MegaZeux Gentoo Overlay

What is MegaZeux?

MegaZeux is a text-based game creation system (GCS) that was originally released in 1994 and is still under active development to this day.

This is an overlay designed to make MegaZeux easier to install on Gentoo Linux systems.

For more information, including a library of available games, please visit DigitalMZX.

Installing MegaZeux

The first step is to add this overlay to your system. There are two ways of doing this: by using layman or by creating a repos.conf file for the overlay yourself.

The layman Method

This method requires you to touch fewer files by hand and will probably work best for most users.

After installing layman, bring open your terminal of choice and run the following as root:

layman -o https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Spectere/megazeux-overlay/master/megazeux-layman.xml -f -a megazeux

Next, the package will need to be unmasked in order for you to emerge it. This will take care of that:

echo games-engines/megazeux > /etc/portage/package.keywords/megazeux

You should now be able to simply emerge megazeux! Be sure to run layman -S once in a while to sync all of your layman repositories (or layman -s megazeux to only sync this one).

repos.conf Method

This method works well but requires a little bit of manual effort to get set up. If you don't feel like messing around with your portage configuration files directly, give the layman method a try first.

First, you'll need to create a directory to house this overlay's ebuild files. Personally, I store this overlay in /usr/local/portage/megazeux.

Next, create a file in your /etc/portage/repos.conf/ directory called megazeux.conf. Copy and paste the following files into the new file:

[megazeux]
location = /usr/local/portage/megazeux
sync-type = git
sync-uri = https://github.com/Spectere/megazeux-overlay.git
priority = 10

Note: Be sure to change the location attribute if you are placing the overlay elsewhere.

The overlay is now set up to automatically sync when you run emerge --sync. Do so now and it will retrieve the overlay and place it in your chosen directory.

Next, the package will have to be unmasked before it can be emerged. This can be accomplished by executing this as root (note: you'll need to execute this from a root shell, via sudo -s or su, otherwise this won't function as expected):

echo games-engines/megazeux > /etc/portage/package.keywords/megazeux

From here, you can simply emerge megazeux and begin playing and creating.

USE Flags

This ebuild currently supports the following USE flags:

mikmod - (global) Uses media-libs/libmikmod to decode module music files.
modplug - (global) Uses libmodplug (in tree) to decode module music files.
sdl-legacy - (local) Uses media-libs/libsdl instead of media-libs/libsdl2. SDL2 is highly recommended, but SDL1 works fine if you are unable to use SDL2 or would prefer not to.
tremor - (local) Uses media-libs/tremor to decode Vorbis audio instead of media-libs/libvorbis. Tremor is better suited for older and embedded systems.
vorbis - (global) Enables support for media-libs/libvorbis.
xmp - (local) Uses libxmp (included in MegaZeux) to decode module music files.

This ebuild is designed to mimick the default canonical MegaZeux distribution as closely as possible by default. This results in the following design choices:

SDL1 and SDL2 selection is done differently than in other Gentoo packages. While MegaZeux has solid SDL1 support and continues to support it, most of the testing is done using SDL2 builds. Therefore, instead of defaulting to SDL1 and requiring a flag to use SDL2, MegaZeux uses SDL2 by default unless the sdl-legacy flag is set.
libxmp is the preferred module playback system. MegaZeux only supports being built with a single module file decoder. Furthermore, MegaZeux's preferred module player is contained within its source tarball and is not in portage. This player, libxmp, is enabled by default and is used unless the xmp flag is explicitly disabled. This was done to allow users to keep the other module player flags enabled globally while ensuring that the most well-supported decoder is enabled by default. If no supported module loaders are selected, module music playback will be disabled.
If libxmp is disabled, either libmikmod or libmodplug must be selected. As stated above, libxmp will be used by default. If it is disabled and module playback is still desired, either mikmod or modplug must be enabled. If both are enabled, the ebuild will fail. If you wish to keep both USE flags enabled for other packages, please create a file in your /etc/portage/package.use directory to explicitly disable the undesired player. Again, if you wish to use libxmp, simply leave the xmp USE flag enabled and it will be preferred.
The modplug USE flag does not use media-libs/libmodplug. MegaZeux includes a customized version of libmodplug in its source tree. If libmodplug support is selected, the in-tree version of libmodplug will be used and compiled statically.
tremor overrides vorbis. As with the module decoders, only a single Vorbis decoder can be compiled into MegaZeux at any given time. If both vorbis and tremor are specified, libtremor will be used. If tremor is set and vorbis is unset, libtremor will still be used. Finally, if neither of these USE flags are enabled, Vorbis playback will be disabled.

Spectere / megazeux-overlay