV-out (the solution turned out to be a discontinued CVS branch of an open-source ATI video driver, and at that point I threw my hands up and just bought a cheap NVidia TV-out card and never looked back--it works like a champ). If you're looking for a tv-out card, look around the htpc forums for good suggestions. The matrox G400 is very popular for many folks and pretty cheap these days since they're so old.
Second problem was sound on a new motherboard; I wound up using ALSA for an a7n8x-x, and once I figured out to use ALSA instead of the OSS intel 810 drivers, it worked like a champ. Just wasn't obvious.
Joystick and keyboard input was almost no problem at all. The USB hid stack works fine. My box has a weirdness, though--if I just boot it and try to use the joystick--kernel lockup. If I rmmod and then re-modprobe joydev, works like a champ. No ideas here.
Trackballs under X11 require some finesse. It worked best to use the trackballs as XInput devices, but NOT as XInput devices that generated core events. I'll spare you the details here, but it was quite painful figuring it out for such an easy solution; I can explain in further detail if you run into problems. I don't know if Linux can handle multiple trackballs without X11, but I'm using regular old xmame.x11, and not advancemame, so don't know about that.
I also had weeks of trouble with wireless lan (eventual solution had me swapping the wlan card into a windows box to flash the card's firmware, then return it to the linux box in addition to using yet more third-party modules that weren't part of the kernel distribution, whee).
And still, after all that, I can't play Joust because I can't generate keyboard events fast enough. Ah well.
-->VPutz