Dreamcast Port

From DirectFBWiki

Table of contents
1 About the Port

1.1 What KallistiOS already does for us

2 How to build a toolchain and KallistiOS
3 How to build DirectFB
4 Status
[edit]

About the Port

DirectFB already ran on Dreamcast. well ... on Dreamcast running Linux. This port would would use KallistiOS, which seems to be a free and mature embedded operating system for the Dreamcast.

[edit]

What KallistiOS already does for us

From the README: 

 What KallistiOS is primarily:
 - Processor manager (threads, MMU, store queues, DMA, exceptions, etc) 
 - Pseudo-POSIX/ANSI layer (printf, files, threads, etc)
 - HAL (hardware abstraction layer)

This is great, lots of DirectFB's requirements are already covered. Including threads :-)

More from the README: 

 What KallistiOS provides optionally:
 - Dynamic module loading
 - Ported addon modules, through kos-ports

The kos-ports includes libz, libpng and libjpeg. And freetype for KallistiOS seems to be available here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=23791

[edit]

How to build a toolchain and KallistiOS

Here is a great step-by-step guide on how to build the toolchain ans KallistiOS: http://cadcdev.sourceforge.net/softprj/kos/setup.php

It is really easy to set up, worked even on Mac OS X, without any patches.

[edit]

How to build DirectFB

It does not build yet. but you can start the build process you'll have to

  • type ". environ.sh", your "environ.sh" is in your kos folder
  • in the DirectFB folder run the following command:

RANLIB=kos-ranlib AR=kos-ar STRIP=kos-strip CC=kos-cc LD=kos-ld AS=kos-as CFLAGS=$KOS_CFLAGS LDFLAGS=$KOS_LDFLAGS ./autogen.sh --host=sh-elf --target=sh-elf --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-debug --disable-trace

compilation will fail. But that's how far we got. ;-)

[edit]

Status

libdirectfb compiles when uncommenting some code. Some workaround are already in CVS kos system not even started.

Missing from KallistiOS:

Function Workaround in CVS Comment
pthread_mutexattr_settype() yes, do nothing instead recursive mutexes are not supported on KallistiOS
killpg() yes, do nothing instead we dont need to kill or clean up anything, its just a game console, it runs a game until power is switched off.
Retrieved from "http://directfb.org/wiki/index.php/Dreamcast_Port"