ADVMENU - A "Beginners Guide" to Compiling and Using

[welshy]

Having read several posts in my thread “ADVMAME - A "Beginners Guide" to Compiling and Using” people seem to be having problems integrating AdvMENU, so here’s a Guide! One thing I have noticed and would like to comment on is - “If you are using a “Binary” this WILL undoubtedly be the cause of your problems!” AdvMENU uses scripts within the advmenu.rc to locate the position of the executable, then the folder where the ROMs are and finally processes these locations into a Terminal Command Line script e.g.

For GnGeo (See ADDING EMULATORS Below) I added -
emulator “gngeo” generic “/usr/local/bin/gngeo” “%p”
emulator_roms “gngeo” “/home/pi/gngeoroms”
Which, if I select Metal Slug, it will then execute a Terminal Command Line with the correct syntax, i.e.-
gngeo gngeoroms/mslug.zip

The Default Line added in the advmenu.rc for AdvMAME is -
emulator “advmame” advmame “advmame” “”

As you can see, this Line is scripted with the condition of having performed a “make install” for AdvMENU, AdvMAME and/or AdvMESS (And their associated folders and set up scripts) so they ALL reside in the correct locations!

So if your executables and/or ROMS are in differing positions to what the “Default” script produces as its Terminal Command Line (They WILL BE if you haven’t compiled it yourself!), it ISN’T GOING TO WORK and you will need to modify the phrasing
(See ADDING EMULATORS below for a more in depth explanation of “scripts”)

ADVMENU - Compiled using 2012-09-18-wheezy-raspbian, RPi is 256MEG and over clocked to 900MHz
Source Code - Advmenu 2.5.0.tar.gz
Dependencies - sdl1.2-dev

Compile STRAIGHT from Terminal (DON’T go into X)
1. Make sure you have the RAM split set up attributing ALL the RAM to the ARM (Use the config (sudo raspi-config))
2. Compile as ROOT (Set up a root password for this if you haven’t already! (sudo passwd root))
3. Install libsdl1.2-dev dependencies (apt-get install libsdl1.2-dev)
4. Install the GCC 4.7 Compiler (apt-get install gcc-4.7)
5. Change over to the 4.7 Compiler -
export CC=gcc-4.7
export GCC=g++-4.7
Now just CD into the directory where you uncompressed the source code
./configure
make
make install (Optional, but useful in this case, it will “sync” with AdvMAME and/or AdvMESS as to NOT require ANY alteration to the advmenu.rc. NB So long as you have also compiled AdvMAME and/or AdvMESS with “make install”
6. Once it has completed compiling, exit ROOT
7. Now start the executable so it sets up all the correct folders -
advmenu (Hopefully it will give you a message telling you its set these up!)
8. Start X
9. There should now be a hidden folder .advance (Right Click on your mouse and “Tick” Show Hidden if you cannot see it!)
10. If you are running AdvMAME, In the advmenu.rc there SHOULD be a line -
emulator “advmame” advmame “advmame” “”
This is the execution line, that performs the instruction to run the emulator, if it isn’t there, add it, or delete the advmenu.rc and the advmame.xml config files, repeat step 7 (In a Terminal)
11. Run AdvMENU and Select your game!

ADDING EMULATORS
For emulators “OTHER” than the ADV Suite with NO Front End that have to be run from Terminal e.g. GnGeo

In the advmenu .rc add the lines -

1. For the EMULATOR PATH - emulator “EMULATOR” generic “PATH”
In my case, as I have GnGeo installed - emulator “gngeo” generic “/usr/local/bin/gngeo”
2. For the ROM PATH - emulator_roms “gngeo” “PATH”
Again, in my case - emulator_roms “gngeo” “/home/pi/gngeoroms”

Ok, now we have the Path’s entered we need to add the Terminal Line Data i.e. “what you would type to get Gngeo running” for instance -

gngeo gngeoroms/mslug.zip “OPTIONS”
I run GnGeo at double scale so it’s -
gngeo gngeoroms/mslug.zip --scale=2

So, I’m going to add this to the emulator Line (The %p adds the ROM path line, Including its file extension (.zip))

emulator “gngeo” generic “usr/local/bin/gngeo” “%p --scale=2”

Close and Save the advmenu.rc

Run AdvMENU and the emulator and its associated ROMs should now appear in AdvMENU, selecting a game will open it!

