Unpack the contents of the archive file into a directory (like ~/mame), then run 
the mameprep script in that directory. It will download the ROMs from the WHTech 
server, preconfigure the mame.ini file, and produce some start scripts for 
various TI systems and configurations.

Try MAME by running ./ti99 or any of the other scripts. No configuration needed,
you can immediately start using your emulations.

After getting familiar with the created configurations, try your own ones.

Note: Please do not use the packaged MAME distribution of your Linux repository.
The mameprep script will only run with the tarballs from here. Also, the 
packaged MAME distribution is typically available much later than the versions
available here.