Installing OpenXDK

OK... I assume you have decided that the OpenXDK is something you want to install. Now, the OpenXDK provides a set of libraries that you can use to develop your application. Once you have the OpenXDK libraries installed, you can then write your application. This page describes the steps required to install the OpenXDK libraries... if you have already done that, there is separate documentation on developing applications.

You can install the OpenXDK libraries in three ways (in order of preference):

  1. Download the binary pre-compiled version from sourceforge as a ZIP file (Win32 users only - sorry!). This is a convenient time saving option.
  2. Download the packaged source code as a compressed TAR file. This is appropriate for both Win32 and Linux users and requires that you compile the OpenXDK libraries.
  3. Use CVS to download the latest and greatest version. While I do try to make sure that only working code gets checked in, you might sometimes get code that doesn't work if you use this method.

Note that my development environment is Windows 2000 using the Cygwin development kit. It worked with MingW on Windows some time ago, but I haven't tested it recently. I have been endeavouring to give better support for Linux users, also.

Cygwin

You will need a pretty recent version of Cygwin. I don't recall specifically which bits I installed, but I am do know that you will need at least the following packages:

Linux

You will need to download and install a Linux-to-Win32 cross compiler. The one that I have personally tested is the i386-mingw32 cross compiler. I installed the RPMs from here and everything just worked fine.

Binary Pre-Compiled Version

This is the easiest of the three options (as long as you are a Win32 user). Just download the latest binary file from Source Forge. It will usually be called something like OpenXDK_0_05_bin.zip (depending on the version). Decide what directory you want the libraries installed in (I personally install it into /usr/local/openxdk, but you can put it wherever you want), and unzip it into that directory. That's it! You will need to make note of the directory you install it in so that you can set the PATHs correctly when you are developing your own applications.

Note that the ZIP file already contains the leading openxdk directory, so if you want the binaries to be installed into /usr/local/openxdk, you need to unzip it into /usr/local.

Packaged Source

Download the latest source file from Source Forge. It will usually be called something like OpenXDK_0_05_src.tgz (depending on the version). Decide what directory you want the source to be installed in. I normally use /home/craig/openxdk, but you can put it wherever you like.

You then need to decide where you want the OpenXDK libraries to be installed. I personally put them into /usr/local/openxdk, but you can put them wherever suits. The following instructions assume that you untarred the source into /usr/home/openxdk and you want to install into /usr/local/openxdk. From a BASH shell, execute the following commands:

Cygwin

cd /usr/home/openxdk
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/openxdk
make all install
Linux
cd /usr/home/openxdk
export WANT_AUTOCONF=2.5
export WANT_AUTOMAKE=1.6
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/openxdk --host=i386-mingw32
make all install
To check that the installation worked correctly (in both cases), run ls -las /usr/local/openxdk/lib, and you should see something like (file sizes will vary between releases):
bash-2.05b$ ls -las /usr/local/openxdk/lib
total 720
   4 drwxrwxrwx+   2 edwardsc None         4096 Sep  8 08:16 .
   0 drwxrwxrwx+   6 edwardsc None            0 Sep  8 08:15 ..
 255 -rw-rw-rw-    1 edwardsc None       261086 Sep  8 08:16 libSDL.a
  63 -rw-rw-rw-    1 edwardsc None        64490 Sep  8 08:15 libhal.a
  32 -rw-rw-rw-    1 edwardsc None        32200 Sep  8 08:15 libopenxdk.a
 100 -rw-rw-rw-    1 edwardsc None       102348 Sep  8 08:16 libusb.a
 266 -rw-rw-rw-    1 edwardsc None       271764 Sep  8 08:02 libxboxkrnl.a

CVS HEAD

This procedure is almost the same as the Packaged Source installation, except that you are using the latest copy of the code, instead of the packaged release. Use CVS to download the HEAD from SourceForge into your source directory, and the follow the instructions in the Packaged Source section.

One last thing...

As part of the build process, an executable called cxbe will be creating in the bin directory of wherever you installed OpenXDK. This directory needs to be in your path (or fully qualified in your application makefile). See developing applications for more information.

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