Please let me know if my instructions work ok. I wrote them "on the fly" in reply to a post from my unfinished "Emulators on the RPi" draft notes and as such haven't checked them "step by step" compiling it myself! However, having compiled it several occasions it shouldn't be a problem, but, I may have missed a step!

[TrevorB999]

Hi Welshy

Have you got any ideas about how I can get Advmenu to run at startup, after auto-logging on as a user?

the intention is to have an autostarting games machine for the kids (of all ages) at Christmas - just turn on the switch and it's there after a few mins...

Trev

[welshy]

TrevorB999
Not sure, you would have to alter the config.txt to "Boot" into AdvMENU, however, I’m not sure the Console Login can be bypassed? Try Posting a new Thread, I’m sure somebody can give you the advice if its possible!

[Texcoco]

Welshy,

It is me again. The AdvMESS install went really well so I decided to give this a go, but this time I hit a speed bump. After entering the "make" command I got the following error:
obj/menu/linux/blend/menu/category.o
cc1plus: error: bad value (native) for -march switch
make: *** [obj/menu/linux/blend/menu/category.o] Error 1

I tried to follow the steps faithfully. Any thoughts on what is causing the error?

Thanks in advance.

[welshy]

Texcoco
Looks to me like you have NOT changed over to the 4.7 compiler! Remember, you MSUT be ROOT and change to the 4.7 compiler! (Default is 4.6). As AdvMESS compiled, AdvMENU and/or AdvMAME shouldn't be a problem providing you follow the steps as before (Excluding the installation of the SDL1.2 dependencies AND GCC 4.7 Compiler as you have done this already! (Unless you have "reflashed" your card image O/S!)) -

1. Make sure you have the RAM split set up attributing ALL the RAM to the ARM (Use the config (sudo raspi-config))
2. Compile as ROOT
3. Change over to the 4.7 Compiler -
export CC=gcc-4.7
export GCC=g++-4.7
Now just CD into the directory where you uncompressed the source code
./configure
make
make install

[Texcoco]

Welshy,

I had a chance to try this again. I followed all of the steps as best I could, but it still resulted in the same outcome. Am I still missing something? Here is some of the output from the end of the "./configure" command and "make" command:
== Host ==
Environment : armv6l-unknown-linux-gnu
Endianess : little
Bits : 32
Assembler for Pentium : no
Assembler MIPS3 emulator for Pentium : no

== Drivers/Libraries ==
Video : fb slang sdl
Sound : alsa oss sdl
Keyboard : sdl raw event
Joystick : sdl raw event
Mouse : sdl raw event
Misc : zlib expat(internal) pthread freetype2

== Compiler ==
CC : gcc-4.7
CXX : g++
CFLAGS : -march=native -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -fno-merge-constants -Wall -Wno-sign-compare -Wno-unused
LDFLAGS : -s
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi/advancemenu-2.5.0# make
obj/menu/linux/blend/menu/category.o
cc1plus: error: bad value (native) for -march switch
make: *** [obj/menu/linux/blend/menu/category.o] Error 1
root@raspberrypi:/home/pi/advancemenu-2.5.0#

Thanks for the help.

[welshy]

Texcoco
I’m not sure, as AdvMESS compiled I see no reason why this would NOT (So long as you are using the same steps!). Has anybody else had this problem? (Please post if you have with a solution). Try with the 4.6 (Default Compiler to see of this resolves the issue) i.e. DO NOT Type the lines -

export CC=gcc-4.7
export GCC=g++-4.7

Also, again, make sure you are compiling as ROOT user and NOT in X!

