Print PDF
Favorite
Email
Step 2Computer - The OS
As said before I wanted to use Linux on the machine because of it's stability, speed and the ability to completely customize it. And also because a license for windows would just up the costs for the machine. But don't worry all you windows lovers I'll try to give you some information and directions too.
The idea is to make it a single button boot and shut down machine. One that boots straight into the game selection screen. Sounds simple enough right.
To get the computer to boot you will of course need to install an OS. I'll assume that you already know how to install one so i won't be covering this here. I do recommend to install your OS to one partition and your game roms collection to another so you can easily install different operating systems and experiment with them without having to copy the roms again and again. In linux the simplest thing to do is to create 3 partitions; one swap partition roughly double the size of your RAM, one partition for your root and a home partition for the roms.
For the people interested I used a linux distribution called Arch Linux which is intended for advanced users but has great documentation and community, this is the distro if you really want to learn linux.
For everybody not so familiar with linux Ubuntu is one of the fastest, most stable and user friendly operating systems that i have ever seen. And it's free! It's worth a look at even if you don't intend to run Linux as your system. Be sure to check out the Firefox start page, it has a lot of information about how to use Ubuntu.
If you get stuck in any way, always consult the documentation first. The linux scene is known for it's well documented programs. A handy program to get information is "man" short for manual. Just type in any command line terminal:
man 'program'
where 'program' is of course the program you want information about. Like:
man sdlmame
The idea is to make it a single button boot and shut down machine. One that boots straight into the game selection screen. Sounds simple enough right.
To get the computer to boot you will of course need to install an OS. I'll assume that you already know how to install one so i won't be covering this here. I do recommend to install your OS to one partition and your game roms collection to another so you can easily install different operating systems and experiment with them without having to copy the roms again and again. In linux the simplest thing to do is to create 3 partitions; one swap partition roughly double the size of your RAM, one partition for your root and a home partition for the roms.
For the people interested I used a linux distribution called Arch Linux which is intended for advanced users but has great documentation and community, this is the distro if you really want to learn linux.
For everybody not so familiar with linux Ubuntu is one of the fastest, most stable and user friendly operating systems that i have ever seen. And it's free! It's worth a look at even if you don't intend to run Linux as your system. Be sure to check out the Firefox start page, it has a lot of information about how to use Ubuntu.
If you get stuck in any way, always consult the documentation first. The linux scene is known for it's well documented programs. A handy program to get information is "man" short for manual. Just type in any command line terminal:
man 'program'
where 'program' is of course the program you want information about. Like:
man sdlmame
| « Previous Step | Download PDFView All Steps | Next Step » |
 |
Add Comment
|
