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Getting started
Linux

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

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

Additional experimental toolchains

Advanced users only!

The following two toolchains aren’t relevant for most users of BlocksDS. They are very experimental, and they are mainly interesting for people that want to improve them, not for people wanting to create actual applications.

The DSi has two additional CPUs supported by BlocksDS:

  • Teak: A DSP mostly used for audio (but rarely used in official games).
  • Xtensa: A CPU present in the WiFi board of the DSi.

You can install both toolchains by running this:

wf-pacman -S toolchain-llvm-teak-llvm toolchain-gcc-xtensa-elf

When they are present, the build system of BlocksDS will build additional libraries and examples.

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.

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
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