One Last Thing, are you using the newer (2012-10-28-wheezy-raspbian) O/S image? I HAVE NOT tried compiling under this revision and differing versions of the O/S can cause problems! (That’s one of the reasons I quote my overclock AND O/S version in the “Guides”

[TrevorB999]

Texcoco
I had a similar problem, but found via the debian forum that you can edit the makefile (after you've run the configure) and remove the "-march=native" from the CFLAGS line. Leave the rest of the line intact.
Having done that, it works fine (it did for me!)

I should also add that this was under GCC/CC 4.7, having entered the export lines.

Trev

[TrevorB999]

@Welshy

I managed to get the autologin / auto advmenu startup working.

On the forums here, the commands exist to perform the autologon by editting inittab - I won't go into detail - others have documented it better than I can

I then added "advmenu" at the end of the /usr/home/pi/.bashrc script (don't use the quotes if you're doing the same). It works great - switch on the raspi, it goes through the usual start-up motions and straight into Advmenu. I only plug in my IPAC based joystick/button control panel now - doesn't need anything else (just right for a Raspi model 'A'!). I've altered the game select etc just to work off the buttons & joystick, and added extra buttons to the panel for coin input/escape.

Trev

[Texcoco]

Welshy,

I gave it a try without switching over to the 4.7 compiler. That seemed to do the trick. I am running a later version of rasbian which may have been the cause. Thanks again for the help.

TrevorB999,

Thank you for the help, unfortunately I saw your post after I had gotten past it. I am interested in how you boot straight into advmenu. That sounds pretty fun.

[FabienO]

Hey guys, I'm brand spanking new to Linux, raspberry pi's and all.

I do fine up until step 7. When I exit root I get my login prompt. To run advmenu do I log in as my default user? How do I go about running advmenu? I tried logging in as root and the default pi user, both say no command found if I run "advmenu" or "-advmenu".

Any help would be much appreciated. Just want mame setup really

Thanks in advance.

Edit

I've just seen you can use an image with mame installed. I will do this instead. Sorry for the bump.

[fg1998]

Hi everyone

This post had a simple solution to Halt/Reboot Pi from inside advance menu, without a keyboard.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 90#p341190

Its perfect for people like me is running pi as a console/arcade machine without a keyboard

[bidinou]

Hi ! As of today, I managed to get it working without changing the compiler version nor building as root.

Seems to work well but apparently there's a lot to tweak !

Juste one strange thing : during the menu, I can hear an horrible sound (like "fire" at a very low samplerate...), any idea what it is ?!

[welshy]

bidinou
It will Build correctly without the 4.7 compiler or as root user, I just kept it consistent with AdvMAME/AdvMESS for convenience!

To remove the Sound issues change the following in advancemame.rc -

sound_background_begin none
sound_background_end none
sound_background_loop none
sound_background_loop_dir none
sound_background_start none
sound_background_stop none
sound_buffer 0.1
sound_foreground_begin none
sound_foreground_end none
sound_foreground_key none
sound_foreground_start none
sound_foreground_stop none

Note: Its a shame mp3s cannot be used in AdvMAME, the quality is to bad even changing all the variables

To include snapshots for display in the Menu, make a folder and use .png Images and add this line to the .rc
e.g. for the example above
emulator_altss "gngeo" "/home/pi/gngeosnap"

Note: I think its missing above so to make the emulator appear in the MENU add
emulator_include "gngeo"
(again for the above example)

The MENU will display the names of the ROMS by default, if you wish to correct this, amend in the following manner
game "advmame/dkong" "" "" 39 2 ""
Becomes
game "advmame/dkong" "" "" 39 2 "Donkey Kong"
etc.

The full documentation for AdvMENU is

Here - http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/doc-advmenu.html

[bidinou]

Wow, how fast ! I was reading the documentation...

There's just one thing that bothers me... I would like to mix the roms of ALL emulators (I mean, see all games without having to switch the emulator with F6, as I only selected a few ones per emulator anyway.

