Zero Shutdown machine Linux or DOS

[moloch]

I need to make a machine that will not require any shutdown procedure. A machine that will have a power on button and you then use that same or just another button to turn it off. You never have to go through a shutdown procedure.


I want this so that a child can come in and turn it on and then just turn it off. It will go straight to a basic front end and you pick a game and then play and turn it off. I have played around with AdvanceCD and was thinking of building a machine that had no hard-drive just a DVD running AdvanceCD and then trying to modify AdvanceCD to save the high-score data to a USB keychain drive. Can this be done with DOS?

I am building this for a friend and his children and they have no computer skills at all I want this to look as little like a computer as possible. Ideally it could have a hard-drive just to read the ROMs from or CHD files, but I am not sure if you can just shutdown on a hard-drive like that.....

Any help in this would be greatly appreciated. I have a good friend who is a linux whiz and he could help me with that route if that is the way to go. If DOS is better I am sure that he would be able to help there as well.

Has anyone ever built a Mame machine like this?  

[vputz]

Ooo.  I will say that Linux likes its shutdown.  Most modern operating systems do, if they're doing any I/O (oftentimes they will cache some writes, etc.  By shutting down without warning, data can be lost, disks corrupted, etc).

I don't think DOS is much of an exception, either.

The power switch itself is worth thinking about.  If it's a hard-kill, cuts-off-power switch, neither is a great choice.  But I'm pretty sure you could convince Linux to respond to a short-press ATX power switch to do a proper shutdown.

BUT...

I have played around with AdvanceCD and was thinking of building a machine that had no hard-drive just a DVD running AdvanceCD and then trying to modify AdvanceCD to save the high-score data to a USB keychain drive. Can this be done with DOS?

If you didn't care about saving data to the keychain drive, this wouldn't require any shutdown at all, just a long startup as you boot from the CD.  There's no hard drive to corrupt!

I'd lean toward modifying an AdvanceCD linux distro.  Maybe mounting the USB drive in some way that it didn't require flushing would probably work just fine... not sure, maybe current hotplug drivers handle that pretty well.

-->VPutz

[JoeB]

What's wrong with Windows XP + MAMEWAH?

I installed a button under the control panel in my arcade machine.  It maps to ESC.  

I had MAMEWAH set so that if you press that button while inside the front end, it will exit and shutdown windows!  Very handy for what you want to do.

In the process, you'll be able to enjoy windows only games (DAPHNE, Visual Pinball).

[maraxle]

Anything that you can boot from CD can do this.  There are ways to make FreeDOS boot from CD.  Just check out www.freedos.org.  AdvanceCD is the easiest way to do this though.

Also, I run FreeDOS on my cabinet from the harddrive.  I can power off at the menu screen with no ill effects.  Well, I guess there's one effect in that if I power off from there, it doesn't save the stats on how frequently games are played and such.

[moloch]

My Goal is to make it more like a console system where there is no ill effects if you powerdown without some kind of Shutdown Procedure.

My current cabinet is running Win98 and MameWah I love it, but you have to shutdown or you get all that typical Windows stuff of checking drives or trying to go to Safe-mode. Sure I can disable this, but keep it as a safty because I'm an adult and can wait a moment.

I am just trying to make this as easy as possible so that a five year old can just turn it on or off and they will never have some extra screen or they will not need an adult.


I have been meaning to try FreeDOS so I may try to hobble an old machine together and test it out. I will try JoeB's idea and create a button I can set that on mine and test it. Heck that just sounds like a good Idea to use on mine anyway.

I did do some testing yesterday at a friends house on an old 400 or 450Mhz I booted using Advance CD and had some sample ROMS on it and they played awesome. Games that I could not get to work in Windows at that speed worked without a hitch. The boot time was a bit long, but I was able to do a Powerdown and no ill effects.
 

[rchadd]

In Windows 2000 (and XP i think) Contol Panel > Power Option > Advanced

there is option to define what happens when power button is pressed - i have set it to Shutdown.

thus use the power button to power up. then when pressed again when PC running it initiate windows shutdown.

[jbox]

I know this is an old thread, but it seems to be the best match for a question I was thinking about as well.

