Jason Hasselkus

At this point we should have our computer pretty much up and running with the latest and greatest that the Ubuntu community has to offer. In order to really get our system running we are going to install MAME (Multi-Arcade Machine Emulator), which is the real guts of the operation. MAME uses software to emulate the original arcade hardware. In order to run MAME, one must configure two separate programs: MAME itself and a front end.
MAME is only a command line program, so it won’t do much for you unless you have a front end to launch the games. The front end that we are going to use is called WahCade. Since Ubuntu is already installed, it’s time to get to the real fun stuff. Open up a terminal window, and we will start to install xMAME. Type:
# sudo apt-get install xmame-x
Let this run and when it’s complete, we’ll move on to the next piece of software that needs to be installed.
Head on over to www.anti-particle.com and grab the latest version of WahCade. One of the reasons behind using Ubuntu is that it’s very easy to install .deb packages. So grab the latest version of the .deb file, and then run the following command.
# sudo dpkg -i wahcade-xxx.deb
After WahCade is installed, you’ll want to start getting things configured, which I should warn you could be the most time consuming and frustrating part of the whole project. Follow the instructions carefully on the WahCade homepage, you’ll end up playing with the command line a little bit and figuring out where ROMs and artwork and other types of files go. Assuming that you have this all complete, go ahead and fire up WahCade with the “-f” (fullscreen) option. If everything is configured correctly, you should see the WahCade program and be able to select and launch games accordingly.
At this point you should be playing games just fine. Inside WahCade is a great feature for mapping keys. Hit the “Tab” key and it brings up and interface that allows you to map keys to functions. Spend some time here, as this will make all the difference in the world when it comes to game play.
That’s it for today, which should give you plenty of things to do and keep you busy. Next step is to get this thing configured to start up automatically just like the old arcade systems did so you can place it in a case.