Couldn't see that in the documentation but it's pretty big

Any idea ?
Cheers & thanks again for the help !

[welshy]

bidinou
I recall it displays all emulators and Titles by default , to change it Press Tab, List, then select how you want them displayed. Same for Mode: Icons small, icons large, list etc.

[bidinou]

Okay, will reset settings in the config file then

Pretty cool stuff !!

[zorro101]

Hi
i like to add dosbox to generic

i have dosbox cocfigured whit config file that mount and open the game automatically
if on the command line I type dosbox the game auto run

there are possibilty?
thanks
best regards

[zorro101]

ther's no chance?

[elvis56nl]

Reviviing an old thread, is there anyone who got advancemenu to compile and/or run on the pi 3? I followed several guides but I keep getting errors all over. Also precompiled imaged with advancemenu don't seem to work on pi 3.

I would love to use advancemenu as it's very easy to configure and it has great display modes.

[welshy]

WOW! This is an old thread! I haven't tried it on the Pi3 but it worked like a dream on the Pi2

The latest Advance 3.5 has Advmame/Mess and Menu in one folder, it compiled with a straight configure, make make install on the latest version of Raspbian 2017-07-05 but it seems you have to even manually add Advmame and Mess now from the instructions above, they are not automatically included in AdvMENU.

[deHakkelaar]

@Welshy

I managed to get the autologin / auto advmenu startup working.

On the forums here, the commands exist to perform the autologon by editting inittab - I won't go into detail - others have documented it better than I can

I then added "advmenu" at the end of the /usr/home/pi/.bashrc script (don't use the quotes if you're doing the same). It works great - switch on the raspi, it goes through the usual start-up motions and straight into Advmenu. I only plug in my IPAC based joystick/button control panel now - doesn't need anything else (just right for a Raspi model 'A'!). I've altered the game select etc just to work off the buttons & joystick, and added extra buttons to the panel for coin input/escape.

Trev

Better late than never.
I was reviving my old arcade cabinet (Pi2 inside) with latest Debian Stretch.
As inittab doesnt exist any more after systemd took over, I deviced another way to get advmenu to run at boot.
Tested with latest Raspbian Stretch on a Pi2 with deb's from sheasilverman.com.

1) I had to make the cursor disappear by adding a bit to the Kernel command line or else the cursor from shell would sometimes interfere with advmenu:

Code: Select all

sudo sed -i 's/$/ vt.global_cursor_default=0/' /boot/cmdline.txt

2) Disabled screen blanking on the Kernel line (can skip if want to):

Code: Select all

sudo sed -i 's/$/ consoleblank=0/' /boot/cmdline.txt

3) Disabled the current login on tty1(console):

Code: Select all

sudo systemctl disable getty@tty1.service

4) And activated the autologin unit instead:

Code: Select all

sudo systemctl enable autologin@tty1.service

5) Validate/alter the user that will automatically login at boot,
Raspbian default is the "pi" user,
in the file "/etc/systemd/system/autologin@.service",
on the line resembling below one:

Code: Select all

ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin pi --noclear %I $TERM

6) Auto start "advmenu" with 3 seconds delay to allow breakout:
* Run this one as the user that gets logged in automatically !
** Copy the whole lot to clipboard including the white line and press enter after paste !

Code: Select all

tee -a ~/.bashrc <<EOF

# Start advmenu when on tty1
case $(tty) in /dev/tty1)
  msg="Starting Advance Menu ... "
  row=2
  col=2
  clear
  tput cup $row $col
  echo -n "$msg"
  l=${#msg}
  l=$(( l+$col ))
  for i in {3..1}
  do
    tput cup $row $l
    echo -n "$i"
    sleep 1
  done
  clear
  /usr/local/bin/advmenu
  exit 0
esac
EOF

7) Reboot to activate and test:

Code: Select all

sudo reboot

Anyone else got tips for better solution maybe ?

[TrevorB999]

Just revisiting this thread - you might be pleased to hear the code still works on Raspi 4 - compilation takes less than an hour.