Using a Computer With a TV as a ROMANATOR

[lordofduct]

considering... that'd be kinda fun.

let me rephrase that.

It'd be fun to make a linux build that was purely a emulator distro. Essentially design from the ground up a distro that was meant soulily for the use of emulators with a whole gui based around the concept. It would come pre-built with a custom gui, emulators for everything, support for game controllers, and a browser for surfing the web for the sharing, retrieving, and discussion of games. That way you just popped in the disk, run the install, and you have a mame/console box.

Because it would be a specific build, only the necessary parts would be included for this stuff, so that it ran very efficiently. Also toss in lirc and some media player components as well (along with samba) so you can hook it right up to your TV, plug in a remote control and game controller. Turn the bitch on and you can play games and watch movies from the comfort of your couch... no fuss.


Who here knows anyting about linux... I might actually consider doing this. Anyone else game!? A Racketboy Linux distro! I mean yeah everyone and there brother makes a linux distro now a days... but at least this would have a more functional attitude to it as opposed to just "i have my own flavour". This would be geared towards gaming, and specifically being able to be user friendly... we all know how annoying or difficult for people not in the linux realm to get into using it... especially for emulating where you usually have to compile and install everything yourself and all that annoying shit.

and run on very low specifications. This way you can put it on a small footprint mobo (like the micro-atx boards with intel atom chips, or one of the many Via itx boards and via processors like C3 and eden), or old hardware sitting around (like P3's or P4's).

Thing is it would have to also stay very minimalist in design. No added bs outside of the emulation and video playback, stay steady on the goal... everyone has seen what happened to Myth-TV and distros based on it... shit is so freakin' ANNOYING and complex to set up. None of that crap.

[GSZX1337]

Who here knows anyting about linux... I might actually consider doing this. Anyone else game!? A Racketboy Linux distro!

I know how to use openSUSE and Ubuntu, but as far as developing distros, I'm useless. Maybe I can BETA test?

I mean yeah everyone and there brother makes a linux distro now a days... but at least this would have a more functional attitude to it as opposed to just "i have my own flavour".

Yeah, it's really sad that there's only one Linux distro that I'm aware of that's based on Ubuntu that isn't just a fucking theme change with some application(s) thrown in.

This would be geared towards gaming, and specifically being able to be user friendly... we all know how annoying or difficult for people not in the linux realm to get into using it... especially for emulating where you usually have to compile and install everything yourself and all that annoying shit

It's gotten a bit better now that there's ZSNES32 and KEGA Fusion for Linux. IMO, emulation on Linux is shitty because just about every emulator is better on Windows for some reason (ie. KEGA Fusion in Linux has no sound) or the plugins you want are only available for the Windows version (not sure if that's any better).

and run on very low specifications. This way you can put it on a small footprint mobo (like the micro-atx boards with intel atom chips, or one of the many Via itx boards and via processors like C3 and eden), or old hardware sitting around (like P3's or P4's).

How low-spec are you wanting the distro? If you don't want to have PS1/Sat/N64 (Mupen 64 sucks) you can probably go even lower than a P3 since all the SNES emus I can find system requirements for say that you need a 200MHz CPU. Although, if you want the emulators to run at 720p or 1080p, you'll have to do some research in how beefy of a machine you need to run these emulators at those resolutions (and more if you want to research the filters, too).

Thing is it would have to also stay very minimalist in design. No added bs outside of the emulation and video playback, stay steady on the goal... everyone has seen what happened to Myth-TV and distros based on it... shit is so freakin' ANNOYING and complex to set up. None of that crap.

Ugh, I hated MythBuntu (haven't tried vanilla MythTV, though), please PLEASE stay far away from it!

Some questions concerning your distro:
What is it going to be called? Racketboy Linux? RacketLinux? LinRacket? LinuxBoy?
What Desktop Environment (if you use one at all) are you going to use? Since your goal is to have the distro be light-weight, I'm guessing XFCE or LXDE?
What distro are you basing this off of? Debian? SUSE? Mandriva? Or will it be LFS?
How far are you willing to go for emulators? SNES? N64 (again, Mupen64 sucks)? Also, how far back are you willing to go? NES? SG-1000? Intellivision? Colecovision? Atari 2600? Magnavox Odyssey?
Will there be MAME?
Do you really need to support game controllers? just about every converter I've seen are standard USB HID.

Lastly, I have this to say: If you do start this, I'll help in any way I can (I don't know how much help I can be other than a BETA tester since i don't know any programming languages and I don't have old hardware).

[lordofduct]

Well first off the idea is just that an idea blurted out so I didn't put a lot of thought into your specific questions. But I can outline here now if you want.

What is it going to be called? Racketboy Linux? RacketLinux? LinRacket? LinuxBoy?

That's irrelevent as an idea. I probably wouldn't reference Racketboy directly in the name if it was me. If I did it as a group effort here on Racketboy (and that's an if there) then it'd really be what those people felt and wanted. Certainly would make it public here though... in the IF of it.

What Desktop Environment (if you use one at all) are you going to use? Since your goal is to have the distro be light-weight, I'm guessing XFCE or LXDE?

