pkg.sopackage field notes

brew / rank 3516

Install fceux with Homebrew

All-in-one NES/Famicom Emulator. Version 2.6.6 via Homebrew; verified 2026-06-25.

Install commandSecurity notes

install

Additional install commands

macOS

Homebrewverified · 100%
brew install fceux

provider-native install command

overview

Package summary

All-in-one NES/Famicom Emulator

Commands and aliases

  • fceux

history

Project history and usage

FCEUX is an all-in-one NES, Famicom, Famicom Disk System, and Dendy emulator. Its own homepage positions it for both casual play and advanced emulator work such as debugging, ROM hacking, map making, tool-assisted movies, and Lua scripting.

The package is historically important because it consolidated the fragmented FCE Ultra family. FCEUX's official history says the project began in 2006 to merge FCE Ultra branches, and version 2.0.0 was released on August 2, 2008.

Project history

The lineage starts with FCE, a Nintendo Entertainment System/Famicom emulator by Bero, then FCE Ultra, which released Beta 1 at the end of November 1998. FCE Ultra later gained Linux and Windows ports, released source in 2000, and relicensed under the GNU GPL in 2002.

By the mid-2000s, FCE Ultra had split into specialized branches: rerecording builds for tool-assisted speedruns, debugger-oriented FCEUXD/FCEUXDSP variants, and mapper-focused work from FCEU-mm. FCEUX was created to reunify those branches into one maintained emulator.

Adoption history

FCEUX became a practical default for users who wanted one emulator that covered normal play and specialist workflows. The official site explicitly names general players, the ROM-hacking community, and the tool-assisted speedrun community as target audiences.

Its adoption in package managers reflects that cross-platform utility: the input metadata lists packages across Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Arch, Alpine, Nix, and winget, while the project itself documents Windows and SDL builds.

How it is used

Basic use is opening an NES/Famicom ROM from the File menu or command line. More advanced use centers on debugger tools, RAM watch/search, trace logging, hex editing, Lua scripting, movie recording, and TAS Editor workflows.

FCEUX is also a package nerd's emulator because it bundles a CLI-friendly SDL heritage with a GUI and long-lived documentation, so it can serve both desktop users and scripted emulator workflows.

Why package nerds care

FCEUX packages preserve a historically messy emulator family behind one installable name. Instead of choosing among FCE Ultra, rerecording, debugger, or mapper forks, users get the merged branch with documentation and release history.

For Unix package collections, it is one of the NES emulators that demonstrates why emulator packages are not just games: they are also reverse-engineering, debugging, TAS, and preservation tools.

Timeline

  • 1998: FCE Ultra Beta 1 was released near the end of November.
  • 2000: FCE Ultra source code 0.40 was released.
  • 2002: FCE Ultra 0.80 was relicensed under the GNU GPL; FCEUD added debugger features.
  • 2006: FCEUX began as a merge of FCE Ultra branches.
  • 2008: FCEUX 2.0.0 was released on August 2.
  • 2023: FCEUX 2.6.6 was released on August 26.

Related projects

  • FCE, FCE Ultra, FCEU rerecording, FCEUXD, FCEUXDSP, FCEUXDSP CE, and FCEU-mm are direct ancestors or merged branches.
  • TASVideos is part of the broader community context because FCEUX's movie and rerecording features were built for tool-assisted speedrun workflows.

security posture

Risk level: green

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

Risk classifier

green risk · low confidence · appliance

Why

  • narrow executable package without higher-risk signals

Signals

  • metadata:no-higher-risk-signals

Install behavior

  • No Homebrew bottle metadata was recorded.

Recommended review

Before unattended agent use, check whether the tool reads plaintext credentials, writes remote state, publishes artifacts, or shells out to plugins.

executables

Installed executables

CommandKindExposureNote
fceuxexecutableindexed executableDiscovered from the local executable index.

freshness

Version and freshness

These signals separate page generation age, package-manager activity, and upstream release comparison. Version lag is warned only when an evidence URL and comparable versions are present.

page generated2026-08-03
manager version2.6.6
manager updated2026-06-25
local dataunknown
upstreamnot available
latest detectednot detected
  • okNo freshness warnings were generated.

install metadata

Package metadata

Package keybrew:fceux
Version2.6.6
Package managerHomebrew
Homepagehttps://fceux.com/
Repositoryhttps://github.com/TASEmulators/fceux
Last updated2026-06-25T13:37:40+02:00
Pulseupdated
Bottlenot recorded
Servicenone declared

package graph

Links come from deterministic package relationships, av.db category and tag curation, ecosystem matches, and package hub membership.

source trail

Generated from repository data

This page is generated by av-web from the private package SQLite artifact built by scripts/generate-pkg-sqlite.py.

Used sources

  • Geiger risk classifier
  • Nucleus package database
  • curated package history
  • pkgdb category and tag curation