Gens for Linux ubuntu package

[megamaced]

Gens is a Sega Megadrive (Genesis), 32x and MegaCD emulator.

Information in this post is out of date and links probably don't work. Please use Gens/GS

http://info.sonicretro.org/Gens/GS





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Packages:
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Gens/GS 2.15.5 M5

Gens/GS is a version of Gens for Linux maintained by GerbilSoft. The main goal of Gens/GS is to clean up the source code and combine features from various forks of Gens.

For Hardy Heron (Intrepid)
http://info.sonicretro.org/images/a/...-m5-1_i386.deb
For Suse, Fedora, Mandriva
http://www.zshare.net/download/50439696022b92a5/
Source
http://info.sonicretro.org/images/6/...5-gs-m5.tar.gz
Website
http://info.sonicretro.org/Gens/GS
Forum Thread
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=959074

Gens 2.15.5

Built from the offical Gens for Linux CVS tree. Features include integrated GTK interface & openGL support. Use this package if you want to run the "official" Gens.

For Hardy Heron (Intrepid)
http://www.zshare.net/download/20011849e53d2280/
For Dapper Drake (Edgy, Feisty, Gutsy)
http://www.zshare.net/download/20011749ecd028fe/
For Suse, Fedora, Mandriva
http://www.zshare.net/download/2001200202565a76/
Source
http://www.zshare.net/download/20011662a458fbbf/

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How to install:
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1) Download the Gens package

2) Double click the file and choose "Install Package"

or

Open a terminal and type

sudo dpkg -i gens_*.deb

To uninstall, type:

sudo aptitude remove gens

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News:
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UPDATE: 05/10/08

Gens 2.15.5 released!

A bug fix release, fixing various issues with the GUI enabling / disabling options. The new feature for this release is internal save state for SCD games. Thanks to ilguido for the patch.

UPDATE: 01/09/08

Gens 2.15.4 released!

This is a good release for ATi users. You can now enjoy openGL support!

[ 1488458 ] opengl: optimization for ati card

UPDATE: 24/08/08

Gens 2.15.3 released!

[ 1923815 ] Fix startup crash

UPDATE: 20/06/08

Gens 2.15.2 released!

The Gens available here is no longer a fork. Thats the big news for this release. I have merged all the patches that are used in Gens 2.15.2 upstream to CVS.

Big thanks to ilGuido for adding an option to choose your CD-ROM drive (Options > Current CD Drive). Thats the big feature for this release.

If anyone wants to submit a patch, you can use the Gens sourceforge page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/gens/

As always, keep hacking!

UPDATE: 09/06/08

No the new package does not offer anything thats already currently available. Its simply a version bump to stop confusion with other packages labelled version 2.14

UPDATE: 07/06/08

New package uploaded! The big news is that Gens now supports real MegaCD / SegaCD CD-ROMs. Gens assumes that your CD-ROM is mapped to dev/hdc, but you could create a symlink if its not. Thanks to ilGuido for the patch

UPDATE: 19/05/08

I've uploaded a new version of Gens for you all, albeit unofficial in that it strays from CVS. The changelog is at the bottom of this post

UPDATE: 26/04/08

The Hardy Heron package is here but unfortunately Gens CVS just segfaults for me. Even the Gutsy package segfaults with Hardy. This could be a major incompatibility issue between Gens and the Hardy libraries should this issue not just be isolated to me.. At this point I suppose we should all be crying out to programmers to kick-start the Gens development again!

PS. The Gens stable package is OK with Hardy

UPDATE: 08/03/08

Unfortunately Wryun, our Gens guru, is currently unable to devote much time to coding these days. Rather then let Gens go unmaintained again, I am calling out for developers to pick up where Wryun left off. For those who want to code, the priorities to fix are:

- add the ATI patch in

- clean up joystick support
- work out what's going on with the GUI updates, and put the OpenGL option into the Glade files
- fall back properly to no OpenGL when OpenGL fails
- rework the config files parsing (it's kinda ugly, and more significantly relies on unique chars which potentially conflict with things in filenames. I changed from [] to *? for this reason).
- work out why it loses the plot sometimes on fullscreen/window switch

Enhancements:
- XVideo support for those whose OpenGL isn't working - see the latest generator source
- J-Cart support - one of the recent console emulator releases has it, can't remember which (PSP?)
- run all the files through a code beautifier so the indentation/style gets half-way consistent (didn't do it myself because it would make the repository a mess of changes; wanted to wait until the basic patches were in and 2.13 was something stable)
- rewrite the terrifying joystick code

UPDATE: 08/11/07

Finally got around to compiling Gens CVS 20070625 with the Gutsy libraries. You can find the Gutsy package in the downloads section of this post. As for an altogether new CVS package, well you will have to harass Wryun for that!

