after doing all the necessary compiling, i ran my xmame gui (gxmame) and went to edit the paths to choose the xmame.x11 file as the executable. however, no matter how many times i try, it still says the file is not there. what could be wrong?

Can you get the xmame.x11 to run as a command line?

Open a terminal, either change to the directory where the xmame binary is and type ./xmame.x11 or type in the full path (ed /usr/local/games/xmame-0.82.1/xmame.x11

You should be able see it attempt to load the roms. If that is ok then it is the gui.

with gxmame, you have to browse to find the executable, then press the "Add" button to list it and then press the "Apply" button . If you forget to press either then gxmame won't remember the where the xmame executable it and will complain again about not being an xmame executable.

Good luck and let us know how you go.

azraelder