Thnx guys for the reply...
I don't have access to my MCE machine this week, I will try the method Zaerc talked about.

to danielk,
Chinese IS Left-to-right-able language.

my latest finding was the following:
I discover that the orbiter items are generated by the SDL lib.
It uses the SDL_ttf.h lib.
I did a grep and discover that the orbiter gen used "ttf_RenderText_xxxxx" while there is a "ttf_RenderUTF8_xxxxx" function available.
I was going to replace all the RenderText functions with the RenderUTF8 function, but I will try Zaerc's method first.

Once again, thanks for the quick reply!!!! really appriciated! 

O...K...
I spent some time trying to translate the GUI to use Asian fonts. Failed, but I'd like to post my findings here.

I converted the mysql db into utf8 format, it didn't do anything to the output.

I later wrote a small C++ function to see if my Chinese data can be displayed correctly, yes all the Characters are displayed correctly in the command prompt. (I tried with both mysql connector and db_wrapper connector, the results are identical)
The GUI still cannot display.

Then I looked into the OrbiterGen code and discovered that the OrbiterGen supports font file parameter input (-f fontFilePath).
The default path is "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts" and "arial.ttf" is attached at the end.

I downloaded the uming.ttf font file (apt-get install ttf-arphic-uming), changed the OrbiterGen.cpp so that it takes the file name alone with the path, recompiled it, copied it to the usr/bin directory, and changed the 2 .sh files that uses OrbiterGen (Sorry I don't have access to my linuxMCE now, and I have very bad memories... just do a "grep -r OrbiterGen *" in /usr/bin/ folder). Still no luck.

I changed back the OrbiterGen to the original one. Copied the uming.ttf to the default "/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts" folder.

Backup my original arial.ttf, and rename my uming.ttf to arial.ttf.... reboot, regen the orbiter, still no luck.
THEN, it totally screwed up my system. Now I cannot boot up the system... 
I am reinstalling the entire thing now. I guess my next attempt is to go with the c_str() functions.

Any comment?

Lua is a very good idea!!! 1 vote from me.
I played around with it in my WOW (World Of Warcraft) days and I really enjoyed it.

The WOW GUI is done in LUA. Blizzard used a XML file to layout the GUI components, then LUA to implement the functions.

This would be a very nice feature to have on linuxMCE, the LUA Orbiter layout tool~~ 

I am no expert of lua, and I don't really know Ruby, so I guess I will list the features of LUA I know and someone can further comment on that...

• The LUA engine is very light
• Very smooth gateway with C/C++
• Easy to learn
• somewhat mature with lots of libs.

These are just my opinions based on my experience with lua, please feel free to correct me.

Here is a link of the world of warcraft GUI tutorial... (basically lua + xml) If anyone's interested.
http://fara.webeddie.com/frames/

abooreal, what did you change in the make file for x64?
Is the howto the same for x64 (apart from whatever you did to the make file)?

Yup, I followed the guide. I only changed the parts I described. 

It turned out to be the mame's make file was defined to be used for X86. (This is what you get for not reading the readme file first... )

I got MAME installed... Thanx again for the great work and guide... (now i need to find some rom to test it...  )

abooreal,
Have you managed to make it work on amd64?

From the look of it, yeah, I can see "MAME" on my main screen orbiter.
Now i will put an actual ROM on the system and see if it can find it.
I will keep you updated for my progress~~

note: Yup, I put my favourite rom in there, start linux MCE then select MAME, it's there...
The tab key menu works, control works...

Once again, thnx for the great guide~~ 

It turned out to be the mame's make file was defined to be used for X86. (This is what you get for not reading the readme file first... )

I got MAME installed... Thanx again for the great work and guide... (now i need to find some rom to test it...  )

Thnx for the quick reply Thom~~

I fixed the "relocation R_X86_64_32 ..." problem by removing all the .o files in the db_wrapper folder. (I don't know if this will create some strange behaviors or not... )

I continued to follow the steps in the wiki but I ran into another problem in the "Additional Libs" section.

The link "http://rbelmont.mameworld.info/sdlmame0125.zip" returns a google main page, (I don't know what is going on with this...) so I downloaded it off this link instead: "http://minimyth.org/download/garchive/sdlmame0125.zip".

I unzipped it and jumped into the folder trying to make, and i got this error:

Code:

Compiling src/osd/sdl/sdlsync.c...
cc1: warnings being treated as errors
In file included from src/osd/sdl/osinline.h:10,
                 from src/osd/sdl/sdlsync.c:29:
src/emu/eminline.h: In function ‘compare_exchange_ptr’:
src/emu/eminline.h:349: warning: cast from pointer to integer of different size
src/emu/eminline.h:349: warning: cast from pointer to integer of different size
src/emu/eminline.h:351: warning: cast to pointer from integer of different size
make: *** [obj/sdl/mame/osd/sdl/sdlsync.o] Error 1

I am going to hack on it now and let you guys know how it goes~

hi guys,
   I am doing a translation to Chinese. I got the DB items translated and inserted following the steps found here, but I can't see my text at all (they all appear as square boxes).

