how2homebrew.md

how2homebrew

Toolchain setup

• It's recommended to use vdpm to set up the toolchain: https://github.com/vitasdk/vdpm. In addition to setting up the toolchain, vdpm allows you to install dependencies such as libpng/libjpeg/vita2dlib/etc without any hassle. -- note that at the moment toolchain downloaded via vdpm will be horribly outdated, so this is no longer recommended
• Prebuilt toolchain binaries (Windows, Linux, OSX): https://github.com/vitasdk/autobuilds/releases
• Another option is to build the toolchain from source, check out https://github.com/vitasdk/buildscripts

Build process

Check out these samples for how to work with Makefiles and the build process: https://github.com/vitasdk/samples

tl;dr:

• Compile your .c/.cpp files to .o with arm-vita-eabi-gcc -c -o file.obj file.c
• Link your .o files into an .elf file, using -Wl,-q option: arm-vita-eabi-gcc -Wl,-q -o homebrew.elf file1.o file2.o file3.o
• Make a .velf file out of the .elf file: vita-elf-create homebrew.elf homebrew.velf
• Make a eboot.bin file out of the .velf file: vita-make-fself homebrew.velf eboot.bin

Making a .vpk

Homebrew installer uses a .vpk format which is just a ZIP file, start from this template: https://github.com/xyzz/Vita_Doom/releases/download/1.0/vitadoom.vpk (try installing it from the shell)

• replace eboot.bin with your eboot.bin
• you can also add template.xml and stuff like icon/background/etc that will be displayed in livearea, check out how it's done in molecular shell (launch it and go to app0)
• make sure to run pngquant on all your png images https://pngquant.org/
• to make param.sfo, use vita-mksfoex -s TITLE_ID=XXXX00001 "homebrew name" output/param.sfo

When developing homebrew instead of rebuilding the vpk and reinstalling it on every change, you can upload your new eboot.bin to ux0:app/TITLE_ID/eboot.bin over ftp

NB: all files you place to .vpk will be available as read-only inside app0:. For example, you can add vpk/something.txt and later in your app read app0:something.txt. In the same way, you can read app0:sce_sys/param.sfo and app0:eboot.bin.

Working with core dumps

When your homebrew crashes (normally, with error C2-12828-1), a core dump will be generated and saved to ux0:data. You can transfer this core dump to PC, gunzip it, and then analyze it with https://github.com/xyzz/vita-parse-core

Question/Problem?

If you're having any issues with the toolchain or your homebrew, feel free to join #vitasdk on Freenode, where the VitaSDK discussion happens. You can join this channel by using any IRC client, or via a web client: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=vitasdk