Tutorial: Compiling WiiMC from Source on Windows

I’m going to provide a personal tutorial on how to compile WiiMC. While the instructions provided on the official website do provide all the information that is needed, I found that I ran into several issues due to changes in configuration files, missing commands, hyperlinks which weren’t quite direct, and the brevity of the instructions. I wanted to try to simplify the process for those who may have ran into similar trouble as I did.

My goal is to provide as precise as possible instructions so that this post should provide a one stop shop to compile WiiMC without any further research.

Instructions:

Step 1: Download Mingw the linux “virtual environment” you will need for compiling from here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/

Download the latest version of the executable installer on the page, for me it was: “mingw-get-inst-20120426.exe”. Run the installation and select “Use pre-packaged repository catalogues”, follow the instructions until you get to the “Select Components” page. I wasn’t quite sure what compiler(s) were needed so I checked them all just to be safe (If you’re aware of what packages you don’t need then by all means skip them).

Step 2: Download extra shell commands

I find using the “wget”, “svn”, and the “7za” commands quite convenient and I will be using them in the rest of the tutorial, but if you rather manually follow the links in a browser, download, and then extract files that way – be my guest.

However, in compiling the dependencies in the “libs” folder of the latest source, I got the error “sudo: command not found”. sudo executes a command with administrative privileges in linux; however Windows works different and mingw doesn’t have the command. The link below contains not only the wget and svn commands but a “sudo” command that gets around this error. If anyone else knows another way to do so, please let me know:

http://depositfiles.com/files/glq22ptd0

mirror: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1zeka58ri31l8bb/Extra_Shell_Commands.rar

The quickest way to use these files is to extract the files and copy and merge the bin folder to:
“c:mingwbin”. However, if you want to set up environmental variables, be my guest.

Step 3: Install devkitPPC r24 and libogc 1.8.8 or higher:

If you installed mingw and the extra shell commands we can now do the rest through the command line. So start up a mingw shell by going to your installed programs folder. When the shell starts we will be in the root directory which is really the path “C:MinGWmsys1.0”. Enter the following commands:

mkdir -p /opt/devkitpro



chmod 777 /opt/devkitpro



cd /opt/devkitpro



wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/devkitPPC/devkitPPC_r26-win32.exe



7za x devkitPPC_r26-win32.exe



mkdir libogc



cd libogc



wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/libogc/libogc-1.8.11.1.tar.bz2



tar -xvjf libogc-1.8.11.1.tar.bz2



wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/libfat/libfat-ogc-1.0.11.tar.bz2



tar -xvjf libfat-ogc-1.0.11.tar.bz2



cd ..



export DEVKITPRO=/opt/devkitpro



export DEVKITPPC=$DEVKITPRO/devkitPPC

Step 4: Download and install the ported libraries (zlib, mxml, libpng, libjpeg, and FreeType):

mkdir -p portlibs/ppc



cd portlibs/ppc



wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/portlibs/ppc/zlib-1.2.5-ppc.tar.bz2



wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/portlibs/ppc/mxml-2.6-ppc.tar.bz2



wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/portlibs/ppc/libpng-1.5.4-ppc.tar.bz2



wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/portlibs/ppc/jpeg-8d-ppc.tar.bz2



wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/devkitpro/files/portlibs/ppc/freetype-2.4.2-ppc.tar.bz2



tar xvjf zlib-1.2.5-ppc.tar.bz2



tar xvjf mxml-2.6-ppc.tar.bz2



tar xvjf jpeg-8d-ppc.tar.bz2



tar xvjf freetype-2.4.2-ppc.tar.bz2



tar xvjf libpng-1.5.4-ppc.tar.bz2



tar xvjf libpng-1.5.4-ppc.tar.bz2

Step 5: Download and compile libext2fs and libntfs-wii:

svn checkout http://libext2fs-wii.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ libext2fs-wii-read-only



svn checkout http://libntfs-wii.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ libntfs-wii-read-only



cd libext2fs-wii-read-only



make



make install



cd ..



cd libntfs-wii-read-only



make



make install

Step 6: Download the WiiMC source code (trunk) from SVN:

cd /opt



svn checkout http://wiimc.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ wiimc-read-only



cd wiimc-read-only

Step 7: Compile the dependencies (fribidi, libexif, and libiconv)

NOTE: It was at this point in the original documentation that seems (at least to me) to give problems due to unstated changes. Beginning with the fact that there is NO configuration file in the libs directory of the current source code. The configuration now appears to be part of the “make” (so that configuration and compilation occurs at the same time) so the use of Msys for configuration is unnecessary.

Also, it is at this point that you will see that by just compiling with “make” WITHOUT inserting the “sudo” executable into the /bin folder you will get a compile error stating “error – sudo: command not found”. Another point of issue with the original instructions is the fact that following the compilation with “make install” in the libs directory will result in an error as the the makefile has no instructions for installing the binaries. You have to go into the individual libraries and install from there.

cd libs



make



cd fribidi



make install



cd ..



cd libexif



make install



cd ..



cd libiconv



make install



cd ..



cd ..

Step 8: Now Compile the Wiimc .dol:

make

and after a good long compilation you should finally see the “wiimc.dol” and “wiimc.elf” files in
“C:MinGWmsys1.0optwiimc-read-only”. And from there on I’m sure you all know what to do with those!

Disclaimer: I am not sure if any of the “workarounds” I have used in this tutorial may cause any unnecessary issue, I am simply communicating the steps I have used to overcome the problems I encounter in compiling the source code to a successful result.

Moreover, you should never trust binaries from an unknown source. The binaries I provided in Step 2 (except for the sudo.exe command) were taken from an installation I had of Cygwin. If you wish to install the Cygwin shell with these commands yourself, feel free for safety reasons. However, the sudo.exe command I found on this site:

http://gloriouscomputing.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/sudo-for-windows-7vista/

It was scanned with KIS 2012 with no virius detection.

Please also note that the sources used in the wget commands in this tutorial are subject to change as they are updated on sourceforge. If any of the links are broken, you merely need to follow the links to their upper directory to find out the updated names for use with the “wget” commands.

If you find any errors or mistakes in understanding in this tutorial or have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to advise me of such. Thanks!