How to Install Emulators on Ubuntu (SNES Edition)

ZSNES_Image

    Remember the good ol’ days when you would stay up all night trying to get to that next level.. when nothing else mattered but that extra life or one more point to beat that high score? Those were the days… but those days don’t have to leave you know. There is hope, and that hope is found in an SNES emulator by the name of ZSNES. If you do not have Ubuntu, you can still use ZSNES but you will have to build it from source which you should all know because it will come into play many times while using linux/unix.

The installation process of ZSNES is actually quite simple. Almost no work is required and it can all be done graphically through Synaptic if one wishes to do so but here we will simple use the terminal to save time. First off, let us update synaptic.

sudo apt-get update

Now it is time to install ZSNES which is found in the Ubuntu Repositories, if you do not have Ubuntu or would like to build from source, you can get the source code here.

sudo apt-get install zsnes

Now look in your menu and you should see under games, ZSNES. That is all there is to it! Now you have the emulator installed, it is basically just like the console. I have found that I have experienced some glitches with sound though and I would recommend going into ZSNES then Config >> Sound then setting the sampling rate to 8000HZ only if you experience sound lag. Also, you may have to install these files and I have read that you could try this command:

sudo aptitude install libsdl1.2debian-alsa

Do not forget to install your USB-based gamepad to get the most out of your gaming!

Now you can play all of your favorite games or public domain games. Keep in mind the legality of this varies from country to country and this tutorial is a demonstration and for educational use only. This program is distributed in the hope that it will useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. The ZSNES Team is not connected or affiliated with any mentioned company in any way. Companies and all products pertaining to that company are trademarks of that company. Please contact that company for trademark and copyright information. Along with that note, Linux Gaming Today is not connected or affiliated with any mentioned company in anyway and we hold no responsibility for any damage of any form and/or illegal activities conducted through use of this tutorial. This HOWTO comes with no explicit or implicit warranty whatsoever. Use at your own risk!

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32 Responses to “How to Install Emulators on Ubuntu (SNES Edition)”

  1. whyamistilltyping Says:

    Nice guide! I didnt realise Zsnes was in the repositories :)

  2. mario_on_LINUX Says:

    this is awesome. I wish everything was this easy to install on linux because I am a linux NOOB. works great!

  3. IDon'tLikeLinux Says:

    My ZSnes just closes once i open it.

  4. Conrad Says:

    Huh. This is going to save me some time. I was installing everthing manually. (nasm, libsdl ,- mind you, ldsdl needs like, 8 other .deb files. , gmake, etc) Thank you.

  5. Jason Says:

    Hi,

    Works great except for – no sound
    I’ve tried the killall esd and it says that nothing has been killed…
    Any help on getting sound with this would be very appreciated

    thank you!

  6. Emmy Says:

    Mine just closes once I open it. I followed all the steps. What am I doing wrong?

  7. Spyter Says:

    This walkthrough worked out very well. Im glad it works so easy. I think Im starting to understand why Im doing these things like this the more I read about linux. Im one of the newly converted from the windows world. Thank god there is finally an alternative that can do all the things I need to do. Lovin Ubuntu so far.

  8. Spyter Says:

    Hmmm everything seemed to work ok but I also, have no sound as well. Everything else seems to work just fine except for the fact that I have no sound in the emulator. Really wish I knew why this might be happening but I dont know enough about how Linux works to analyze the problem.

  9. philx9 Says:

    Well, goes like this for me

    sudo apt-get install zsnes desktop
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Package zsnes is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source
    E: Package zsnes has no installation candidate

  10. overtturtle Says:

    I followed the steps, but I get the error:

    E: Package zsnes has no installation candidate

    Thank you.

  11. overtturtle Says:

    Never mind, I found out the problem. Thank you for posting this information.

  12. pbd Says:

    I get:

    sudo apt-get install zsnes
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree… Done
    E: Couldn’t find package zsnes

    I know nothing about Linux, I just started using Ubuntu. What have I done wrong?

  13. jimbo Says:

    pbd, zsnes is in the ‘universe’ repository for Ubuntu. Many systems don’t have this type of software enabled by default.

    You should search for tips on how to add ‘university’ to your apt source list.

    I just got zsnes installed, working with sound and my joypad – Super R Type, right on!

  14. jimbo Says:

    OOps, universe that is, not ahem.. university.

  15. sh4un mario Says:

    help I think that my synaptic is broken because when ever open it it comes up saying W: Couldn’t stat source package list http://update.eeepc.asus.com common/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/update.eeepc.asus.com_1.6_dists_common_main_binary-i386_Packages) – stat (2 No such file or directory)
    W: Couldn’t stat source package list http://update.eeepc.asus.com p704/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/update.eeepc.asus.com_1.6_dists_p704_main_binary-i386_Packages) – stat (2 No such file or directory)
    W: Couldn’t stat source package list http://download.tuxfamily.org p701/main Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/download.tuxfamily.org_eeepcrepos_dists_p701_main_binary-i386_Packages) – stat (2 No such file or directory)
    can some one help me!!

