Compiling KOS on Linux

Overview

This tutorial is a step-by-step guide on how to setup a toolchain and KOS environment on your GNU/Linux system.

The toolchain consists of a C/C++ compiler (GCC), assembler and linker (binutils), and C library (newlib). As the Dreamcast has two processors - the SH4 CPU and the AICA (ARM) sound processor - the toolchain includes compilers for both.

KOS consists of the operating system core (kos) and a set of nicely integrated libraries (kos-ports).

Install script

Please consider trying this install script first: File:Kos setup script.zip. It will perform the steps below automatically.

Preparations

You need the following software installed:

• git
• make (build-essential package)
• tar/gzip/bzip2
• gcc/g++
• development packages of libjpeg and libpng
• patch
• texinfo (for makeinfo etc)
• wget

Downloading KOS

KOS is available through a Git repository at SourceForge. The standard install directory assumed in the configuration files is /opt/toolchains/dc/{kos, kos-ports}.

$ git clone git://git.code.sf.net/p/cadcdev/kallistios /opt/toolchains/dc/kos

Toolchain (cross-compiler and libraries)

After cloning the KOS repository, run the toolchain download+unpack+compile scripts:

$ cd /opt/toolchains/dc/kos/utils/dc-chain
$ sh download.sh
$ sh unpack.sh

For compilation of the cross-compiler and system libraries, use the following command. The erase=1 will delete temporary files after a successful build.

$ make erase=1

Host GCC versions 4.7, 4.9, 6.1, and 7.3 are known to work.

After this command completes successfully you have a working cross-compiler for Dreamcast and can compile KOS next.

Setting up KOS

You should read the documentation in the kos/doc directory for details, but here are the basic steps required to set up the KOS environment:

Go into the kos directory and copy the template configuration:

$ cp /opt/toolchains/dc/kos/doc/environ.sh.sample /opt/toolchains/dc/kos/environ.sh 

Now edit environ.sh to match your installation. If you use the default installation directory you don't need to change anything.

Execute the following command to set the KOS environment variables:

$ source /opt/toolchains/dc/kos/environ.sh

Remember to do this every time you want to use the KOS environment in a newly opened shell. Dont't forget to run the above command again when editing environ.sh.

Now we are finally ready to compile KOS itself. In the kos directory, run:

$ cd /opt/toolchains/dc/kos 
$ make

KOS-Ports

KOS-Ports is a repository with commonly used libraries for development on the DC, like PNG or MP3 loading.

Clone the repository:

$ git clone --recursive git://git.code.sf.net/p/cadcdev/kos-ports /opt/toolchains/dc/kos-ports

Compile all KOS-ports using the build-all script

$ sh /opt/toolchains/dc/kos-ports/utils/build-all.sh

Now you should have a working Dreamcast development environment :-)

Check out the examples in the KallistiOS directory to find out how to use KOS in your own projects!