GTK/X11 Port (aka Linux/UNIX GUI)

[Screwtape]

Thanks for the hint. Check out
https://launchpad.net/~bearoso/+archive
These are marked for and built on Ubuntu gutsy, but they should also work on hardy and newer debian trees.

Hmm... I added the repository to my Hardy x86_64 install, but it says that dependencies on libgtk2.0, libsdl1.2, libglade2 and xrandr are unresolvable. Is there some kind of button you can push to make it build Hardy packages as well?

(for the record, I have packages named libgtk2.0-0, libsdl1.2debian, libglade2-0, and libxrandr2)

[BearOso]

Hmm... I added the repository to my Hardy x86_64 install, but it says that dependencies on libgtk2.0, libsdl1.2, libglade2 and xrandr are unresolvable. Is there some kind of button you can push to make it build Hardy packages as well?

(for the record, I have packages named libgtk2.0-0, libsdl1.2debian, libglade2-0, and libxrandr2)

Ok, thanks for the info. I've uploaded new packages to fix these dependencies. For the record, only the xrandr dependency was changed from gutsy to hardy--for the others, I simply got the package names wrong when adding the Requires line, and I didn't test it.

[Screwtape]

Ok, thanks for the info. I've uploaded new packages to fix these dependencies. For the record, only the xrandr dependency was changed from gutsy to hardy--for the others, I simply got the package names wrong when adding the Requires line, and I didn't test it.

Aha, now it works!

Well... mostly. Apparently Hardy uses 'pulseaudio' now for everything, and apparently it's got an iron grip on the sound-card, and I get "Error opening sound device: Device unavailable" whenever I start snes9x-gtk.

Of course, I haven't had any sound at all, anywhere since I upgraded to Hardy, and I haven't had enough bandwidth-quota available to download the 300MB or so of updates that have been released since the Hardy Beta, so I can't really complain.

[BearOso]

Apparently Hardy uses 'pulseaudio' now for everything, and apparently it's got an iron grip on the sound-card, and I get "Error opening sound device: Device unavailable" whenever I start snes9x-gtk.

According to http://www.pulseaudio.org/wiki/PerfectSetup:

OSS Applications

To run applications that support the OSS API for audio playback (/dev/dsp) on top of PulseAudio you can use the tool padsp that is part of the PulseAudio distribution.

A few example:

Code: Select all

% padsp aumix
% padsp sox foo.wav -t ossdsp /dev/dsp
% ...

padsp wraps audio playback and capturing (/dev/dsp), mixer controls (/dev/mixer) and sound status (/dev/sndstat).

Of course, you're likely to see higher latency with pulseaudio than without.

[deniseweird]

Sorry for going offtopic, but we should really take a stand against this PulseAudio migration! Why take the time to switch to PulseAudio, and thus needing to change a lot of applications, when we can switch back to OSS, the standard for free systems, wich just about every application already supports? The biggest reason for using PulseAudio is software mixing and the ability to change volume for every stream. OSS already supports this..

[BearOso]

Sorry for going offtopic, but we should really take a stand against this PulseAudio migration! Why take the time to switch to PulseAudio, and thus needing to change a lot of applications, when we can switch back to OSS, the standard for free systems, wich just about every application already supports? The biggest reason for using PulseAudio is software mixing and the ability to change volume for every stream. OSS already supports this..

Actually, I believe the original reason for polypaudio was to create a networking sound server and replace ESD. I do think it's a stupid idea, however. Why are we going back to the same solution again when ESD still proves a nuisance to this day? In the end, 99% of sound-using applications aren't going to use the features of a sound server anyway.

[deniseweird]

Shouldn't it be possible to add networking features to OSS instead then? There was a feature to "merge" two sound cards into one also I believe. I would preffer if that also was added to OSS.

[Screwtape]

Of course, I haven't had any sound at all, anywhere since I upgraded to Hardy, and I haven't had enough bandwidth-quota available to download the 300MB or so of updates that have been released since the Hardy Beta, so I can't really complain.

Wow, this is embarrassing.