If you have Linux experience accessable, then what you need to be doing is simply set all of the file systems you mount to "Read Only". Since most of the kernel can boot just fine and dandy in Read-Only (which is why CD booting works), you can then just switch the computer off when you are done.

As an advanced step, you could have just one partition or USB drive set to writable and use that for things like high score tables and such. It should be possible to set the /etc/*TAB file systems and options so that they don't do anything clever. However, if you are talking about kids who walk in-and-out, then high score tables sounds like an optional extra rather than a requirement.

Anything that MAME can't ignore corruption in could probably be added to a boot script that does a basic parse test, and replaces it with a 'default' copy if there is a problem. I would be surprised if there are any post-setup files that crash mame, but copying an old copy from RO memory to RW memory during each boot will probably take a fraction of a second, and you could just do it every single time if the file was too hard to test for corruption.

Anyone else's thoughts? I can see no reason why you shouldn't be able to create a zero-shutdown linux installation.

[moloch]

I have actually been bogged down with some other projects lately and have not worked on this for a while, but I think during my Christmas break I may try to restart this project and build a Zero-Shutdown machine. I have pretty much decided that Linux is the way to go. I am going to use a Micro-Atx motherboard that is fanless and running at about 600MHz and windows XP or 98 will be too much of a hog and annoying to do this with. The boot-times with Advance-CD may take a bit of time, but having looked at some consoles that kids play they all have a boot-up lag and I think that the little ones are used to that by now.....

[dabone]

Dos has no real issues on just cutting the power.

I do it on 2 of my cabs with no problems.


Later,
dabone

[moloch]

The only problem is getting DOS to run off of a CD or DVD. Ideally I would like to not use a Hard-drive at all and at most a USB drive just to store High-Scores for the kids, but even that is a low on the list.

[JoyMonkey]

Running DOS from a bootable CD shouldn't be too hard to set up. Getting a USB drive to work under DOS would be near impossible though. Maybe use a floppy drive to store hi scores.

First get everything running on a hard drive the way you want (remembering to keep it under 700mb). Then get an ISO image for a bootable CD (like fraggal's boot CD) and copy everything on the hard drive into that ISO. Burn and play.

[Silver]

most modern motherboards - including the mini-itx fanless type - can boot straight to DOS on a USB drive with no modification required to DOS.

In the BIOS there will be a setting for boot order, and you can select USB-HD or USB-ZIP or whatever. I installed dos on my 512meg usb pen drivea and it works fine. Itappears as a 512meg "A:" drive for me.

So you could boot off the usb, mount a cdrom, run advancemame or whatever, and still have a read-write drive available.

Note this is probably no different from running DOS from a harddrive - but then I consider DOS on an HD a "no shutdown" option. All my pre-atx pc's just killed the power instantly on the power switch and they all ran dos/win3.1
All you need to do is make sure you don't turn on write-caching in smartdrv (which is off by default anyway)

Also I believe Panasonic released a universal driver to allow USB devices to be seen from DOS. However I believe it may only work for ATA devices. try googling for it.

[moloch]

Super cool to know about the USB drives. Thank you very much.....

[Silver]

I did mean to say USB Pen-drive above, although it will also work from a USB HD on the motherboards I have seen.

[moloch]

yea that is what I thought you meant.

I have also been looking into:
http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=16#p2602

The flash card to IDE readers.....

I have a 4GB flash card from a broken MP3 player that I have been looking for a good use for and I can not think of a better use then MAME.

[Howard_Casto]

For the record...... with the exception of dos any os can shutdown upon the press of the power button. 

As your other pieces of hardware (marquee monitor ect) should be rigged through a smartstrip, the concept of a zero shutdown machine is very silly. 

Mind you it might take a sec or two depending upon your os, but if the kid presses the power button it'll automatically shut the cab down regardless of os and nothing the kid presses will interfere with a safe shutdown. 

So to finish up, this isn't a software problem, rather a hardware problem.  Buy a smart strip and be done with it.  If the only reason you are wanting to use linux is the shutdown then save yourself a headache and just use xp. 

This has been mentioned at least three times in this very thread. 

*sigh*  when some people (particualry linux users)  ask a question they often only listen to the solution they already suggested when they asked the question.  Imho linux is more of a last resort than anything else, not because it isn't a good os, but because it isn't a good os for a multi-emulator arcade system.  Same goes for dos for that matter. 

