*Nix development

[Omni]

Spent the past few months getting comfortable with Linux on my new laptop. Is there any way to begin Saturn development with it?


I do have the GNUSH compiler, and I have the tars of SGL and SBL, but I don't know if they're usable directly under *nix systems. I remember that Antime's site had SGL packages fixed to work with Linux/Unix, but Antime's site doesn't seem to be up now.


In addition, I can't get Wine (from my very brief trials with it) to run the WGT 3D Editor, and several of the command utilities crash, though I imagine maybe one or two (DXF2SGF) might possibly run under DOSbox? I also imagine a few of Rockin-B's utilities are unusuable in Wine or *nix, and that rules out SaturnOrbit especially (I remember it had several of the SGL demos and more included, which was handy).


Is there any way to get these tools working under Wine (in particular, is there a way to extract the SaturnOrbit pack without running the installer)? Or is there any other way to work on this stuff under Linux? I had imagined certainly someone has done Saturn work with a *nix system before.

 

[antime]

The fixed SGL package has had all files run through a line-ending converter and has a unixified Makefile template to make project setup easier. There is no corresponding SBL package, but the libraries themselves should work fine.


My website should be back up as soon as I get in touch with the hosting company about extending the contract, which is probably not until January.

 

[dibz]

I don't know about the Makefile, but from antime's description about the SGL packages you could probably run this from shell to fix the files (assuming you're already in the correct directory):

find . -type f -exec dos2unix {} \;

 

[ExCyber]

FWIW, the "fixed for Unix-based development" SGL has several other things altered/fixed that don't have much to do with Unix/POSIX specifically (from memory so might be slightly wrong/incomplete:

- the linker script is fixed for newer (at the time) GNU toolchains; the one distributed with SGL will produce huge/broken binaries because it doesn't map the .rodata section.

- Some object files are removed to reduce the package size

- A buggy Makefile in one of the samples is fixed (it deleted a common file in the clean target; I think it was workarea.o or workarea.c)

- The main Makefile was tweaked to use more "normal" names for the various toolchain components, with presets for both sh-elf (commonly used in homebrew Dreamcast development) and sh-coff (as in GNUSH) targets.

That said, there's no reason that you must use SGL/SBL - Sega's not going to reject your game's license . You can write your own low-level routines or use Piratero's libyaul, for example.

 

[mrkotfw]

FWIW, the "fixed for Unix-based development" SGL has several other things altered/fixed that don't have much to do with Unix/POSIX specifically (from memory so might be slightly wrong/incomplete:

- the linker script is fixed for newer (at the time) GNU toolchains; the one distributed with SGL will produce huge/broken binaries because it doesn't map the .rodata section.

- Some object files are removed to reduce the package size

- A buggy Makefile in one of the samples is fixed (it deleted a common file in the clean target; I think it was workarea.o or workarea.c)

- The main Makefile was tweaked to use more "normal" names for the various toolchain components, with presets for both sh-elf (commonly used in homebrew Dreamcast development) and sh-coff (as in GNUSH) targets.

That said, there's no reason that you must use SGL/SBL - Sega's not going to reject your game's license . You can write your own low-level routines or use Piratero's libyaul, for example.

I'm probably one of the few who are developing under FreeBSD.

Yes, I suggest you;

1). Write your own tools (or use mine); and

2). Write your own low-level routines (or use lapetus or libyaul).

As soon as you leave the Windows environment, you're pretty much on your own.

You can of course use my lib and send me patches and code! I haven't updated the CVS sources in months, but I can send you a tarball of what I'm working on.