It turns out that where 'mute' used to be a volume of 0 and 'comfortable' used to be a volume of '60' or so, now 'mute' is a volume of 75 and 'comfortable' is a volume of 80. So I turned up the volume, and now I get sound.

(installing all the available Hardy updates last night probably didn't hurt, either)

The biggest problem with it is that Linux evangelists are intentionally compiling all new applications with OSS support removed -- forcing everyone to migrate to ALSA.

...where by "Linux evangelists", I guess you mean "Ubuntu's official packagers", by "all new applications" you mean "existing applications officially supported by Ubuntu", and by "forcing everyone" you mean "forcing Ubuntu users". If Ubuntu decides that the simplest and most comprehensive sound configuration for their distribution is ALSA, and they update all the software in that distribution to comply, then I guess that's their business. If you want a distribution that doesn't decide these things for you, there's always LinuxFromScratch.

[Screwtape]

Ah, well. I suppose the biggest problem is the shit HDA drivers in ALSA. I can't get any emulators to output smooth audio with a latency of less than 150ms with those

You've got me curious now. Is there any simple way to measure what my audio latency is?

[deniseweird]

You might call me a Free Open Source evangelist, and I don't think we should rely on proprietary solutions at all. But as I've said before, even if you support the use of OSS, you don't have to abandon these ideals. Why? Because:

1. You could fork the free version of OSS back in the day, like FreeBSD did. A lot more sane than creating something completely new and completely incompatible, and even worse sound server.

2. OSS4 is now licensed under the GPL for GNU/Linux, BSD licence for FreeBSD and another free licence for OpenSolaris.

As maybe an "evangelist", as byuu puts it, I think we should go back to OSS. Sorry for going offtopic o.o Bear0so, thanks for making .debs for Ubuntu btw!

[deniseweird]

By video syncing, you're reffering to Vsync option in most emulators right? Can you explain forced locking?

[deniseweird]

That sounds pretty bad.. So, since OSS works good in all other cases. Is this problem fixable? If so, shall we ask the OSS devs to do something about it? Sorry again for ruining the thread.. byuu, If we're going to continue, is there somewhere else more appropriate?

[didli]

Hi all of you !
... and is there something we should know about (very) old PC support ? I have tried snes-gtk on an old Compaq Armada 3500 with fluxbuntu. I really appreciate the look and feel of the port.
Unfortunately it hangs for ever when trying to open a rom.
'Seems I have no luck with snes emulation on this computer : zsnes runs games fine but with no sound (soundcard is Mono 8-bit), and snes-gtk seems to support Mono 8-bit sound but won't start a game.
Just some questions to clarifiy : Did I have to install snes9x before installing snes9x-gtk ? Is it a frontend or a standalone version of snes9x ? Installing just the deb file is sufficient or should I try the patch and source compil etc ? Well nevertheless thanks a lot for this great stuff and keep up the good work !

[BearOso]

Hi all of you !
... and is there something we should know about (very) old PC support ? I have tried snes-gtk on an old Compaq Armada 3500 with fluxbuntu. I really appreciate the look and feel of the port.
Unfortunately it hangs for ever when trying to open a rom.

Can you tell me specifically where it hangs? Is it after selecting the menu item or after choosing the ROM? Does it also hang if you pass a ROM file on the command-line?

Just some questions to clarifiy : Did I have to install snes9x before installing snes9x-gtk ? Is it a frontend or a standalone version of snes9x ? Installing just the deb file is sufficient or should I try the patch and source compil etc ?

It's a standalone version. If patching and building the source is easy for you, you can try it. I don't think it will fix the problem if the deb didn't work, though.

[deniseweird]

This isn't just a simple frontend, or launcher as I would call it. It's a port of the Snes9x emulator to a GTK-based GUI. You do not need any other version of Snes9x installed. I have not installed the debs myself since I am not on Ubuntu now, but I am pretty sure it includes everything you need. With that sound card I doubt it would be so pleasant though even if you can get it to work. But I have only used newer sound cards, what do I know

Edit: Damn you were fast Bear0so Just before I was going to send the message you sent yours!