[moloch]

Actually I use Win98 on my Cabinet and never use Linux for anything I am solely a Windows or Mac user. 
I am only looking to use it for the simple reason that Windows wants to go through a shutdown process. You can try to do some stuff like set it to power itself down when you press a button (as mentioned above), but I really want something that will not have to have any shutdown. This is mainly to avoid corruption issues. I can modify a windows system to be turned on or off at will and never do the Scan-disk or any of that, but if you have a windows system and harddrive and keep doing that it will corrupt something will break. I have worked at Microsoft for many years and see it happen all of the time.

Now with a system running the OS off of a Read only medium you can not have those corruption issues. And there is the speed issue. I can buy a complete Mini-Itx fanless motherboard for about $130 at Fry's and then all I need is a powersupply and drive, but it is only 600MHz. If I were to run WinXP on that it will slow down the performance. I have tested this with the Raiden ROM. I have run that ROM on a 450MHz WinXP machine and then same machine with the Advance CD. With Advance CD the performance was amazing. The difference is just in the fact that Advance CD does nothing but MAME, XP does all kinds of stuff.

I want to build a few Mame Machines for my friends kids that will last for years and never need maintenance or supervision by an adult. I have never heard someone go with a Windows solution and say, "This will never need maintenance. I can leave this alone for years and never have to worry."

[moloch]

Oh yea I do have and use the smartstrip as well.....

[elvis]

Any modern OS with ACPI/APM support will suppor t"soft off" power downs.  Linux, Win2K and WinXP will all shutdown nicely if you tap the power button.

As mentioned, a CD-based OS is the best bet if you want "instant off".  Any OS with a writable file system that utilises some sort of cache-before-write file system (ie: everything after DOS/FAT) won't like losing power.

A CD-based setup will mean your file system is read-only, and therefor safe from harm.  Of course, with Linux you can also set file-systems to be read only and not require file-system checks after a hard power-off, and everything should be OK.  If you ever need to update your software or ROMs, simply set your filesystems back to read/write in your /etc/fstab, modify the files, and set back to read-only.

AdvanceMAME/CD is tiny and fast to boot. Plus it's only 20-odd MegaBytes, which leaves a decent 600MB on a CD for ROMs (or 4GB+ if you go with a DVD).  It means limiting yourself to using AdvanceMenu as the front-end, which seems to upset some people greatly.  Personally speaking, if it shows me a screenshot and lets me run the game, functionality-wise I'm cool with it.  Especially if it's light on bloat.

Building cabs for non-tech-savvy folk, a CD-booting OS means three things:

1) they can't break it when they yank the power cable out of the wall
2) there's one less volitile part in the system for them to break
3) the system is guaranteed to be the same on each reboot thanks to a read-only file-system.

[Howard_Casto]

You forgot #4

It limits your file size to 750 megs

Unfortunately the mame collection is about 10 gigs. 

And if you are using newer hardware then it'd be a waste not to run newer games, which really eats up the disc space.  (Even the old cps2 games are about 10 megs each.) 

So I rest my case. 

Also, xp is maintenance free, for the record.  That is, assuming you don't connect it to the internet.  I've kept my desktop system up for months at a time.... no slowdown or crashing or anything.  And remember, it's a developer's rig, so it gets beat on seriously by wip code. 


I think advancemenu is a great solution, but only if your hardware sucks so you can't play anything modern and you can't afford the resources that a less fugly fe needs.  (Read a p 266 or less)

[elvis]

Howard my friend, you crack me up. 

I've never met someone so adamant to flog one solution as a "one size fits all".  If I'm building a cab for a friend with ZERO tech skill, I'll be using read-only media.  And seriously, who needs 10GB of ROMs?  Usually "normal" folks (as opposed to us arcade junkies) will only want a dozen odd games.  650MB is heaps, and if I'm really desperate I'll use a DVD and boost that up to 4.5GB.

Oh, and read-only doesn't necessarily mean Linux-only, before you blast me for that one.  There's very easy ways of getting DOS and Win98 to boot from CD, but I know your stance on those too.

But I understand.  I'd be biased in your shoes too. 

[moloch]

This thing is a small MAME Cabinet for little kids. They do not need the WHOLE collection 4.5 gigs would probably be too much let alone all 10 gigs. I am not building a cabinet with a one size fits all solution. It will probably only have two joysticks and about 3 buttons each.

