Amadeus reported to the world a few days ago that the "long journey has come to its end" and that "we have a running Linux for all supercards." Amadeus said that some bugs are to be expected, but basically, "the work is done."

We're in awe of what Amadeus and the DSLinux scene has accomplished. And in so short a time!

We've reported earlier that Amadeus from DSLinux has added a SuperCard SD driver because he wanted to demonstrate 8bit writing to GBA space with the SuperCard. This was around the first week of July. In the middle of July, the project went on to fixing bugs with the driver. And on the 6th of August, he released this statement: "Big news: the whole DSLinux (supercard SD) compiles without 8bit writes. Now I am changing the kernel to avoid 8bit writes in the assembler functions."

So far we've been happy with the functionality of the Supercard SD (it's what we use when we play our homebrew games). With the completion of this Linux project, maybe we'll be seeing a growing interest for the creation of Linux devices and applications for the Supercard SD or miniSD. Just hoping here, folks.

SuperCard is a GameBoy Advance/Nintendo DS adapter that allows you to play backup games, run homebrew applications, watch movies, play music, view pictures and display text. It looks like your regular GBA cartridge with a slot for either a CF or SD card.

Now Amadeus, from DSLinux, has added a SuperCard SD driver, because he wants to demonstrate 8bit writing to GBA space with the SuperCard. According to fellow DSLinux member, PepsiMan, it is not known if this will work with the Supercard Mini-SD.

Download: [DSLinux-SuperCard SD]

Lino has released v1.0.0.7 of his Nintendo DS emulator for the PC, IdeaS. This latest version has added improvements like the touchscreen (now DSLINUX keyboard works) and the management of the plugins. Lino has also Added the plugins for the recording the avi.

Download: [IdeaS v1.0.0.7]

"The cvs repository has been moved from sourceforge to a small independent ISP in Berlin," writes stsp. Because of this, cryptographic software can now be included in DSLinux without restriction.

Hence, the first program to use cryptography - Dropbear SSH suite - has been committed into the CVS. Dropbear is a smallish SSH 2 server and client that includes a key converting tool for compatibility with openssh keys. However, the server is run from inetd and for it to be usable stsp reveals that they still need to make /etc/inetd/conf writable. Expect the Dropbear SSH suite to show up in the coming builds.

Developer PepsiMan has ported George Gesslein's famous program Mathomatic to DSLinux.

Mathomatic is a general purpose Computer Algebra System (CAS) that is portable and written in C. It can help with most math problems that you'll encounter. This is also a free software and will run on any operating system with a C compiler.

Pepsiman has already tested the version of Mathomatic for the DSLinux. In the tests using DSMEM and .nds, he found that he had to trim down some defaults because the program takes too much space. Check out this version of Mathomatic and see if you'll also do well with your math problems.

Download [Mathomatic for DSLinux]

 

Author Chris Double has done a new version of his Nintendo DS Emulator based upon Imran Nazar?s Code. Changes in this release include:

- IPCSYNC register has been partially implemented. It works except for interrupt support. This allows the E3 commercial download demos to boot a bit further along. Unfortunately they don't actually run yet.
- Extra logging added to CP15 functions to show where memory regions were assigned and with what protections.
- Lots of ARM9 instruction fixes which allowed DSLinux to finally boot. It fails mounting the root partition but is much further along than previous versions.
- Re-enabled some optimisations that were left disabled in 0.4.4.
- Partial implementation of extended rotation backgrounds. Those demo's using mode 5 should start to work now. No support for scaling, rotating or shearing yet though.
- Implemented scrolling for extended rotation backgrounds.
- Added SWI 0xFF for debugging purposes. Calling this SWI with R0 set to a null terminated string will print that string to the log file. Modelled after the functionality in Dualis. Note that SWI 0xFF crashes on hardware.

You can get it in our Nintendo DS Download section [here].
You can get the source in our Nintendo DS Download section [here].