DreamSDK is a modern, ready-to-use environment for the Sega Dreamcast development, designed for the Microsoft Windows platform.
By installing DreamSDK you can start developing for your Sega Dreamcast today, on Windows OS, without bothering with toolchains, libraries or configuration. DreamSDK is used for producing Sega Dreamcast homebrews/games (i.e., Dreamcast programs), even commercial ones, like The Textorcist or Shadow Gangs!
DreamSDK is a big package composed by a lot of free/open-source softwares, mainly KallistiOS (the library used for interacting with the Sega Dreamcast hardware), the associated/required GNU toolchain, and some special programs made for this package (e.g., DreamSDK Manager). DreamSDK is compatible with Windows XP and greater (e.g, it has been well tested on Windows 10).
📥 Download the official release here.
After installing the package on your computer, you have 2 options:
- Use the DreamSDK Shell and use the package directly from the command-line;
- Use an IDE: currently, only Code::Blocks is officially supported.
If you are using GNU/Linux or macOS, DreamSDK is totally useless for you. As all required Sega Dreamcast components are based on GNU/Linux components, setuping a working environment for developing on Sega Dreamcast is pretty easy. You just have to follow the official steps described in the KallistiOS documentation. That's why DreamSDK won't support GNU/Linux or macOS because it isn't necessary.
If you are using Windows Subsystem for Linux
(i.e., WSL) on Windows 10+, you can indeed avoid using DreamSDK as you have
a native Unix-like shell directly on your computer. However, using DreamSDK will
facilitate the environment setup as all the toolchains and required components
are already compiled/ready to be used. Indeed, compiling the required toolchains
can take several hours to complete (mainly using the dc-chain utility provided
in the utils/dc-chain directory from the KallistiOS repository).
This repository contains everything you need to produce DreamSDK installation packages. Using this repository you'll be able to generate the 3 official installation packages ... :
- The ISO image -
DreamSDK-R<release_number>-Setup.iso; - The Padus DiscJuggler image (CDI) containing
dcload-ip:
DreamSDK-R<release_number>-dcload-ip-<dcload_version>.cdi; - The Padus DiscJuggler image (CDI) containing
dcload-serial:
DreamSDK-R<release_number>-dcload-serial-<dcload_version>.cdi.
... where release_number is the version of the DreamSDK you want to generate
(this is detailed in the setup-generator repository). ISO image hold the
full installer of DreamSDK for the computer while
Padus DiscJuggler images (CDI) are
bootable discs for your Sega Dreamcast,
containing DreamSDK and the dcload program used for running your programs
and remote debugging (you have to choose your flavour, dcload-serial for your
Coders Cable or dcload-ip if you
have the luck to have a Broadband Adapter).
To produce these 3 installation packages, you will need to install the prerequisites and execute the 4 scripts described below, in the specified order.
First of all, you will need to install:
- DreamSDK - yes, you will need a previous version of DreamSDK to produce a new one - Eating_your_own_dog_food principle!
- Lazarus IDE - DreamSDK components are written in Free Pascal.
- Python 3 - some scripts used in the generation process are written in Python.
- Git - used for retriving some components from Git repositories.
- UPX - DreamSDK binaries are packed with UPX, using the 32-bit version.
- 7-Zip - some scripts uses 7-Zip for compression.
- Inno Setup 5 - the tool used for creating the installer. Note that you should use the v5.x branch to keep Windows XP support.
You will need to clone all repositories linked to DreamSDK in the same directory. It could be whatever directory you want but it's better to avoid spaces in the path.
Repositories to clone are:
- codeblocks-patcher - patcher for adding DreamSDK support to Code::Blocks IDE
- common - common library/classes
- documentation - DreamSDK documentation in CHM format
- dreamsdk - this repository
- helpers - some utilities used by DreamSDK itself
- manager - DreamSDK Manager, the central utility of the DreamSDK package
- setup-generator - the Inno Setup script used for producting the setup files
- setup-helpers - some utilities only used by DreamSDK Setup
- setup-packages - the packages that make DreamSDK itself
- shell-launcher - the main application of DreamSDK, the DreamSDK Shell
- shell-runner - this utility is used for executing DreamSDK commands directly in Windows Shell.
- system-objects - some files used for converting a standard MinGW installation into DreamSDK.
You may install the previous version of DreamSDK in the default directory.
Please note that only one version of DreamSDK can be installed on the computer
at this time (mainly, due to the usage of the DREAMSDK_HOME environment
variable), so if you want to test your generated package, it will uninstall the
previous one. Then you can use your installed package for regenerating another
one, as only a few utilities embedded in DreamSDK are used for producing the
package (e.g., patch...).
Lazarus is a key component as every DreamSDK binaries are written in Free Pascal. You may install the Lazarus IDE itself in 64-bit but all DreamSDK binaries should be generated in 32-bit only, as DreamSDK is a package full of 32-bit binaries supporting Windows XP.
To install Lazarus IDE, you should install (assuming you're on 64-bit Windows):
- Install
lazarus-x.y.z-fpc-x.y.z-win64.exe - Install
lazarus-x.y.z-fpc-x.y.z-cross-i386-win32-win64.exe - Start Lazarus IDE and create a new project (just to access to the main menu)
- In the main menu, click on
Package>Online Package Manager.... - Search for the following package:
Synapse. Install theSynapse X.YYpackage by click on theInstallbutton. Do the same with theUniqueInstancepackage. You may recreate theNormal Profilesif asked.
You may install Python 3 using default settings.
Note that if you wish to test Python extensions for GDB, you will need to install Python 32-bit, so you may install both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Python. You can of course make the 64-bit version primary. You may click here for more information.
For all these components, you may use the standard installation process.
There is no installer for UPX, all you need to do is to extract it in a fixed location. Pay attention that you need to use the 32-bit version of UPX!
You need to install Inno Setup 5 (not the latest version) to keep Windows XP support. You may find it on the official website or cached here.
It could be useful to install Inno Script Studio as well as this tool simplify the development of Inno Setup scripts.
For building DreamSDK, you need to configure then execute the 4 scripts described below. You need to execute them in that order as they are dependencies check between all of them.
The first script to execute is called offline.
Starting with DreamSDK R3, you have the possibility to use DreamSDK in an offline mode only, that's why we need to embedded the components directly in the Setup package. Of course the online mode is better and we encourage the user to do so but sometime, you don't have the choice to be offline. The user can choose the offline package directly when installing DreamSDK or later on through DreamSDK Manager.
This script is preparing everything for embedding KallistiOS, KOS Ports, Dreamcast Tool and Ruby libraries directly the DreamSDK Setup package.
The prepare script is very important as it gather all the components used to
produces DreamSDK. This script is generating the .sources directory that will
be embedded in the DreamSDK Setup package.
...
The mksetup script will generate the DreamSDK Setup package itself.
Starting from that point, DreamSDK is ready to be used but not really
distributed officially, this is the purpose of the next step.
This is the last script to use: mkimage. This will produce the official images
containing DreamSDK for distribution.
For building Code::Blocks you will need some more tools
...
(To be continued)