Build higan emulator (https://higan-emu.github.io) from a source code on a RedHat-based system (including Fedora and CentOS)

Build-higan-on-Fedora.md

See also: Build ares emulator on Fedora – a newer emulator based on Higan/bsnes source code.

Introduction

This document describes hot to build higan emulator from a source code on a RedHat-based system (including Fedora and CentOS).

higan is an emulator for a number of classic video-game consoles of the 1980s and 1990s, allowing you to play classic games on a modern general-purpose computer.

• Source code repository on github
• Original building instructions for Debian-based systems.

Installing pre-requisites for building

You will also need GCC 4.9 or higher, including the C and C++ compiler, GNU Make, and development files (headers, etc.) for the following libraries:

• GTK 3.x
• PulseAudio
• Mesa
• gtksourceview 3.x
• Cairo
• SDL 1.2
• libXv
• libAO
• OpenAL
• udev

On a RedHat-derived Linux distribution (including CentOS and Fedora), you can install everything you need with a command like:

sudo dnf install -y \
    gcc \
    gcc-c++ \
    gtk3-devel \
    pulseaudio-libs-devel \
    alsa-lib-devel \
    gtksourceview3-devel \
    SDL-devel \
    SDL2-devel \
    libXv-devel \
    libao-devel \
    freealut-devel \
    systemd-devel

Acquiring the source code

git clone --recursive https://github.com/higan-emu/higan.git higan-src

Compiling from source on Linux

Once you have all the dependencies installed, you may build and install higan.

Note: Run these commands as yourself, do not run them as root (no sudo, no su, etc.), because higan does not support being installed system-wide.

• Put the higan source code in some convenient location, like ~/higan-src
• Open a terminal window
• Type cd ~/higan-src (or wherever you put the higan source) and press Enter
• Type make -C higan-ui and press Enter to build the main higan executable
• Type make -C icarus and press Enter to build the icarus import tool

cd higan-src
make -j4 -C higan-ui
make -j4 -C icarus

Cleaning object files

To start compilation from the beginning, run the following prior to compiling:

cd higan-src
make -C higan-ui clean
make -C icarus clean

Installing a compiled build

Assuming higan is compiled as described in the previous section:

• Open a terminal window
• Type cd ~/higan-src (or wherever you put the higan source) and press Enter
• Type make -C higan-ui install and press Enter to install higan and its supporting files
• Type make -C icarus install and press Enter to install icarus and its game database

cd higan-src
make -C higan-ui install
make -C icarus install

This installs higan and its associated data files into the ~/.local directory hierarchy.

Uninstalling a compiled build

To uninstall higan, as installed by the above instructions:

• Open a terminal window
• Type cd ~/higan-src (or wherever you put the higan source) and press Enter
• Type make -C higan-ui uninstall and press Enter
• Type make -C icarus uninstall and press Enter

cd higan-src
make -C higan-ui uninstall
make -C icarus uninstall

To remove higan’s configuration, delete the following directories if they exist:

~/.config/higan/
~/.config/hiro/
~/.local/share/higan/
~/.local/share/hiro/

To remove the games imported into higan’s library (including in-game saves and save-states), delete the directory ~/Emulation.

Compiling bundle for running on another system

The following commands create a bundle for running higan on another RedHat-based system.

Build the higan and icarus executables with flags build=performance local=false

cd higan-src
make -j4 -C higan-ui build=performance local=false
make -j4 -C icarus

Create directory higan-bundle and copy binaries with dependencies there

mkdir higan-bundle
cp -a higan-ui/out/higan higan-bundle/higan
cp -a higan/System higan-bundle
cp -a icarus/out/icarus higan-bundle/icarus
cp -a icarus/Database higan-bundle
cp -a icarus/Firmware higan-bundle
cp -a extras/* higan-bundle

Copy higan-bundle directory to another Fedora system and install dependencies:

sudo dnf install -y \
    gtksourceview3 \
    openal-soft

@azoreseuropa, unfortunately, I cannot help as I don't have any macOS hardware or software.

probably a big waste of time to send this now but I tried doing this guide now on fedora 36 and no matter what I do the make -j4 higan never works, saying GNUmakefile:10: *** "unsupported platform". Stop. everytime, icarus works but no budging with higan at all. if by any chance there is some solution or hope to this issue I hope it can be answered. Apologies for bothering you and anyone else.

@Keithenotfricker Try to run commands without -j4 (this is just for running make in multi-core mode to make compilation a bit faster):

make -C higan
make -C icarus

Also, are you using x86_64 or ARM64 version of Fedora? 'Unsupported platform' is something that may pop up while building x64 code on ARM system.

@Postrediori I am using 64bit fedora if that's what you're asking, and the problem persits even without the -j4 so it's more than likely what you mentioned afterwards.

@Keithenotfricker Ok, I made a clear installation of Fedora 36 and reproduced the issue. Firstly due to changes in Fedora packages it now requires an additional ALSA dependency

sudo dnf install alsa-lib-devel

Secondly, it seems that source structure has changed and higan binary is now built by higan-ui directory:

make -C higan-ui
make -C icarus

That fixed the whole issue, higan was compiled succesfully running that command! Thanks a lot for answering! ngl I wasn't even expecting an answer to begin with. Hope you have a great day/evening/night!

@Keithenotfricker Good that it worked, I updated the steps with that info.

Hello, getting this all over the place on fedora 38 x86_64:

/nall/arithmetic/natural.hpp:239:23: error: ‘runtime_error’ is not a member of ‘std’ 239 | if(!rhs) throw std::runtime_error("division by zero");

seems like a source code error to me, what do you think?

Hi there @psebastian21 ,
It seems like the code base is no longer compatible with current mainline GCC 13. This was fixed in ares (commit: ares-emulator/ares@6a78983) but not in higan.
Maybe I'll create PR for that in the higan repository, but who knows if it would be merged.

@psebastian21 Try downloading&building it again, the fix is now merged into the mainline. Also note that dependencies switched from GTK 2 to GTK 3.