-- The 3ds-fbge project : --

(aka 3ds-FrameBufferGraphicalEnvironnement)

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What is it?

The 3ds-fbge project is meant to be a standalone graphical user interface (or GUI) to be used on the port of Linux for the 3DS as some kind of desktop environnemennt, it works entierely using native C code, the Linux API, and the raw framebuffer(s) of the device, no X server or conventional graphical library needed.

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Features:

Not a lot of things, and it's still very glitchy, but we have a working terminal and a good part of the communication to the hardware was implemented and is usable (without having to patch/recompile the kernel, which i tried but doesn't work well), tho there's still a lot of work to do to make this program "usable and useful"

Shortcuts:

I added a few shortcuts that we can use while the DE is running, here's a few of them :

• R + START: Open settings
• START + X: Take screenshot (saved as .bmp, disabled for this version because it's broken)
• START + A : Quit 3DS-FBGE
• A+B+L+R: Syncs the filesystem and poweroff the console

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USAGE:

IMPORTANT: You will need to have Linux installed on your console first, for this use the provided install package and extract it to your 3ds SD card root (linux works on every 3ds model).

Very simple, just download the binary file and put in in your SD card, then boot linux_bootloader.firm and type /switch.sh (it's a little script included in the Linux package to mount SD card and populate /dev/), and then launch the binary (/mnt/ is your sd card, you can use ./mnt/fbge for example).

SD CARD:

Card should be at least 2GB and formatted in FAT32, any cluster size is fine but 32Ko works the best.

/!\ Also you should use an SD card with nothing important on it because the kernel SD/MMC driver is unstable and can corrupt the filesystem, also cards which are 32GB or more will crash the kernel I/O handler

Binary tested on New3DS only, but should work on Old models too (??)

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COMPILING:

To compile this code, you need :

• A computer running Linux (or WSL on Windows)
• the packages build-essential, make and gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi (ARM cross-compiler) installed

Then just execute the make command and it will compile the binary in "./build/fbge", but you can change the name of the file/dir with the parameters inside the Makefile.

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Why?

why not? it's just a fun project :3

Btw a little fun fact : the bottom screen doesn't have a framebuffer, so it instead uses raw /dev/mem at memory address 0x18119400 lol

Pictures:

(PS : Pictures have been taken with raw framebuffer dumps which have been converted, the screenshot func in the code is still broken)

TODO:

• Test the code on Old3DS
• Implement some apps
• Fix terminal text buffer overflowing
• Make better use the devices provided by the kernel (LEDs, battery, etc..)
• Fix glitches in text and window rendering
• Make a clean and working window manager
• Reverse-enginner the internal SPI controller to be able to use the touch screen
• Optimize performances more and reduce I/O bottleneck
• Make a proper application framework and API

ADDED SINCE LAST RELEASE:

• Optimized the Makefile and added ANSI colors to it
• Fixed smalls terminal glitches
• Removed unused frameskip
• Refactored the text render code
• Hardcoded size/bpp/stride for rendering in a better way
• Renamed "setLED_asRGB" function to "SetLED" as well as some others funcs for more clarity
• Partially fixed width and height of the screen being reversed sometimes
• Added screenshots output in BMP format instead of raw BIN
• Added full bottom screen framebuffer mapping
• Renamed draw.c/h to TOP_render.c/h for more clarity
• Added function to use SysRQ from the code
• Changed the font for a cleaner one
• Temporary use the 3DS's LED as FPS monitor
• Optimized top framebuffer rendering

ALREADY FIXED/ADDED:

• Some OOM Errors by buffer overflow
• Rotated coordinates
• Added screenshots in Github repo
• Made the code cleaner
• Added more image assets
• Added windows moving
• Added mouse click detection
• Upgrade input handler for every button
• Add more graphical content
• Add proper keyboard handler
• Add option to go back to Linux shell
• Fix innacurate coordinates while moving window
• Make screenshots function work (and make a converter on PC)

WILL NEVER BE ADDED:

• Sound (the custom kernel DOESN'T support sound)
• Network/Wi-Fi (no network driver is implemented into the kernel)
• Ports on other devices (the code is specifically made for the 3DS framebuffer and linux kernel and would need a big rewrite to port elsewhere, altough i managed to run it on an RPi with a few tweaks)

Feel free to report issues if anything goes wrong while testing ^^