UPDATE: 29/06/07

Several users have been reporting crashes in the new Gens CVS package (cvs20070625). The package was built in an Dapper Drake environment and this might be causing problems for Feisty Fawn users. I have now re-packaged Gens in an Feisty environment and maybe this will solve the problems. You can find the updated packages in the "Packages" section of this thread

Note that you need openGL support to run Gens CVS.

UPDATE: 25/06/07

Gens-2.13-cvs20070625 released!

Okay people, time to get excited! The first glimpse of Wryun's work is upon us!! I have made a package of the latest snapshot in CVS. Be aware that it may contain bugs and should be considered unstable until Wryun releases the final product.

UPDATE: 14/06/07

Great news! Gens is being actively maintained again and we can expect a new version in the coming weeks! An alpha build will be released soon, followed by a stable 2.13. Ubuntuforums member wryun is responsible for the new work being carried out, and we thank him for his contributions! I'll be packaging the new version(s) so be sure to check back here!

UPDATE: 16/05/07

Gens-2.12b released!

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Changelog:
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## gens-2.15.5
- [ 2138114 ] fix the bugs of the gui (by ilguido)

## gens-2.15.4
- [ 1488458 ] opengl: optimization for ati card (by nbondoux)

## gens-2.15.3
- [ 1923815 ] Fix startup crash (by Mark Schreiber)

## gens-2.15.2
- New CD-ROM drive chooser (by ilGuido)

## gens-2.15.1
- Version bump to stop confusion with the Gens 2.14 linux package
- No other changes

## gens-patched20080606 changes
- CD-ROM support (assumes /dev/hdc). (by ilGuido)

## gens-patched20080519 changes
- Fixed segfault on startup. (by MonkeeSage)
- Set OpenGL mode default to off, since it's crashprone if you don't have
the proper bpp selected (and sometimes even if you do). (by garron)
- The Pause button on the keyboard pauses emulation. Same as Escape, but
Escape also quits the game when gens is started with --quickexit.Ideally
these should all be remappable, but that has to wait for another day.(by garron)
- Add a listing for --quickexit to gens --help. (by garron)

## gens-cvs20070625 changes
- ROM window now integrates with main interface
- Full command line options now implemented
- OpenGL turned on by default
- Better joypad support
- Tons of other undocumented improvements!

## gens-2.12b changes
- Open ROM dialog box remembers last used directory
- Source code now compiles using gcc4

## gens-2-12a changes
- Rebuilt using proper Debian way; no more checkinstall

- Changed package naming scheme
- Dependency list now included

[anti-trend]

Disclaimer: I am not an Ubuntu user; I'm running Debian 'Etch'.

But this package worked perfectly for me, both installing and removing with apt, along with the k-menu entry. If nothing else, this proves baseline Debian compatibility.

Good job dude,
-AT

[zcal]

I'm using Dapper and the package installed perfectly, though it would not open with the GUI installer when I tried. Haven't tried uninstalling it yet as I'm still trying to work out my issues with the emulator, which you can look at here.

[profshiny]

Thank you very much for this. I'm on 6.06, and it works for me. I've only tried Shining Force so far, but I'll test some others and get back to you.

Few minutes later, I've tried a few more games. This runs smoother than Gens on my XP install. The 32x games run perfectly as well(but are, unfortunately, still 32x games,) and hopefully I'll find some of my old Sega CDs soon to try that out. The only hitch I've found so far is that, when I tried 48khz sound, the emu spat out a godawful noise, but 22khz (default) and 44khz (what I generally use anyway) work fine.

Okay, last edit, I promise. It won't let me select or configure a CD rive, so it won't try to play CDs. I don't have any .isos around, so I can't test those. If anyone sees a reason why, I'd sure appreciate the feedback.

I lied, it plays CDs, you just have to hit ctrl+b. Durr.

[Sethiano]

This worked like a charm!

Many thanks! I have struggled to get Gens to work for a long time now.

[megamaced]

Good to hear it's working for most people.

I find it strange that the ubuntu repositories have Zsnes and vbaexpress, but don't have a Sega emulator as well. Okay, well they have DGen, but that sucks

[jm2003uk]

Just installed it and is working brilliantly. Tried DGen a while ago but wasn't impressed. Glad to have stumbled across this.

[hikaricore]

Oh gawd now I have to dig toejam and earl out of my backup archives on the external hard drive. hehe

Thanks for sharing.

[Chrono86]

That package worked great!

Now for one minor problem...whenever I try to change the resolution Gens just quits...here's what bash says:

The program 'gens' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'GLXBadContextTag'.
(Details: serial 1990 error_code 158 request_code 148 minor_code 144)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)

But if I run it with the --sync flag it doesn't tell me any more...anybody else having this problem?

[Frem]

Very, very nice.
There was an occasional half second pause when switching between levels in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but nothing that interfered with gameplay. Also, the colors seemed slightly flat when running in windowed mode. But fullscreen is Where It's At anyway, so I'm not complaining.