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Flash Equipment > Flash Carts Under Linux

#102144 - Karatorian - Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:42 am

I'm a Linux user and I'm interested in writing some GBA programs, so I was wondering which flash cart to get. My interests are in writing an RPG and running other people's hombrew code. I'm not interested in piracy, so compatibility with commercial code is of low priority, although, as a learning experiance, it could be useful to develop on a cart similar to what the professionals use. (Who knows, maybe I could sell my game. Yeah, I know, it's a pipe dream).

I want an actual flash cart, I'm not interested in a multiboot only type of setup. I remember reading (a while ago, so I forget the details) that there are two sorts of save game setups. Which do I want? (RPGs often have large ammounts of data to store in saves.) Can I get a card that does both? (So as to learn both methods and play a wider variety of homebrew.) A real time clock would be handy and open up intersting avenues of gameplay, but it's not a priority.

Price is not a major concern. Value for price is more important than getting bottom dollar. I want a quality system that'll handle lots of rewrites. In case it matters (I doubt it does), my GBA is a Micro. So which cart will serve my needs best?

#107727 - josath - Wed Nov 01, 2006 4:35 pm

Pretty much your only choice (afaik) for linux is:
1. Flash2Advance
2. A SD/CF based device (Supercard or M3) + a linux compatible CF/SD reader

Here's the website for the linux F2A driver: http://if2a.free.fr/

#131228 - elyk1212 - Tue Jun 12, 2007 6:20 pm

Hello,

Good news. Now that Virtual Machines are so reliable (VirtualBox, etc) you can run just about any Flash card.

What I do if only windows software is avaialble:

1) Try using wine for flash utilities.

...If I am pulling my hair out with dependency problems etc.
2) Use Original Windows based software from VirtualBox.

VirtualBox will have a copy of windows running from within Linux! Very cool! You can shut it down anytime, and even save state of the VirtualBox to your Harddrive to return to it, as though it was never turned off.

For development:

Right now, I use GCC compiled by the HAM project use Netbeans C/C++ pack. I do this by:

-- including a HAM make file in the source directory, and then
--I make a bash script to execute as the make target from within Netbeans.
-- Make sure the HAM gcc path is exported: export HAMDIR=/path/to/HAM
--Make sure all gfx2gba, etc, tools are in your path: export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/gbatools
-> This allows you to use make file targets such as for building your graphics :)
This script will call visualboy advance with your filename.gba:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
VisualBoyAdvance filename.gba



Since using Netbeans, now I have code completion, etc. There are prob other solutions with perhaps better results, but it is familiar for me and works great for me.

#131237 - Lynx - Tue Jun 12, 2007 10:44 pm

Though, you'll need to own a copy of M$ Windows to run it under VirtualBox.
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