Then I tried to use the HADesigner to edit my text, still no good.
 
I am guessing that this is a font related issue. Has anyone solved this issue yet?

I will try to share my research as I progress.

First of all, Thnx for sharing the great work!

I am trying to install MAME on my linuxMCE but I ran into an error following the steps on the wiki.

I followed the wiki step by step up to the step where I need to make the lmce_game, (it is right after copying the libWindowUtils.so to the usr/pluto/lib.

Code:

Computing dependencies for Table_Rom_RomAttribute.cpp done
Computing dependencies for Table_RomAttributeType.cpp done
Computing dependencies for Table_RomAttribute.cpp done
Computing dependencies for Table_Rom.cpp done
Computing dependencies for Table_GameSystem.cpp done
Computing dependencies for TableRow.cpp done
Computing dependencies for Database_lmce_game.cpp done
g++ -c -I.. -I../.. -I../DCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DMULTI_THREADED -DNO_SQL_THREAD_LOG -I/usr/include/mysql -pipe -Wall -O2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -g -ggdb3 Database_lmce_game.cpp -o Database_lmce_game.o
g++ -c -I.. -I../.. -I../DCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DMULTI_THREADED -DNO_SQL_THREAD_LOG -I/usr/include/mysql -pipe -Wall -O2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -g -ggdb3 TableRow.cpp -o TableRow.o
g++ -c -I.. -I../.. -I../DCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DMULTI_THREADED -DNO_SQL_THREAD_LOG -I/usr/include/mysql -pipe -Wall -O2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -g -ggdb3 Table_GameSystem.cpp -o Table_GameSystem.o
g++ -c -I.. -I../.. -I../DCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DMULTI_THREADED -DNO_SQL_THREAD_LOG -I/usr/include/mysql -pipe -Wall -O2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -g -ggdb3 Table_Rom.cpp -o Table_Rom.o
g++ -c -I.. -I../.. -I../DCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DMULTI_THREADED -DNO_SQL_THREAD_LOG -I/usr/include/mysql -pipe -Wall -O2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -g -ggdb3 Table_RomAttribute.cpp -o Table_RomAttribute.o
g++ -c -I.. -I../.. -I../DCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DMULTI_THREADED -DNO_SQL_THREAD_LOG -I/usr/include/mysql -pipe -Wall -O2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -g -ggdb3 Table_RomAttributeType.cpp -o Table_RomAttributeType.o
g++ -c -I.. -I../.. -I../DCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DMULTI_THREADED -DNO_SQL_THREAD_LOG -I/usr/include/mysql -pipe -Wall -O2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -g -ggdb3 Table_Rom_RomAttribute.cpp -o Table_Rom_RomAttribute.o
Table_Rom_RomAttribute.cpp: In member function ‘bool Table_Rom_RomAttribute::Commit(bool, bool)’:
Table_Rom_RomAttribute.cpp:268: warning: unused variable ‘id’
Table_Rom_RomAttribute.cpp: In member function ‘bool Table_Rom_RomAttribute::GetRows(std::string, std::vector<Row_Rom_RomAttribute*, std::allocator<Row_Rom_RomAttribute*> >*)’:
Table_Rom_RomAttribute.cpp:438: warning: unused variable ‘lengths’
Table_Rom_RomAttribute.cpp: In member function ‘Row_Rom_RomAttribute* Table_Rom_RomAttribute::FetchRow(DoubleLongKey&)’:
Table_Rom_RomAttribute.cpp:579: warning: unused variable ‘lengths’
g++ -shared -pipe -Wall -O2 -D_GNU_SOURCE -fPIC -g -ggdb3 -I.. -I../.. -I../DCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -DMULTI_THREADED -DNO_SQL_THREAD_LOG -I/usr/include/mysql -o liblmce_game.so ../db_wrapper/db_wrapper.o ../db_wrapper/ClientSocket.o ../db_wrapper/Socket.o Database_lmce_game.o TableRow.o Table_GameSystem.o Table_Rom.o Table_RomAttribute.o Table_RomAttributeType.o Table_Rom_RomAttribute.o
/usr/bin/ld: ../db_wrapper/ClientSocket.o: relocation R_X86_64_32 against `a local symbol' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC
../db_wrapper/ClientSocket.o: could not read symbols: Bad value
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [liblmce_game.so] Error 1

then it stops there. no liblmce_game.so was generated.
Can someone give me a tip on this issue?