Arnold now creates a config file in the user homedir. The file is called .arnold. You can use expansion ROMs by declaring them in the config file as follows: rom1=/path/to/myfirst.rom rom2=/path/to/mysecond.rom And so on. Rom Numbers can go from 0 to 15.
To use this system you require:
This version is more basic compared to the Windows version. Some of the extra features in the Windows version have not yet been made available in the Unix version. Please be patient.
IMPORTANT: Though SDL and GTK+ are optional, you should really get both. Before installing Arnold. The non-SDL version has various graphics issues, no sound and is IMHO not very useful. To compile a version with GTK+ and SDL you will need to have all GTK+ and SDL header files installed in addition to the libraries. So if you use a RPM based distribution, install gdk-devel, gtk+-devel and sdl-devel in addition to the non-devel RPMs. You might also want to compile your own version of SDL, because the RPM versions tend to be quite old. I am currently using 1.2.2, so I do not know how well older versions work. Don't be afraid of compiling SDL. It is actually very easy.
Kevin Thacker has compiled and tested Arnold/Linux with Redhat Linux v7.0 on a Pentium II system. I develop on a 1,2GHz Athlon with RedHat v7.1. The SDL Sound output is very new and only tested on my system. I use ALSA for sound output and also have installed the Low-Latency kernel patches from Robert M. Love. Sound may very well break on other systems, so please send me feedback. Even if it works. ;-)
cd arnold/src ./configure make
Please check the output of configure before making arnold. If GTK+ and SDL can not be found, you are probably missing the required devel RPMs (or even the lib, especially in case of SDL). If you just want to see if Arnold generally runs go ahead, but if you want all feature, please install GTK+ and SDL with all header files and start again.
cd arnold ./arnold
With the GTK/SDL version you will see a window where you can choose to open a disc image (for drive A or B), reset the computer or Quit.
On the SDL version you can also choose a different rendering accuracy and full-screen mode.
F1 = reset F2 = toggle between full-screen and windowed.
There are various command-line options available:
-drivea
For this version to start the rom files must be in a sub-directory below the directory that the executable is in:
e.g.
arnold roms/...
The keyboard emulation is totally wrong on non-US (or UK?) keyboard layouts. I use a german keymap myself, so I will fix this real soon now. In the meantime play some nice old-skool CPC games or watch some demos. ;-)
Please keep in mind that this version is a work-in-progress. There are certainly many other bugs. Feedback is always welcome however.
Thanks to Kevin Thacker for starting Arnold, doing the C version and the Linux port and releasing everything under the GPL. Without an initial Linux port I would never have started hacking this thing.
have fun, Andreas Micklei nurgle@cpcszene.de nurgle@gmx.de 19-Jan-2002