YO! Let's do this shit and compile some Desmume!

As of Ubuntu 13.04 there is an older version of the Nintendo DS emulator, Desmume, in the Software Center. You can install it using the following command (or by searching for Desmume in the Software Center).

sudo apt-get install desmume

Or if you're a bit more daring you can be a hero and compile from source.

To start off lets install some dependencies you'll be needing to make this happen.

sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev libgtk2.0-dev libglade2-dev libosmesa6-dev libagg-dev intltool libgtkglext1-dev liblua5.1-0-dev libsoudtouch-dev

Next we'll need to get the source from the project's Sourceforge page. You can download it here.

Once you get the source you'll need to decompress it. You can double click the archive in your file manager and use the Archive Manage to do the job. Or if you like you can use the terminal command

tar zxfv desmume-0.9.9.tar.gz

Once you have the source in hand you can get ready to make the magic happen.  Use the following commands to configure, make, and install Desmume (4 total commands, one per line).

cd desmume-0.9.9
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install 

Thanks to the nice person @ https://gist.github.com/chrisyco/1470676 for the original guide to compiling Desmume.

PPSSPP Daily Precompiled Binaries for Ubuntu Linux.

Below is my little archive of precompiled binaries of the Playstation Portable (or PSP for short) emulator, PPSSPP, for 64-bit Ubuntu Linux. All binaries are compiled on Ubuntu 13.04. Your mileage may vary on other Linux distributions although I have tested it on Fedora 19 64-bit (works fine). Make sure you have your distro's libSDL installed.

The archive should be updated daily as long as my computer is powered on :)

You can find the build archive Here.

BY CROM! Let us compile PPSSPP for Ubuntu!

This how to is outdated. MaiAT3PlusDecoder is no longer needed as an audio decoder is now rolled into FFMPEG. I do believe the rest of the how to should still work though.

PPSSPP is a Sony Playstation Portable (or PSP for short) Emulator. There is no version of PPSSPP in the Software Center under Ubuntu 13.04, so we need to compile it form source. Luckily it's pretty easy to compile. I use the below command to download the source and compile.

In addition, on MY nVidia setup I had to issue the following command to link the proper libGL.so and clear up the error "No rule to make target `/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so', needed by `PPSSPPSDL'.  Stop." Only use this command IF you are getting the before mentioned error while compiling.

sudo rm /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so && sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libGL.so 

With that out of the way continue on to compile PPSSSPP

git clone git://github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp.git && cd ppsspp && git submodule update -i && ./b.sh && cd build && strip PPSSPPSDL && mkdir ~/Desktop/PPSSPP && cp -a PPSSPPSDL assets ~/Desktop/PPSSPP

After it's finished compiling you can go to your Desktop folder and there should be a directory called PPSSPP. Protip: there is no installation for PPSSPP, just change to the directory and either double click on PPSSPPSDL from your file manager or execute PPSSPPSDL from the terminal.

There will be not background music or voice in certain PSP games on Ubuntu unless you have the mystical audio decoder library. You can find one that MIGHT work here. To install it use the below command after decompressing it. Or place it in the same directory as the PPSSPPSDL binary.

sudo mv ../output/libat3plusdecoder.so ~/Desktop/PPSSPP

If the downloaded decoder library doesn't work you can easily compile your own. To do so download the source and issue the following command.

The source for the audio decoder library can be found here. After the source finishes downloading you will want to decompress the archive and cd into the 'MaiAT3PlusDecoder' directory (do this while in the terminal). Run the following command to compile and install the library.

cd src && make && sudo mv ../output/libat3plusdecoder.so ~/Desktop/PPSSPP

HEY! Let's compile Mednafen emulator for Ubuntu!

First things first we need to get the latest source from the Mednafen Forums. Usually the top post, no account needed to download.

Click here for the official Mednafen forums.

Now we'll want to Install some dependencies for compiling.

sudo apt-get install build-essential pkg-config libasound2-dev libcdio-dev libsdl1.2-dev libsdl-net1.2-dev libsndfile1-dev zlib1g-dev  

Next we'll decompress the source. Don't forget to enter the directory the archive decompresses to before you run the compile command.

tar vxfj mednafen-<version>-wip.tar.bz2

And then compile the Mednafen source

./configure && make && sudo make install

After it finishes compiling and installing it's binaries you can fire it up by opening a terminal (yes, its a terminal based program. NO built in GUI) and typing in 'mednafen <rom name>'. The list of supported systems is staggering. Refer to the Mednafen homepage for the run down on what all it can do.

Don't Like the terminal? There are several GUI frontends for Mednafen. The one I recommend is called MFE, it can be found here. Note that while MFE is a great front end it's known to have a little bugger in it's syntax with versions of mednafen above 0.9.11. It's really easy to fix, info about it can be found here.

