1,809
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
grammar
==THE GNU/LINUX GUIDE OF EMULATION: *buntu Edition==
__NOTOC__
:<small>'''''Important!''' Like the title says, this guide covers Ubuntu and its derivatives. While you may have lesser or equal success with distributions that use APT (Ubuntu's packaging tool), where there could be relevant information in your case, this guide is not to be used for distributions that use Pacman or YUM. We can't guarantee that repositories here will work with Debian and Ubuntu-based Puppy (like Tahr), but we're not saying it's not possible. Give it a try, and it could work if you know what you're doing. However, distributions like Arch and Fedora use ''completely'' different packaging tools, and <u>thus are obviously guaranteed not to work.</u> Don't give up, though; you can find the same emulators for your distribution somewhere else, either in their official or user-curated repos, or by compiling them from source.''</small>
===Info for newfriends===
Possibly the biggest difference between Windows and Ubuntu (and perhaps, GNU/Linux in general) is the way that programs are handled. On Windows, getting software requires the developer to package an installer (or a portable build for flash drives and the like) that you have to get from their website. They may also have to bundle dependencies (like the Visual C++ Runtime) or link you to their location if a license prevents that. If your software is closer to open-source, this is very different; either they have a repository that holds their own packages, someone has set one up for them, or they integrate their packages in the defaults (although this is very rare).
These "repositories" can be thought of like app stores. You use a package manager (either graphically or terminally) to search for programs in the repositories, from which you can install, update and uninstall them. It's really cool.
Your Linux distribution comes with repositories already configured so you can get a lot of the main programs immediately, but there are risks with the emulators in particular; repositories aren't focused on having every emulator, and in many cases when they do, they don't have newer versions. This isn't necessarily their fault though; especially with bigger distributions, repositories can be stuffed with ''loads'' of software that gets constant updates, so to get them tested and updated takes quite a bit of time. Rather than using the defaults, we'll add more repositories made by users or developers themselves that contain the latest versions of these emulators. Once these repositories are added, you will be able to install the emulators like with any other program, and update them with the rest of your machine.
While this can seem exciting, keep in mind that some emulators aren't available on repositories, and many good ones aren't on Linux at all, so you may need to use different methods to get them. But don't worry; this will be explained later.
The "Type" column categorizes repositories by update frequency. Software in the Testing branches usually get updates as often as possible (even daily), while software in the Stable branches are only as recent as the versions are, and usually get updates between a few months. There are also several Abandoned PPAs which can be used only on older Ubuntu releases.
If a the desired emulator isn't found here, you can find more repositories by searching around for "(emulator) launchpad ppa". Check that they have packages for your Ubuntu version (they usually go by the version's name), as some PPAs can be abandoned.
{| class="wikitable" width="100%"
===Distro-independent Packages on Ubuntu===
{{main|Distro-agnostic emulator packages for Linux}}
There are distribution-independent emulator packages which can be used instead of Ubuntu PPAsPPA. Packages especially notable or useful for Ubuntu are listed below.
{| class="wikitable" width="100%"
