Homebrew [Request] Open Source DS Firmware

[Billy Acuña]

There is some DS Firmwares made by the community, but AFAIK none of the is open source.

 

[MassExplosion213]

There are some open source ones. I believe CTurt has one on his blog. Anyway, if this is for TWL on 3DS, it won't help.

 

[FAST6191]

As in for the actual DS? Because there were a couple of them (fwnitro is http://filetrip.net/nds-downloads/other-files/download-fwnitro-source-code-1-6c-source-f29597.html , I think Loopy released the source to the minimalist one and you might be able to hit up the author of creebome). Equally the original firmware and flashme (you might have to dig deep on gbadev or blogs or possibly pocketheavenfor that one) are fairly well documented in http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#dsfirmwareusersettings , and the deconstruction tool is also also open source http://chishm.drunkencoders.com/NDS_Projects/fwunpack.zip . Oh and https://cturt.github.io/ds-cfw.html and https://github.com/CTurt/cturt.github.io might also be worth a look.

I don't know why you might want such a thing (anything that flashme does not do your flash cart probably does) but it is out there.

 

[Billy Acuña]

There are some open source ones. I believe CTurt has one on his blog. Anyway, if this is for TWL on 3DS, it won't help.

Not for TWL actually, just for flashcards.

 

[FAST6191]

Ah OK firmwares for flash carts then.

All the major players in flash carts behave somewhat differently (it is arguably why DLDI came to be a thing, though there are other good reasons) and are largely unknown in how they do much of what they do. Sure you have the R4 and wood, akaio for some of the acekards, and DSTT/TTDS ysmenu stuff. None of those are open source really either -- I have a very old source bundle for AKAIO but it went closed some time before the end of the DS scene, EZFlash released some source (not much but something) and you have a few bits of info on the R4 out there as well (though I am not sure I have seen the R4 making kit that does the rounds in China/Hong Kong released to the public internet).

Making a unified firmware for them a la littlewriter on the GBA or maybe dashboards on the original xbox would not be an easy task. I would love to see a few of them opened up as several kind of lost support just before the last few big releases of the DS scene (mainly a couple of pokemon titles) but it would probably just be easier to develop an open source DS flash cart instead.

 

[Normmatt]

Ah OK firmwares for flash carts then.

All the major players in flash carts behave somewhat differently (it is arguably why DLDI came to be a thing, though there are other good reasons) and are largely unknown in how they do much of what they do. Sure you have the R4 and wood, akaio for some of the acekards, and DSTT/TTDS ysmenu stuff. None of those are open source really either -- I have a very old source bundle for AKAIO but it went closed some time before the end of the DS scene, EZFlash released some source (not much but something) and you have a few bits of info on the R4 out there as well (though I am not sure I have seen the R4 making kit that does the rounds in China/Hong Kong released to the public internet).

Making a unified firmware for them a la littlewriter on the GBA or maybe dashboards on the original xbox would not be an easy task. I would love to see a few of them opened up as several kind of lost support just before the last few big releases of the DS scene (mainly a couple of pokemon titles) but it would probably just be easier to develop an open source DS flash cart instead.

Did I actually release some AKAIO source? or are you talking about the sources before AKAIO (AKBBS/AKNORM/etc/etc).

 

[The Catboy]

I actually know a few of them that I have used in the past
There's FWNitro, which is hit and miss with flashcart support, but interesting to play with.
CreeboMe Beta 2, which is a very minimalist FW for the NDS
HBfirmware 090807, which only gives 3 options
And of course, Flashme, which is just the official firmware, modified
flashme_noauto
flashme_stealth_noauto
flashme_stealthV7
flashmeV7

Which mostly introduces Trojan protection and can remove the Health and Safety Warning.

 

[Billy Acuña]

Ok, thing that I want a open-source firmware is because I wanna get the rid of some limitations of 3DS's NDS forwarders with YSMenu. In short, I'm looking for a solution that is especially made for NDS forwarders.

 

[The Catboy]

<snip>
If they are looking for Open-Source Flashcart kernels, then there is technically only one kernel that is open-source and that was the Acekard kernel, which is the base for akAIO, Wood R4, and EOS. Otherwise, all other firmware kernels are closed-source.

 

[The Catboy]

Topic on hand, the only kernel that is open-source is the acekard RPG source: here
Sadly, I am not sure if that's the most up to date version, as the Acekard site has been down for years now. Still, it's the source code that was used to make akAIO, Wood R4(RPG), and Supercard EOS.

 

[Billy Acuña]

Topic on hand, the only kernel that is open-source is the acekard RPG source: here
Sadly, I am not sure if that's the most up to date version, as the Acekard site has been down for years now. Still, it's the source code that was used to make akAIO, Wood R4(RPG), and Supercard EOS.

Ohh, that's nice, in fact I'm looking for something really minimalist, ideally for forwarders.
Thanks for your reply

 

[FAST6191]

Did I actually release some AKAIO source? or are you talking about the sources before AKAIO (AKBBS/AKNORM/etc/etc).

No, it was likely AKRPG. I really should be more careful with the distinction there as I think you have had to remind me of that before. I will have to go looking through hard drives to find the full one but a sample from what I have was on http://gbatemp.net/threads/which-flashcart-for-castlevania-por.343239/page-2#post-4559271