Screenie of MFE and Mednafen running the NES legend, Duck Tales.

libat3plusdecoder.so for PPSSPP on 64bit Linux

Excelsior, True Believer!

nVidia Drivers for Fedora Linux 19 64-bit

To keep myself from searching every time I install or re-install Fedora 19 64-bit I made a little cheat sheet. Below are the steps I use to install the nVidia Drivers for my GeForce 660 Ti. This should work with most other nVidia cards which are of the 8xxx variety or newer (maybe others too but the oldest I've tested is a 8800).

First you'll need to make sure you have the RPMFusion repository enabled. To do so use the below command (1 long command)

sudo yum localinstall --nogpgcheck http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

then you'll want to fully update your system and reboot when it's finished (2 commands, 1 on each line). You might want to bookmark this page so you can come back and get the final few commands :)

sudo yum upgrade
sudo reboot -n

next command... the magic happens. In addition to the graphics driver the 32-bit OpenGL libraries are installed so most my games work. (1 long command)

sudo yum install akmod-nvidia kmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs vdpauinfo libva-vdpau-driver libva-utils xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs.i686 kernel-devel

After the drivers install reboot your system one final time.

sudo reboot -n

The above pretty much sums up how I install my graphic card drivers. It may look like a lot of crap to go through but it's not that bad. And more importantly, it works.

Handbrake for Fedora 19

I was looking for handbrake for my Fedora 19 install and was having a dickens of a time. I stumbled upon this repo with it and a few other apps of interest. It's owned by a chap called Slaanesh, so all thanks goes out to them. Original information source from here.

First add the repo to your system

sudo wget http://negativo17.org/repos/fedora-handbrake.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-handbrake.repo

Then install Handbrake

yum install HandBrake-gui

Thanks again, Slaanesh!

Dolphin Emulator Build in Fedora 19 Repository

I ran into a configuration error when trying to compile the Dolphin Emulator on my fresh install Fedora 19 box. I couldn't figure it out so I decided to check the default repository and see what version they have for installation. To my surprise the one in the repo was compiled about a week ago, this is totally acceptable :) I normally try to compile what I can myself so I have the latest and greatest, but in a case where something won't compile it's nice to have a fairly recent build to easily install.

Thank you Fedora 19 Dolphin Emulator repository maintainer!

Compiling PCSX2 Playstation 2 Emulator on Fedora Linux 19

Welcome to my quick and dirty guide to compiling the PCSX2 Playstation 2 emulator under Fedora 19.

First install the massive list of dependencies

yum install cmake bzip2-devel.i686 glew-devel.i686 mesa-libGL.i686 mesa-libGL-devel.i686 mesa-libGLU.i686 mesa-libGLU-devel.i686 mesa-libGLw.i686 mesa-libGLw-devel.i686 mesa-libOSMesa.i686 mesa-libOSMesa-devel.i686 alsa-lib.i686 alsa-lib-devel.i686 Cg libXxf86vm.i686 libXxf86vm-devel.i686 xorg-x11-proto-devel libX11.i686 libX11-devel.i686 xorg-x11-xtrans-devel libCg.i686 SDL.i686 SDL-devel.i686 sparsehash-devel freetype.i686 freetype-devel.i686 gtk2.i686 gtk2-devel.i686 zlib.i686 zlib-devel.i686 libjpeg-devel libjpeg wxGTK-devel.i686 portaudio.i686 portaudio-devel.i686 glib2-devel.i686 gdk-pixbuf2-devel.i686 atk-devel.i686 pango-devel.i686 cairo-devel.i686 libjpeg-turbo.i686 libjpeg-turbo-devel.i686 glibc-devel glibc-devel.i686 svn gcc-c++ libaio-devel libaio-devel.i686 mesa-libEGL-devel mesa-libEGL-devel.i686 mesa-libGLES-devel.i686 mesa-libGLES-devel glibc-devel.i686 glibc-devel

Next download the source from github

git clone https://github.com/PCSX2/pcsx2.git

Now its time to issue a few commands to set up our build directory

cd pcsx2-read-only && mkdir build && cd build

Time for cmake to get the ball rolling

cmake ../CMakeLists.txt -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && cd ..

Compile and install time, go get some coffee

make && make install

After PCSX2 finishes compiling and installing you can find it in the bin directory in the source directory. You can move the bin directory where ever you want for it's final resting place. Once you have it where you want it double click on the pcsx2 binary to start it up. This is what it should look like.

Or if you prefer there is a precompiled RPM for Fedora 19 on the official PCSX2 forums for download. The RPM and install directions can be found here. It's the latest release (1.1.0 as of this writing) where as compiling it from source will give you the latest and greatest bleeding edge features (or errors).