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It’s really easy to get this emulator up and working – but you do have to compile it yourself in linux – still, it’s only a couple of commands and you’re set. I did it on Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit and it worked like a charm…

Update (04/07/2011): Easiest way yet – simply add the PPA and get it (for Ubuntu 10.10 & 11.04 32/64 bit only) like this:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:glennric/dolphin-emu
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install dolphin-emu

Update (Older than above): I found that you can download pre-compiled .deb files for Ubuntu 9.10 here (PPA addition required) – be careful with that sudo apt-get upgrade command in the instructions though – I don’t really think you need it and you probably don’t want to upgrade your entire linux distribution just to play an emulator… I’m confusing sudo apt-get upgrade (which upgrades currently installed packages) with sudo apt-get dist-upgrade (which updates your linux distribution if there is a newer version available) – my bad.

Either way, I’d recommend you just compile it yourself – it only takes a couple of minutes.

Update – Nov 2011: Like anything published, it ages and what might have been correct at the time of writing may no longer be the case – so with that in mind, if you’re going to build your own copy of Dolphin, you’re probably best off going to http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/wiki/Linux_Build and using the instructions there.

#Get the project dependencies
sudo apt-get install subversion scons g++ wx2.8-headers libwxbase2.8-0 libwxbase2.8-dbg libwxbase2.8-dev libwxgtk2.8-0 libwxgtk2.8-dbg libwxgtk2.8-dev libgtk2.0-dev libsdl1.2-dev nvidia-cg-toolkit libxrandr2-dbg libxrandr-dev libxext6-dbg libxext-dev libglew1.5-dev libcairo2-dbg libcairo2-dev libao2 libao-dev libbluetooth-dev libreadline5-dev
 
# Make a directory to get the source and go into it
mkdir dolphin
cd dolphin
 
# Grab the latest source code through subversion
svn checkout http://dolphin-emu.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ dolphin-emu-read-only
 
# Get to the right location to build the emulator (it needs to be the one with the SConstruct file in it)
cd dolphin-emu-read-only/stable
 
# Build it!
scons flavor=release

Issues: If you’re getting errors along the line of Looking for lib Cg… no. Plugin_VideoOGL must have cg and cggl to be build, then the fix is to install the nvidia-cg-toolkit package with:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-cg-toolkit

With all that done, it takes around five minutes to compile and build, then you can go to the Binary folder inside your source-code download location to find the executable and launch it. Once it’s up and running just go File | Open and point it at an Wii or Gamecube ISO and you’re in business!

By default you get a gamecube controller bound to the keyboard (Enter = Start button, x = A button, cursor keys up/down/left/right) and an emulated Wiimote is bound to the mouse (where the left mouse button is the A button), but you can use joysticks, real Wiimotes etc as well without too much fuss. Fantastic stuff

If you’re having any issues, just read more about linux confix/setup/dependencies here, while the main Dolphin wiki lives here.

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