  16. sh4un mario Says:

    By the way can any one tell me where to get kpackage from? There is a guy who will tell me every thing I need to do but he says on his website that I need kpackage. Please help. I will be very greatfull. :-)

  17. Brent Says:

    I tried this and got the znes emulator, but whenever I try launching it nothing happens. Can someone please help me?

  18. remy Says:

    HEY!

    this is awesome… but zsnes doesnt actually open…… at all.
    please help,

    ubuntu 8.10 intrepid

    peace thank you

  19. Midnightfox Says:

    nice job!i like it!

  20. samplekit Says:

    WHAT is THe E: Couldn’t find package zsnes FAULT??????

  21. Jesus Anibal Says:

    Muchas gracias amigo, hice tal cual indicas y todo espectacular, muchas gracias, y muchos exitos.

    thanks vert much.

  22. illbethejudgeofthat Says:

    Thanks for the clear and concise instructions dude, ZSNES on Unbuntu = awesome.

  23. Niko Says:

    So does anyone know of a good place to get good bundles or do i have to download roms one at a time

  24. wisenhimer Says:

    How do you get the game on the Zsnes emulator??

  25. michael Says:

    please help me, this is what i do/happens( followed the guide to the letter.)
    michael@michael-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get update
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty Release.gpg
    Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/restricted Translation-en_US
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security Release.gpg
    Ign http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/restricted Translation-en_US
    Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Translation-en_US
    Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Translation-en_US
    Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/multiverse Translation-en_US
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates Release.gpg
    Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/restricted Translation-en_US
    Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Translation-en_US
    Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/universe Translation-en_US
    Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/multiverse Translation-en_US
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty Release
    Ign http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/main Translation-en_US
    Ign http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/universe Translation-en_US
    Ign http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/multiverse Translation-en_US
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security Release
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates Release
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/restricted Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/restricted Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/restricted Sources
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe Sources
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/main Packages
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/restricted Sources
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/universe Packages
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/universe Sources
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/multiverse Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/multiverse Sources
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/restricted Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/main Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/restricted Sources
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/universe Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/universe Sources
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/multiverse Packages
    Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty-updates/multiverse Sources
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/multiverse Packages
    Hit http://security.ubuntu.com jaunty-security/multiverse Sources
    Reading package lists… Done
    michael@michael-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install zsnes
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    The following extra packages will be installed:
    libao2
    Suggested packages:
    libaudio2
    The following NEW packages will be installed:
    libao2 zsnes
    0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
    Need to get 921kB of archives.
    After this operation, 4329kB of additional disk space will be used.
    Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
    Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/main libao2 0.8.8-4ubuntu1 [25.5kB]
    Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com jaunty/universe zsnes 1.510-2.2ubuntu2 [895kB]
    Fetched 921kB in 11s (82.6kB/s)
    debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
    debconf: (Dialog frontend requires a screen at least 13 lines tall and 31 columns wide.)
    debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
    Selecting previously deselected package libao2.
    (Reading database … 104941 files and directories currently installed.)
    Unpacking libao2 (from …/libao2_0.8.8-4ubuntu1_i386.deb) …
    Selecting previously deselected package zsnes.
    Unpacking zsnes (from …/zsnes_1.510-2.2ubuntu2_i386.deb) …
    Processing triggers for man-db …
    Setting up libao2 (0.8.8-4ubuntu1) …

    Setting up zsnes (1.510-2.2ubuntu2) …

    Processing triggers for libc6 …
    ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
    michael@michael-laptop:~$
    ======================END================
    i am linux noob coming from windows. the znes do sent appear in my menu under applications>games. please reply to mccrmi@yahoo.com because i might not see this page again.

  26. Moi Says:

    I get the same error as the last 3 posters. Any help? Am new to Linux.

  27. dick Says:

    Never mind, I found out the problem. Thank you for posting this information.

    thanks for posting your solution idiot

  28. Matthew Says:

    For everyone having the errors where you can’t find the package zsnes, or it has no installation candidate:

    It is very likely that the package has been removed from ubuntu. I’m not sure what is the replacement snes emulator.

  29. Darhac Says:

    This package is not available in Ubuntu 9.10 maybe!!!

  30. v Says:

    if you’re reading this and are using the x64 version of ubuntu 9.10 it isn’t quite so easy and painless, zsnes is 32-bit so isn’t in the 64 bit repositories so you’ll have to force install it (which is still easy enough to be honest).

    Just google “zsnes_1.510-2.2ubuntu2_i386.deb” which is the debian package file for zsnes. I got it from here: “http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/i386/zsnes/download”.

    Once you have that, terminal to the directory where you saved it and type “sudo dpkg -i –force-architecture zsnes_1.510-2.2ubuntu2_i386.deb” which will force it to install.

    Finally you can run it by doing “zsnes -ad sdl” in terminal or just adjust the command in the launcher menu.

    most of this was grepped after much searching from here: “http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1307844″

  31. Twentydragon Says:

    Thanks a lot for this. You certainly saved me a lot of time and made this entire process much easier.

  32. coldchill17 Says:

    wow thank you so much i just spent a whole day tring to install it i didnt realize it was in apt-get


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