How To Install Vice Commodore 64 Emulator On Ubuntu 12.04

Here is a guide to install Vice on Ubuntu 12.04. This guide has been brought to you by MediaServer. He added the code in a comment on the original post. All i did was add the code to this post so all credits go out to: MediaServer!


VICE is a program that runs on a Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, OS/2, Acorn RISC OS, BeOS, QNX 4.x, QNX 6.x, Amiga, GP2X, SkyOS or Mac OS X machine and executes programs intended for the old 8-bit computers. The current version emulates the C64, the C64DTV, the C128, the VIC20, almost all PET models, the PLUS4 and the CBM-II (aka C610). Read more about the Vice Emulator.


To install Vice open a terminal window (press Ctrl+Alt+T) and copy+paste the following line:

sudo apt-get install vice

When vice is installed go to the main Vice directory:

cd /usr/lib/vice/C64

Make a temp folder to work in:

sudo mkdir temp

Now move into the temp folder:

cd temp

Download the source file archive:

sudo wget http://zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/crossplatform/emulators/VICE/vice-2.2.tar.gz

Extract all the files from the archive:

sudo tar vzxf vice-2.2.tar.gz

Move into the newly extracted folder:

cd vice-2.2

Change ownership of all the source files (replace username with your username):

sudo chown username *

Move into the C64 folder within the data directory:

cd data
cd C64

Change the permissions of the following 3 files; basic, kernal and chargen:

sudo chmod a+rw basic kernal chargen

Copy the 3 files into the original Vice directory:

sudo cp basic chargen kernal /usr/lib/vice/C64

Move back to the original Vice directory:

cd /usr/lib/vice/C64

Remove the now un-needed temp directory:

sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/vice/C64/temp/

To start the program just enter into the terminal:

x64

Or do a search for commodore in the unity menu, press the SuperKey and type: commodore


When making the video i noticed the cd /data/C64 line doesn’t work, i didn’t want to remove vice and all the files so i did change it in the article but i didn’t make a new video. The video is a bit messy but the code lines should work okay!