Installing RGBDS
Most people will want to use a stable release (the more recent the better).
Below is a list of Operative Systems for which pre-built executables are available. If none of these options fits your needs, you can build from source.
Linux
Generic Linux x86_64 ready binaries are available in our Releases page.
Arch
RGBDS is available in the official Arch Linux repositories as extra/rgbds
; you can also get the latest master via the rgbds-git
AUR package.
pacman -S rgbds
macOS
RGBDS is available on Homebrew as the rgbds
package.
brew install rgbds
You can also install the master
branch by passing the --HEAD
flag:
brew install rgbds --HEAD
Windows
The install instructions change a bit depending on the environment you wish to use RGBDS with.
- WSL / Linux-like environments
- Cygwin / MSYS2
- None of those
For these, please refer to the Linux instructions for the installed Linux distribution (the default Linux distribution on WSL is Ubuntu, whose package manager is apt
).
-
First, pick the version you want to install. If you want to use
master
instead of a release, go here. -
Follow the "release page" link below "GitHub links", and grab either of the
win32
(for 32-bit Windows) orwin64
(for 64-bit Windows).zip
files, near the bottom of the page. -
Unzip that file, you should get the
.exe
files alongside a couple of.dll
s. -
Copy all of those
.exe
and.dll
files to the/usr/local/bin
directory of Cygwin/MSYS2's installation. (You can get its equivalent Windows path by runningcygpath -w /usr/local/bin
.)Do not put them in a subdirectory (e.g.
/usr/local/bin/rgbds
)! This would not work.
After that, you should be able to use RGBDS from within the Cygwin/MSYS2 terminal, which you can confirm by running rgbasm -V
.
If this doesn't work, check that /usr/local/bin
is within the PATH there (echo $PATH
); if it isn't, you must add it (e.g. run echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"' >>~/.bashrc
, and open a new Cygwin terminal).
Note: if you can choose between using Cygwin or MSYS2, be advised that Cygwin is slower and has been reported to cause a bit of trouble to some.
- First, pick the version you want to install. If you want to use
master
instead of a release, go here. - Follow the "release page" link below "GitHub links", and grab either of the
win32
(for 32-bit Windows) orwin64
(for 64-bit Windows).zip
files, near the bottom of the page. - Unzip that file, you should get the
.exe
files alongside a couple of.dll
s. - Either:
-
...put all of the files in a directory, then add it to the
PATH
. This will permanently allow you to use RGBDS from anywhere.- Graphically
- cmd.exe
- PowerShell
- Open Control Panel
- Click "User Accounts"
- Click "User Accounts" again
- Click "Change my environment variables"
- Select the "Path" line in the top panel
- Click "Edit..."
- Click "Browse...", select the folder the files are in, and click OK
- Make sure that the new entry (which should be highlighted) is at the bottom of the list; if not, click on "Move Down" until it is
- Click "OK"
- Click "OK"
Run the following, replacing
<rgbds_path>
with the path to the directory that containsrgbasm.exe
,rgblink.exe
, etc.setx PATH "%PATH%<rgbds_path>;"
...then open a new window for the changes to take effect.
If you only want to modify the PATH temporarily, instead of the permanent
setx
command, you can use the temporaryset
.Run the following, replacing
<rgbds_path>
with the path to the directory that containsrgbasm.exe
,rgblink.exe
, etc.setx PATH ${Env:PATH}<rgbds_path>;
...then open a new window for the changes to take effect.
If you only want to modify the PATH temporarily, instead of the permanent
setx
command, you can use the temporaryset
. -
...or put all of the files in your project's directory.
-
...or put all of the files in a directory already in the
PATH
.
-
- Profit! RGBDS can now be used from your favorite command line (
cmd.exe
or PowerShell, most likely). You can test it by runningrgbasm --version
.
Other
Docker
We distribute an official container image for RGBDS. It contains the built executables and the build dependencies in case you want to compile from source.
docker pull ghcr.io/gbdev/rgbds:latest
Installing a development version
If you are willing to help us test new features, consider using a development version.
Managing multiple versions
If you need to frequently switch between different versions of RGBDS, consider using rgbenv, the RGBDS version manager.