[nflug] Mame Distribution

[Sam Stern]

Hi Mark, 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: nflug-bounces at nflug.org 
> [mailto:nflug-bounces at nflug.org] On Behalf Of Mark Musone
> Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 01:57 PM
> To: nflug at nflug.org
> Subject: [nflug] Mame Distribution
> 
> Hi All,
> 
>  
> 
> Quick question, so I'm finishing putting together a MAME 
> cabinet and it's currently running slackware (yea, I'm a 
> slackhead). Anyways, I'm having some weird problems with the 
> machine freezing and it seems to be related to audio or 
> framebuffer..stuff that slackware generally is a bit behind 
> as far as desktop capability. So instead of trying to track 
> down the problem, I'm thinking of going to a different 
> distribution which most likely has much better desktop 
> support. Given that I'm looking for some suggestions on a 

This seems extreme. Why not fist:


1) update the kernel to 2.6.7 (2.6.11 or better is prefered) or higher to
solve certain vm scheduler issues.
2) install the nvidia (use the -e option for the advaced dialogs and install
the nvidia opengl extensions for a big speed increase) or ati drivers
3) Move from Alsa sound to the OSS add on sound (http://www.opensound.com/)
make certain to the virtual mixer and midi if your sound card is not
supported for midi or mixing. 

Thease three items genrally solve most if not all the game performace issues
that various distros I've tried tend to have.

> decent distribution. I don't want to start a distro war, just 
> looking for about 4 of the better options - specifically for 
> MAME use that I'll try and see which works better. As most of 
> you know, I'm a server guy not a desktop guy when it comes to 
> linux (and kinda old-school), so any suggestions would be 
> greatly appreciated!
> 
>  
> 
> Some of my current thoughts on possible options are:
> 
>  
> 
> Knoppix - sounds like it's good, but I'm afraid how supported 
> it is in a hard drive-installed situation versus a live bootcd
> 


It's not recent nor easy to update. Hard drive installs are a real bear to
get working and seem never to be quite as usable as fedora, Suse or or
desktop build.


> Fedora -- *shrug* is it still alive and recent??
> 


Fedora is very much alive and has a system of software repositories for yum
that can use the newest software. Apt support in Fedora is being
discountinued or deprciated. 

> Ubuntu - I heard a lot about it lately, but don't know a 
> thing specific. Don't know if it's just an unstable hacker 
> toy or actually useful
> 


It's very usable and has quite a gamer following.

> Suse -- *shrug* do I need to speak german to use it?
> 


I use Suse. It's easy to go old skool with it. Just edit the /etc files
yourself and ignore yast (the gui) except to install hardware. I like the
elaberate set of apt repositories that keeps kde and audio tools on the
bleeding edge. I'm a little disapointed in their documentation system,
however I'm so comitted to Suse (my core mail server, file server and
virtualzaion (vmware) server all run suse, so I cannot really consider
another distro. Moving a distro would cost me too much time -- in excess of
a week of downtime and reduced functionality probably.


> Gentoo -- *shrug*

It's the *best* gaming distro out there if you have the time to configure
it's elaberate build system in the first place. After that level of pain,
it's very bsd-like in that you rebuild each app (including kde) from source
so it takes allot time to be current. However, it's support forums are
REALLY friendly. Like, REALLY nice.

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