Homebrew Raspberry Pi Developing 3DS Homebrew?

pastaconsumer

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2014
Messages
971
Trophies
1
XP
3,188
Country
United States
Hello all!
So several people have been talking about making CFW, Region Free patches, other crap... but no major hype in terms of the homebrew division of the 3DS scene... So, yeah... I want to make homebrew... with a Raspberry Pi.

COMMON QUESTION:
Isn't there already a homebrew development thread?

ANSWER:
Yes, there is a homebrew development thread.
No, there is not any info on how to make homebrew with a Raspberry Pi.

So this brings me to my question... Is it possible to use a Raspberry Pi as a platform to develop 3DS homebrew?
If it is, I would greatly appreciate a little help finding all the necessary tools and setup of hardware.
If not, why not try to make it possible? Hell, make an entire image for those who want to explore this land!

Thank you, reader, for your time!
 

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,824
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,819
Country
Poland
An RPi is a computer like any other - run a compatible Linux distro, grab the right tools and you should be golden, provided you find ARM builds of what you need, which might be your only problem. To be fair though, Python tools should be platform independent, so you have that working for ya.
 

Monado_III

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2015
Messages
722
Trophies
0
Location
/dev/null
XP
1,443
Country
Canada
An RPi is a computer like any other - run a compatible Linux distro, grab the right tools and you should be golden, provided you find ARM builds of what you need, which might be your only problem. To be fair though, Python tools should be platform independent, so you have that working for ya.
Might it be different because the RPi is already an ARM computer unlike what pretty much every other computer/laptop is?
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastaconsumer

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,824
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,819
Country
Poland
Might it be different because the RPi is already an ARM computer unlike what pretty much every other computer/laptop is?
Python tools are platform-independent and C/C++ is exactly the same regardless of the platform you're coding on, so as long as you have a compiler working on your architecture you should be fine. Unfortunately, most of utilities that could help you with development are coded for x86, so that's a bummer, but not a hurdle you can't overcome.
 

daxtsu

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Jun 9, 2007
Messages
5,627
Trophies
2
XP
5,194
Country
Antarctica
The only real issue I can forsee is finding/building an ARM version of GCC arm-eabi-none, although I guess you could maybe try and shoehorn the compiler already built for your distro into compiling for the 3DS, if it supports the 3DS target CPU (and doesn't target a Linux elf format only, for example)..
 

Heran Bago

Where do puyo come from?
Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2005
Messages
3,100
Trophies
0
Age
35
Location
Foggy California
Website
heranbago.com
XP
1,187
Country
United States
Is it possible to use a Raspberry Pi as a platform to develop 3DS homebrew?

Yes! Anything is possible if you believe in yourself. If the tools and programming libraries don't exist then you can make them. If you don't know how to then you can still learn how. You can do anything if you set your mind to it.
 

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,824
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,819
Country
Poland
To be a 100% fair, I think coding homebrew on a Rasberry Pi seems like busy work to me considering all the available resources for normal x86 desktops, but it can be done if you really want to go through the trouble. Honestly though, the OP would probably do himself a big favour if he'd just settle for a normal PC rather than an RPi, even if only because an RPi will require additional work to even get things started and only more work along the way. For starters, testing homebrew is going to be a bother, I can't see the Rasberry emulating the 3DS at any capacity wheras on a desktop you can at least use CITRA for some quick fixes.
 

Slushie3DS

Cold Beverage Lover
Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2015
Messages
707
Trophies
0
Age
29
XP
420
Country
United States
If I remember correctly, the Raspberry Pi uses the Linux Kernel, and some sort of modified distro. It should be fully possible to install devkitARM, ctrulib, and other tools using the Pi. I use them on a Linux distro, myself. As for certain things, like armips, you will need to install a Windows layer (Wine) underneath your distro and reach it from command line with this command.

Code:
wine cmd
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastaconsumer

Slushie3DS

Cold Beverage Lover
Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2015
Messages
707
Trophies
0
Age
29
XP
420
Country
United States
Doesn't WINE only correctly work on x86 systems? rPi is an ARM-based computer.

Hmm, I never actually thought of that. I did google it, though.

Raspberry Pi FAQ said:
3. WILL IT RUN WINE (OR WINDOWS, OR OTHER X86 SOFTWARE)?

Wine Is Not an Emulator. Some people have put Windows 3.1 on the Raspberry Pi inside an x86 CPU emulator in order to use specific applications, but trying to use a version of Windows even as recent as Windows 98 can take hours to boot into, and may take several more hours to update your cursor every time you try to move it. We don’t recommend it!

Seems as if he'd have to jump through hoops. Although, not everything in the scene is dependent on Windows warez. I've only had to use them on two things.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastaconsumer

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,824
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,819
Country
Poland
Seems as if he'd have to jump through hoops. Although, not everything in the scene is dependent on Windows warez. I've only had to use them on two things.
Hoops the size of pinhead holes, he might as well go straight to Bochs or something like that and even that won't work very well.
 