Well it'd be a basic gui geared towards what it needs. As it would be meant for just emulators and ease of use as say a TV set up, or inside of a cabinet, then it wouldn't have a standard desktop like that. It would be more of a... what's the name for it... crap... I think it's called a "ten foot gui" or something like that. Think something like Windows Media Center, XBMC, MythTV, or those sorts. A simple to navigate, menu driven, gui. No desktop. (you technically could install gnome or kde and start a gnome session outside of the default gui of course... but I wouldn't plan or include that into it).

What distro are you basing this off of? Debian? SUSE? Mandriva? Or will it be LFS?

Well that's my point... not really based off a specific already existing distro. Build a thin distro from the ground up. I'd probably go towards being Debian similar as I prefer the Debian package management, but the open source motto of debian I'd probably ignore (meaning I wouldn't be against included closed source free applications with it, some emulators are closed source, or similarly the whacky way Ubuntu treats the Nvidia drivers which are closed source)... but really I'd want to start at the kernel and compile from there.

How far are you willing to go for emulators? SNES? N64 (again, Mupen64 sucks)? Also, how far back are you willing to go? NES? SG-1000? Intellivision? Colecovision? Atari 2600? Magnavox Odyssey?
Will there be MAME?

That all depends. I'd shoot for all emulators... if there isn't an emulator available that functions reasonably, then I wouldn't include it. But I'd hope for every type. This doesn't mean ALL emulators would function on every machine, if the person installed it expecting to emulate consoles that are low resources and on a very small and slow computer... then they would not use or uninstall the heavier emulators like say a Saturn one (I don't think Linux Saturn emulator exists though, but Saturn emulators are notorious as being a system hogs to be any bit usable).

Do you really need to support game controllers? just about every converter I've seen are standard USB HID.

What I meant is USB HID game controllers. As I was saying in the "what distro is it based on" I would start at the kernel and slim it down a lot to make it as small and efficient as possible while leaving in options. Because I would start there I would need to ensure USB support was there and worked well. Some USB HID devices require some odd drivers here and there, so I would want those drivers included in the disks repo. Furthermore I'd probably want the game controller be functionable as the input device used for navigating the base GUI.... this way from boot up you can do everything with the same controller the entire time. This is why I also referred to lirc (linux infrared control) so that IR remote controls would work to.

Extra functionality would be built in as the distro's disk would include everything on the disk (easily fit on a DVD... probably even just a CD) and the user could do a lite install and select exactly what they wanted emulator wise and stuff. And if they ever got weird controllers that they might want, the disk should have in its repo the needed stuff.



As for target system specs. As I said about choice in emulators. I'd want all consoles possible. Of course the very slow computers wouldn't support everything included on the disk, but they wouldn't have that installed. If their computer didn't support 1080p, they wouldn't run it at that. I'd want the distro to support all sorts of different configurations so one guy could run just NES emulators on a super slim tiny ass embedded system. Or some one with a super fast computer could run an emulator that is available for every console known to man.

[GSZX1337]

I don't think Linux Saturn emulator exists though, but Saturn emulators are notorious as being a system hogs to be any bit usable).

I'll respond to the rest of your post later (gotta go), but there is a Sega Saturn emulator for Linux: Yabause.

[lordofduct]

Oh, that's good. I never really bothered with Saturn emulation in years. I've always been a naturalist about my games.

But recently my tastes have been changing.

With that said though, I still prefer my Saturn experience on my Saturn. Don't know why, I'm still a purist about my Saturn. It is my fav console...

[fastbilly1]

You could just buy a PCI card with DVI out and then get a DVI to HDMI converter/cable. Installing a PCI card is very easy.

Duct you do that and you and the others will be incredible. I suggest look into Advanced Mame - it is autobooting mame livecd. Hell if you could code a visual interface for emulators in general - one where the boxart/titleshot comes up and you click on the art to start it, you would be the man.

I know that most of us dont need the boxart but think of those who are just getting started in the world. Or those that have a touchscreen tabletop jukebox that they want to put NES games on. Oh I quite like that second idea...off to investigate Mega440s

GSZX1337 - My mac decided to fizzle out on me and I like to think the vast majority who use linux would know how to install an emulator.

[Jrecee]

haha wow. . . I have absolutely 0 idea what anyone's talking about anymore.

That's ok though, I've decided I don't have money to spend on any of this right now anyway.

Carry on.

[fastbilly1]

Sorry about that Jreece. When you do have the money lets try this again.

[fastbilly1]

Actually I have a better idea: Recode emulators to work with Boxee. That way one can just use a generic boxee distro and can have a htpc all in one. Sure it is a bit of a cop out over a whole new os, and yes this is influenced by my new tech kick, but it shouldnt be that hard for a code poet.

[lordofduct]

Actually I have a better idea: Recode emulators to work with Boxee. That way one can just use a generic boxee distro and can have a htpc all in one. Sure it is a bit of a cop out over a whole new os, and yes this is influenced by my new tech kick, but it shouldnt be that hard for a code poet.

Well boxee isn't a distro and is instead a piece of software (actually to be exact it's a fork of the oos XBMC).

Really XBMC would be a good starting point as it is open source. But instead of releasing it as software (as it is), incorporate a custom version of it as the base GUI to the distro.

As for "porting" emulators to work with boxee... that wouldn't make sense. It's not like boxee is what runs the emulator. Boxee is software that runs on several OSs itself, so thusly you'd have to just have the emulator for the OS running it.

Oh and as for dealing with boxee directly, it is part open source and part closed source. You wouldn't be able to use the entire thing as they have certain parts that they won't share.