Linux Options ??

[Dillthegreat]

ANyone here know of any linux based mame cabnet projects outthere ?
I was interested in seeing any other setup's before istart doing my own, hopefuilly some other people might of intcountered some problems which i wont have to go through ,

[Dustin T.]

My cabinet is Linux based.  xmame.SDL is the best way to compile mame I have found.  Grustibus is a great front end to manage and launch games if you are going to use X.  Not much special you have to do with Linux than Windows or Dos versions.  Linux is the best of all worlds because you get the speed of DOS mame and hardware support of Windows MAME.  (DOS mame forces you to have sound and video that is DOS compatible.)  

I use Fluxbox for my window manager and BBKEYS for my key mapping utility to manage MP3 players -- screen switching etc....from my control panel.  Very little need for a keyboard...  Plus you can telnet into your machine to transfer ROMS or upgrade MAME from a remote location....try that in DOS.  Windows just seems to drag Mame down....Believe me I have tried all three and picked Linux head and shoulders above the rest.

Congrats to the xmame team for a fine port....

[Dillthegreat]

is your cab online , i would like to take a look at any online cabs based on linux, like the ones in the examples pages ?

[Craig Servin]

I built a Linux based cabinet.  I love it I use xmame.xgl and zinc and zsnes.

For a window manager I use ratpoison because it makes everything fullscreen by default with no decorations.

I set up the modlines to match the arcade monitor and then just use the different GL versions of the emulators to scale the output.

I considered DOS but the dificulty with USB and networking ruled that out.

My only problem is that all of the front ends are really bad for using with a joystick or trackball.  I am in the process of writing my own, but it will be a while before I am done.

[planetjay]

Dustin and Craig:

Got any links to the programs you mentioned?

[Craig Servin]

Ratpoison is a windowmanager that makes the last window to open have keyboard focus and go fullscreen with no decorations.  This was great for getting xmame to fire up and have focus.

http://ratpoison.sourceforge.net

Zsnes is an snes emulator that works well with GL scaling
http://www.zsnes.com/

And xmame( we all know what mame is :-)  )
http://x.mame.net

I really am having a hard time with the frontends though.  I am writing one that is geared at being used with the trak-ball and has no mouse cursor to use.  It uses popups to configure filtering and other options and rolling the trackball for selection.

I always have a hard time with the mouse based front ends that require fine movements when I am using the trackball.

[tetsu96]

Sure.  Jubei is the best MAME cabinet that I've seen using 'nix.  It's got a linux based FE and it's also one of the nicer cabs (buildwise) I've seen here.  Search for Jubei on the Arcade Examples page and you'll see it.

[Dustin]

Dustin and Craig:

Got any links to the programs you mentioned?

Here is my project page:

http://www.lihttp://sog.user.hostonfly.net/tfpics/preview/pre-dcp01818.jpgntrix.org/bdcab/

I did not finish the page after my cabinet was done....I was having to much fun playing.  

Here is a finished picture:  (the glare makes it sucky)

http://sog.user.hostonfly.net/tfpics/preview/pre-dcp01818.jpg

[Dustin]

oops the link of my project page got messed up:

http://www.lintrix.org/bdcab/

[scottie4442]

I am in the process of getting my cab done.  I am running Mandrake 8.2 and trying out Advanced Mame/Menu.  The address is http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/. They have their own listserve and lotsa people there to help.

[Dave Dribin]

Game Launcher was just ported to Unix and supports mice.  I do a lot of development under Linux because of the superior development environment, so I know it works under Linux.  It's not the easiest thing to compile, yet, and probably has a few rough edges, but it should work.

-Dave

[Lilwolf]

JFront, being a java frontent, should work great on Linux.  Anyone want to test it?

(look at the software forum for info)

[mc-escher]

I used Linux on mine here are the specs:

* 2.4.10-AC2
* Geforce 2 w/ SVideo out to 27 Inch TV
* SBLive with ALSA drivers (excellent sound in mame)
* xmame compiled for both XGL and X11 (with DGA) targets
* perl scripts that allow selection of which emulator binary to use
  based on a command line switch
* custom Front End (Based on an earlier rev of pyrecade)
* windows never fouled this system, she was linux from the beginning

Here's the link:

http://cryptnet1.net/mame

(note theres some other junk on there not 'strictly' related to my
cabinet project)
 

[Dillthegreat]

tesr