Linux

If you don’t want to build the SDK from source, this is the easiest option.

Install Wonderful Toolchain

Follow the instructions in this link:

https://wonderful.asie.pl/wiki/doku.php?id=getting_started:linux

Add the BlocksDS repository to wf-pacman

export PATH=/opt/wonderful/bin:$PATH

wf-pacman -Syu wf-tools
wf-config repo enable blocksds
wf-pacman -Syu

Install the ARM toolchain and BlocksDS

wf-pacman -S blocksds-toolchain

To install the documentation and examples you can install:

wf-pacman -S blocksds-docs

Install the following if you plan to develop binaries for the DSP of the DSi (you can skip this now and do it in the future if you need it):

wf-pacman -S toolchain-llvm-teak-llvm

Install third-party libraries (Optional)

You can also install some third party libraries like NightFox’s Lib and Nitro Engine using wf-pacman:

wf-pacman -S blocksds-nflib blocksds-nitroengine

You can get a full list of packages by running:

wf-pacman -Sl

Setup environment variables

wf-pacman installs BlocksDS in /opt/wonderful/thirdparty/blocksds/. This isn’t the standard location (wf-pacman can only write files to /opt/wonderful/) so you need to do one of the two following options:

  1. Create a symlink (note that this doesn’t work with MinGW):

    ln -s /opt/wonderful/thirdparty/blocksds /opt/blocksds
  2. Set your environment variables correctly:

    source /opt/wonderful/bin/wf-env

    You can do it manually instead if you prefer:

    export BLOCKSDS=/opt/wonderful/thirdparty/blocksds/core
    export BLOCKSDSEXT=/opt/wonderful/thirdparty/blocksds/external

How to update the SDK

When you want to update the packages, run:

wf-pacman -Syu

How to build projects

Now you can try to build one of the BlocksDS examples. From the shell, run:

cd /opt/wonderful/thirdparty/blocksds/core/examples/

From there, for example, go to graphics_3d/volumetric_shadow and type make. This will generate a NDS ROM that you can try with an emulator or a flashcart.

You can also try one of the open source projects made with BlocksDS that are listed here.

Note

If you get an error like command not found: make, you need to install it from the packages of your system. For example, try sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends build-essential