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Cabinet #2 - Need a little guidance
colopioneers:
Ok kids,
I"m going to begin Cabinet #2 soon. It's a gutted Centipede machine that I found at an arcade close to home. The owner let me have it. It's in rough shape, but it was free.
I want to dedicate this machine to playing the 80's classics so near and dear to my heart.
I've got an old computer to dedicate to the job. It's a Compaq Presario, AMD K6-II, running about 533 mhz, I think. It's got 64mb ram, 4.2 gb hd, and I have no idea what the video card is. The machine's OS is WinME, which is simply crap.
So here's the question: For the classics, should I run 98SE, DOS, or Linux? And remember that I'm just a noob and have no idea regarding coding, or any of that stuff. I can enter text at a commandline if I know what the text is. Other than that, that's pretty much it. I'd like to run a front end of sorts, kind of like Mamewah, but if I run Linux, what's the front end????
Sorry for the long post. And I did find a thread talking about something like this, but it didn't really answer my question.
Thanks guys,
colopioneers
Hoagie_one:
i think win 98 with minimal install is perfect...but dos may be better with an older version that only runs the older games...dunno about linux
AgniTheSane:
I have a 400 mhz machine running linux and it plays all the classics, and some of the newer stuff, just fine.
The install of xmame isn't that hard, just go to freshmeat and get the rpm http://freshmeat.net/projects/xmame/
I currently use gnomame as a front end, it is pretty basic, but ti works. There are some better front ends, which I do intend to try when I get a chance, but for now it works great. If you want to find different front ends, go to www.sourceforge.net and search on xmame.
The cool thing about linux is you can download it, install, and if you don't like it all you have lost is a little time and some cds. If you are new to linux, fedora core is an easy install.
http://fedora.redhat.com/
colopioneers:
AgniTheSane,
That's good info. I've actually wanted to run Linux, not that I know anything about it, but it would be a good learning experience.
How much brain damage can I expect taking WinME off the computer and going to Linux?
Oh, and what is the X Window System, and do I need it?
Thanks again!
Sylentwulf:
If you're even REMOTELY worried about having trouble putting linux on. DON'T.
That said, I would stick with linux or win98SE (whatever you're more comfortable, they'll both run classics fine)
Only other note, put SOME more RAM in there. 64mb is REALLY low. You could probably double it for $10.