Setting Up ExLaunch

Introduction

ExLaunch is a modding template that allows us to inject new C/C++ code into the ExeFS with minimal knowledge of ARM OpCodes. So far, building has only been tested with Linux and WSL. If you get it working on native windows feel free to update this. This guide assumes you're using Windows Subsystem for Linux. The setup is pretty straightforward, if you can use a Linux operating system you can probably work out how to get it going on your own.

Requirements

• Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL/WSL2)
• A Linux build in WSL
• I recommend Windows Terminal too (This is installed by default in Windows 11)
• devkitPro
• Python
• The Keystone-Engine Python Module
• CMake
• Either the ExLaunch Template repo or the Luminescent fork of it

Setting Up the Enviroment

1. Install/Enable WSL. It is enabled by default on newer builds of windows but if not simply run this command in Powershell as an administrator.

   wsl --install

   I also recommend using WSL2 as it has some extra features. New installs should use this by default but if you're still on WSL1 use this command to upgrade.

   wsl --set-default-version 2

   See This Microsoft Article for more info

2. Install a Linux build. I prefer Ubuntu as it has a lot of community support.

   1. You can either install it from the Microsoft Store Page or install it with a Powershell command.

      wsl --install -d Ubuntu

   2. Once Installed, Open/Run it from the start menu, the store page, or from within Terminal and set up your account.

3. Install devkitPro tools and libraries in Ubuntu.

   1. Follow the instructions on this page to install devkitPro Pacman

      wget https://apt.devkitpro.org/install-devkitpro-pacman
      chmod +x ./install-devkitpro-pacman
      sudo ./install-devkitpro-pacman

   2. Install the switch-dev and switch-portlibs package groups using devkitPro Pacman. (While all the packages in these groups are not necessary, they are handy to have anyway)

      ```bash
      sudo dkp-pacman -Sy
      sudo dkp-pacman -S switch-dev
      sudo dkp-pacman -S switch-portlibs
      ```

      Once you have installed devkitPro you will need to log out and back in to Ubuntu to get it working. or run this command to make it work immediately.

      source /etc/profile.d/devkit-env.sh

4. Install Python, either on Ubuntu or Windows. Ubuntu should have python3 installed by default but not pip. python-is-python3 is also handy to have.

   For Ubuntu:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install python-is-python3 pip

   For Windows, you can get the installer from python.org.

5. Install The Keystone-Engine Python Module.

   pip install keystone-engine

6. Install the latest version of CMake on Ubuntu. The latest version is available from the kitware APT repo.

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install -y software-properties-common lsb-release gpg wget apt-transport-https
   wget -O - https://apt.kitware.com/keys/kitware-archive-latest.asc 2>/dev/null | gpg --dearmor - | sudo tee /usr/share/keyrings/kitware-archive-keyring.gpg >/dev/null
   echo 'deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/kitware-archive-keyring.gpg] https://apt.kitware.com/ubuntu/ $(lsb_release -cs) main' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kitware.list >/dev/null
   sudo apt update
   sudo rm /usr/share/keyrings/kitware-archive-keyring.gpg
   sudo apt-get install kitware-archive-keyring
   sudo apt install cmake

7. Clone the ExLaunch repo either to Ubuntu or Windows. Ubuntu should come with git for it already. For Windows you can download it from the Git website if you don't have it already.

   // If you want to start from the ROM Base
   git clone https://github.com/Martmists-GH/BDSP_rombase.git
   
   // If you want to start from Luminescent
   git clone https://github.com/TeamLumi/Luminescent_ExLaunch.git