Pandora Pandora Development From Windows

[Rockthesmurf]

Yes I know this has come up before, I don't need anyone pointing this out, so if you are about to hit reply and write anything to that extent please save yourself the time to write the message, and everyone else the time to read it! :rolleyes:

With the release of the Pandora getting ever closer, I for one would love a guide for how to setup a development environment in Windows, e.g.:

1. Install cygwin (if that is required), making sure packages x, y and z are included.
2. Install cross compiler from location X to directory Y
3. Setup the following environment variables/path/etc.
4. Download this sample makefile based application that draws a rotating GL triangle
5. Show how to make a .pnd file from this
6. Show how the debugging work, e.g. do we fire up GDB? Is there an IDE debugger that works, etc.

So I guess the first question is, does anyone currently have the knowledge to do the above? If so has the process already been detailed somewhere? If not, when is the above likely to be done? I am a windows developer, I have written games for iPhone/Android and would like to port to Pandora, and find it hard to believe I am the only person in this situation! Last time I remember reading about this, the answer was that it was still early days, and as the release gets closer more information will start appearing, so I am simply enquiring if anymore information is now available - as soon as the information becomes available I'll start porting my iPhone/Android projects to Pandora - this is why I am keen to find out what the latest information is!

Many thanks for your helpful responses,

Steve

 

[skeezix]

For myself, I just keep a vmware image on a usb key and cart it around, and keep all my stuff in GIT's and CVS's so I can be refreshed anywhere. My VMs have too much custom crap in them, but it is tempting to make a fresh new VM and then just pass it around on a torrent, ready to use for pandora devving .. ie: from OSX, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, whatever, everyone can use a VM.. the only trick being VMs seem to never work well with usbnet, which is a big drag

Anyway, as to your cygwin question, I've not looked into it myself; a lot of use are still using a stock gcc version instead of just building it fresh .. did you check if they have a cygwin build?

Making a pnd file is pretty straight forward; check out the libpnd (pandora libraries) in GIT and the pnd-make.sh covers it (its a very simple process, you could do it by hand too.)

Debugging .. if you're using usbnet, its pretty straight forward. Myself, I have no end of trouble with usbnet unless using a linux host OS (seems like XP SP3 and Vista and Win7 explode when I try to connect them..); as I'm in early, I've got a serial adapter so I'm using serial console for debugging myself, but thats cheating I know...

jeff

 

[djcpe]

Yes I know this has come up before, I don't need anyone pointing this out, so if you are about to hit reply and write anything to that extent please save yourself the time to write the message, and everyone else the time to read it! :rolleyes:

With the release of the Pandora getting ever closer, I for one would love a guide for how to setup a development environment in Windows, e.g.:

1. Install cygwin (if that is required), making sure packages x, y and z are included.
2. Install cross compiler from location X to directory Y
3. Setup the following environment variables/path/etc.
4. Download this sample makefile based application that draws a rotating GL triangle
5. Show how to make a .pnd file from this
6. Show how the debugging work, e.g. do we fire up GDB? Is there an IDE debugger that works, etc.

So I guess the first question is, does anyone currently have the knowledge to do the above? If so has the process already been detailed somewhere? If not, when is the above likely to be done? I am a windows developer, I have written games for iPhone/Android and would like to port to Pandora, and find it hard to believe I am the only person in this situation! Last time I remember reading about this, the answer was that it was still early days, and as the release gets closer more information will start appearing, so I am simply enquiring if anymore information is now available - as soon as the information becomes available I'll start porting my iPhone/Android projects to Pandora - this is why I am keen to find out what the latest information is!

Many thanks for your helpful responses,

Steve

Great statement Steve about peeps pointing out out that this topic has been brought up before. Don't people realize that are constantly new people joining in the Pandora fan base and that most people do not have the time to comb thru every posting??? Thanks for making the point. Also, we get yelled at for starting new topics!!?? Who cares, right?? I enjoy reading the new topics and new posts. We need more topics as this waiting period is getting boring as hell!

 

[Exophase]

One option for Windows will be CodeSourcery. I've set it up before and developed stuff on a Pandora board while I had it. It does work; I've used it on both Windows and Linux before. I don't think you'll need Cygwin, but you'll probably want a shell, possibly the one provided by msys.

I don't remember where I got the Pandora specific libraries (ie, SDL), though. Just that they were there, somewhere. So I know I wasn't the only person doing this.

 

[Rockthesmurf]

For myself, I just keep a vmware image on a usb key and cart it around

I had never thought of doing this, it seems like quite a neat idea, as it would mean potentially there could be an image made available that had a pre-setup Pandora installation on it, ready to dev with, which would make it easier for developers to get something up and running, and also it means, as you say, I could then take the image around with me and use it on different hardware/OS's etc. I guess the only downside is the performance of the VM will be ... limited, but you often don't need too much in the way of performance when text editting!

I have never look at this CodeSourcery stuff, but it sounds potentially like there is a reasonable Windows setup to be had from that, so that gives me two potential options - I guess when I have a chance I could have a nose around and see what I can find. What is the deal with debugging this stuff? Do people generally use an emulator/simulator/real hardware?

Steve

 

[benjymous]

Personally, I've just been using VC++ Express on Windows to do 99% of my development (using sdl & open gl) - then I have an ubuntu VM set up which I use to make sure I'm not doing Windows specific stuff - since virtualbox supports 3d acceleration, it even runs the opengl stuff at a decent speed.

Finally I have the linux arm toolchain stuff set up in the same vm, from which I do the odd arm / GLES compile to check that everything builds ok (though I'm yet to try running those builds!)

 

[Game_over]

VC++ studio.
Code::Blocks

I do my prototyping in unity (which is free now, you just have to by a license if you wish to port code for: iphone, xbox360, wii)

 

[PokeParadox]

Everyone knows I like me some Code::Blocks...
using Cpasjuste's script it's easy to setup the Pandora compiler in linux at least... Again you could use virtualisation like Vbox/VMware...
But I agree some help getting a windows environment to compile Pandora bins would be useful.

 

[GlassDeviant]

What? You don't develop and build right on the device? :lol:

 

[scyzor]

Good topic. By myself I have no idea where to start coding for Pandora. Even I haven't thant kind of problem on PC (Win/Linux), Mac (OS8/9) and Amiga because of tons of references, docs and tutorials.

What about Code::Blocks and VC++? Is it only environment to do some code and then do a test run on Windowze? After that I need to copy all code to Pandora and compile this same code again for ARM? Is there anything like devkitPRO? I think it will be enough questions for tonight

 

[scyzor]

bump

Where to start?

 

[Adventus]

bump

Where to start?

Download CodeSourcery Lite Compiler for ARM. For headers/shared libs you'll probably be able to just copy them off the actual Pandora OS when it ships (thats what i did with my devboard anyway ). Otherwise, just pretend your working in X86 Linux.

I still do all my development with Windows + Code::blocks, you just need to know your way around a Makefile.

Offtopic: Ohhh New CodeSourcery compiler.