Top 10 console emulators for Ubuntu

Beyond the new generation consoles, such as the PS4 or the Xbox One, those of us who were born in the 80s or 90s, surely we have a favorite console that it has nothing to do with the new generation. Nostalgia can and surely we will not find a source of fun as great as the old Nintendo, Sega, or PlayStation in its beginnings.

We know that the new generations of video games are spectacular. Still, the old ones have a totally different essence, based more on imagination and not so much on graphics power. In Ubunlog We want to dedicate an entry to those consoles that have had their time, and that is why we bring you a list of the 10 best emulators for Ubuntu. We begin.

PlayStation

For starters, we'll go back to the late 90s and early 2000s, the time period when the PlayStation y PlayStation 2 Sony (1995 and 2000, respectively). There are multiple emulators for these consoles. These are the ones we like the most:

ePSXe (PlayStation)

To install this PS1 emulator, we first need to have the SDL graphics library installed. To do this, we simply execute the following command in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-2.0

Next, we can go to the official ePSXe site, and in the download section proceed to download the package corresponding to Linux.

Once we have downloaded it, we unzip it and through the terminal we go to the directory where we have unzipped the emulator with cd / path / to / directory. Once inside the unzipped directory, if we do ls We will see that there is a script called "epsxe". Well, this is the scrpit that we have to run to install ePSXe, using the following command:

sudo ./epsxe

And that's it! From now on you can emulate PS1 video games on your Ubuntu!

PCSX (advanced for PlayStation)

PCSX is an advanced emulator for PlayStation 1, which uses a plugin architecture to support all PS1 features. To install it we can do it by searching for the program PCSX in the Software Center and proceed with the installation, or install it through the terminal, as always:

apt-get install PCSX

PCSX2 (PlayStation 2)

To install this emulator, we have to perform a procedure similar to that of ePSXw. First, we need install SDL if we don't have it installed. Then we go to download section from the official PCSX2 site, and we download the package. The next step is also the same, we go through the terminal to the unzipped directory, and inside we we will find a script again this time called «PCSX2», which we can also execute using:

sudo ./PCSX2

Nintendo

Now is the turn of Nintendo. Of the oldest consoles that I remember from Nintendo, in my opinion the best were the GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance. With them, for the first time, you could play your favorite video games wherever you wanted and whenever you wanted, until the batteries ran out. In some way they were the first portable consoles that succeeded in the market. These are the emulators that we want to show you in Ubunlog:

KiGB (GameBoy and GameBoy Color)

To install this GameBoy and GameBoy Color emulator, we have to do it by following the same procedure than to download the emulators that we have mentioned for PlayStation and PlayStation 2:

• Download, in the KiGB official site, the corresponding Linux package.
• Unzip it and go, through the terminal, to the unzipped directory (using cd).
• Once inside the unzipped directory, we execute the installation script called "kigb" using sudo ./kigb

VisualBoy Advance (GameBoy Advance)

VisualBoy Advance is an emulator of GameBoy Advance with GBA, GBC, and SGB ROM support. This emulator is very easy to install, because already comes in the official Ubuntu repositories default. You can install it directly from the Ubuntu Software Center or from the terminal with the following command:

apt-get install visualboyadvance

In addition, there are also several emulators of the latest Nintendo DS. The one that I have used the most and that I liked the most is the following:

DESMUME

This emulator for NDS also comes by default in the official Ubuntu repositories, so to install it is as easy as:

apt-get install DeSmuME

In addition, we would be making a serious mistake if we did not mention the old Nintendo64, one of the first consoles to already have 3D graphics. One of the best emulators is the following:

Mupen64More

To install it we can also do it from the Software Center or through the terminal with:

sudo apt-get update
apt-get install mupen64plus

So that the emulator can run through a graphical interface, we need to install one of the multiple GUIs that exist for Mupen64Plus. One of them is M64Py. We can download this GUI from the link provided by the official website. As you will see, it is a .deb file, so by double clicking on it, we can install it directly from the Software Center, and we can now run Mupen64Plus in a graphical interface.

SEGA

Now, when we talk about retro consoles par excellence, SEGA is one of the first names that come to mind. It is true that SEGA, as far as consoles are concerned, has not known how to keep up with Nintendo or PlayStation, but surely the first consoles that came out in their day cheered the afternoon for more than one child. Therefore these are some SEGA console emulators:

lxdream (Dreamcast)

To install this free Dreamcast emulator, you can also do it from your official site. If we download the .deb package for our architecture, by clicking on it, we can install the emulator directly from the Ubuntu Software Center.

Yabuse (Sega Saturn)

Another great emulator, in this case the SEGA Saturn, is the Yabause. In addition, we can also install it directly from the Software Center or from the terminal with apt-get yabause.

En Ubunlog We also want to bring you some Arcade video game machine emulators, which were so successful in the 80s.

ARCADE

advanceMAME

This is an emulator for MAME machines. We can install it from this page clicking on the package AdvanceMAME-1.4.tar.gz. Once the directory is unzipped, we can install it by running the bash script called "install-sh" that we can find inside the unzipped directory. To execute it we can do it with:

sh install -sh

We know that there are countless emulators, and dedicating an article to all of them would be a practically impossible job. We hope that in the comments section you leave us your opinions on emulators that we have mentioned in the article, or directly tell us which are your favorites.