Slushie3DS

Cold Beverage Lover
Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2015
Messages
707
Trophies
0
Age
29
XP
420
Country
United States
Hoops the size of pinhead holes, he might as well go straight to Bochs or something like that and even that won't work very well.

I wonder if armips is open source and could be compiled for the linux kernel. I never really cared to look into it.

I honestly think I may get a Raspberry Pi to play with. I didn't realize they were so cheap.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastaconsumer

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,824
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,819
Country
Poland
I wonder if armips is open source and could be compiled for the linux kernel. I never really cared to look into it.

I honestly think I may get a Raspberry Pi to play with. I didn't realize they were so cheap.
They've recently rolled out a new model with a greatly improved CPU, it's well worth the asking price if you want a microcomputer for small projects.
 

Foxi4

Endless Trash
Global Moderator
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
30,824
Trophies
3
Location
Gaming Grotto
XP
29,819
Country
Poland
I've tried booting Win 3.1 with QEmu, barely usable. I think Bochs is probably even slower.
Forgot about QEmu. Anywho, if Windows NT4 is any indication, it seems... okay... ish? If you're a snail?




Like I said, it's not worth the effort, but it's still better than running a Linux distro in an x86 emulator to use WINE to launch a Windows application, let's be serious here, this isn't inception. :P
 
  • Like
Reactions: pastaconsumer

CalebW

Fellow Temper
Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2012
Messages
638
Trophies
0
Location
Texas
XP
545
Country
United States
Hello all!
So several people have been talking about making CFW, Region Free patches, other crap... but no major hype in terms of the homebrew division of the 3DS scene... So, yeah... I want to make homebrew... with a Raspberry Pi.

COMMON QUESTION:
Isn't there already a homebrew development thread?

ANSWER:
Yes, there is a homebrew development thread.
No, there is not any info on how to make homebrew with a Raspberry Pi.

So this brings me to my question... Is it possible to use a Raspberry Pi as a platform to develop 3DS homebrew?
If it is, I would greatly appreciate a little help finding all the necessary tools and setup of hardware.
If not, why not try to make it possible? Hell, make an entire image for those who want to explore this land!

Thank you, reader, for your time!
I successfully built DevkitARM and libctru for the Pi and it works great(I think I had to do a friggin Canadian Cross though...I can't remember if I built it directly on the Pi. Building directly on the Pi is a helluva lot simpler but it just takes longer unless you have distcc set up on your Pi.)!! So it's very possible, as to homebrew development it's the same on any platform you just have to build devkitARM arm binaries for the pi's processor.

To build it on the Pi(you may want to ssh into your Pi for this):
1. In your Pi, navigate to a workspace and type
Code:
sudo apt-get install wget && wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/buildscripts/buildscripts-20150216.tar.bz2 && tar -xf buildscripts-20150216.tar.bz2 && cd buildscripts
2. Next follow the instructions in the README.
3. To build ctrulib, clone it from git and compile it.
 

WhoAmI?

PASTA's dirty animal
Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2015
Messages
1,276
Trophies
0
Location
Poké Ball
Website
lavanoid.github.io
XP
1,279
Country
You can actually make and compile homebrew on the Raspberry Pi xD Me and @nastys used a Raspberry Pi to compile rxTools, some time ago.

We had to compile DevkitPro AND ImageMagick, as well as armips and a few other things for a "real" 3DS Dev Environment. We is da awesome!!!!!! WOOT WOOT!!!!!!

Edit: Made this comment without reading all the others.
 
Last edited by WhoAmI?,
  • Like
Reactions: Deleted User

shinyquagsire23

SALT/Sm4sh Leak Guy
Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2012
Messages
1,977
Trophies
2
Age
26
Location
Las Vegas
XP
3,765
Country
United States
I'm pretty sure the gcc that can just be installed normally on a Pi can cross-compile for most other ARM processors? That shouldn't be an issue, but actually getting devkitARM set up and using other utilities would be a pain.
 

dark_samus3

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
May 30, 2015
Messages
2,372
Trophies
0
XP
2,042
Country
United States
If I remember correctly, the Raspberry Pi uses the Linux Kernel, and some sort of modified distro. It should be fully possible to install devkitARM, ctrulib, and other tools using the Pi. I use them on a Linux distro, myself. As for certain things, like armips, you will need to install a Windows layer (Wine) underneath your distro and reach it from command line with this command.

Code:
wine cmd
Wrong, armips can easily be compiled for Linux (ask me how I know :P)

EDIT: wow I need to look at dates... Lol

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Ok then so i can fly if really wanted to?
Yep, get into a plane and take off, you're now flying :D
 
Last edited by dark_samus3,

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    Psionic Roshambo @ Psionic Roshambo: https://www.youtube.com/@legolambs