But even that aside it is weird that you say "when some people (particualry linux users)  ask a question they often only listen to the solution they already suggested". You really seem fixated on XP as the one really great solution. Well XP is out on this project. It will not meet the requirements. Sorry. It was my post and I have tried to use XP for MAME and it is great with the latest greatest but this project has restrictions that XP can not overcome. 

[Grasshopper]

I would try DOS first as it's free and relatively easy to use. The only real downsides are lack of USB support, and the fact that some modern cards don't come with DOS drivers.

Linux is great and is almost infinitely customisable if you don't mind the steep learning curve.

XP is a waste of money for a MAME cab IMHO. The alleged extra stability (which I'm sceptical about) is only really important if you're continually installing/uninstalling new bits of software, and running several programs at once. If you must use windows then 98SE is the best bet as second hand copies can be bought for next to nothing.

[elvis]

I would try DOS first as it's free and relatively easy to use. The only real downsides are lack of USB support, and the fact that some modern cards don't come with DOS drivers.

If you're going the iPac route then lack of USB isn't so much of a drama (unless you're doing a USB gamepad hack, or similar, then you're in trouble).

As you mention, the biggest downside with DOS is card drivers, in particular sound.  If you have an old motherboard with ISA slots, the easiest solution is to grab a SB16-compatible card from your local trading post or ebay, as DOS driver support for these are superb.  I doubt if any newer boards with onboard sound have DOS drivers these days.

Front-end wise: GameLauncher now claims to run under Unix/Linux, although I've not tried it out.  It doesn't want to compile for me fresh out of the Gentoo Portage tree, but I might give it some tinkering later on next week on my Slackware box.  It would be easy enough to modify something like AdvanceCD or KnoppixMAME to use GameLauncher instead of AdvanceMenu if that was preferred.

[moloch]

I am going to use the iPac. It is just the easiest and best way to go for the money and it saves so much Headache. I love Marc's products.

Getting Drivers to work with DOS looks like more and more of an issue and since I have pretty much decided to go with the EPIA ME6000 I think that Linux is winning out. These boards are so small and completely silent they are perfect for the small cases I am going to make. Pluse they have everything on one board. You only need to add memory and a drive.

I am going to pick up a EPIA ME6000 motherboard after the holidays and start seeing what I have to do to get this all to work. My goal is a prototype running by the end of January. If my finances allow for this. Once I can get one set up and running I will build the cases (probably a bartop), I am hoping to build about 3 or 4 of these for friends kids and one for the office.

The next big issue is what kind of display I want to use in these.........

[Dak-ak]

If you make a post about linux, theres a good chance you'll have HC telling you you're stupid.

Thanks HC, I would have never considered Windows XP. (I actually started by using XP.  Something corrupted, and now I boot slackware.  So long, crappy software).

So anyways, I would say Linux is totally capable of this.  I'm surprised that the softoff isn't sufficient... You can go from on to off in a few seconds (~10) under just about any operating system.

However, that aside:
I wouldn't recommend using knoppix for a mame machine.  The simple reason is that most of the livecds I've delt with use lots of ramdisks, and ram is a precious commodity when emulating... However, with a little investment in time, its possible to just make the machine boot off of read-only partitions (for the most part).

http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk/laptops/

That looks like a decent guide.  Keep in mind that 1) his is for a different use, when he installs telnet, you install xmame, etc and 2) It looks like an ancient guide... Redhat 6.2 is what I started on waaay back in the day...

With that said, I think the meat of it can be transformed into useful instructions with a little ingenuity...

This is the basic idea:

So my approach was to arrange for the system to have only one writable partition, /var. All other partitions would be read-only, including /. And the /var partition would be recreated from scratch at boot-time, meaning there was no danger in a sudden shutdown, since even if the old, writable /var got corrupted, it wouldn't matter, since we were never going to try and mount that version again.

Anything that needed to be writable on the other read-only parititions would be replaced by a symlink into /var. At boot-time, /var would be created by wiping its partition, and then re-initializing it by copying the contents of the /var-ro directory into it

Happy hacking!

[elvis]

However, that aside:
I wouldn't recommend using knoppix for a mame machine.