This page covers how to build PowerBlocks SDK from source on Linux and Windows.

These steps must be followed on a Linux host machine.

Building PowerBlocks has the following steps.

Download & Export Environment
Build LLVM & Clang
Build Picolibc

Download & Export Environment

Clone the source code to your workspace.

mkdir ~/Workspace
cd ~/Workspace
git clone https://github.com/rainbain/PowerBlocks.git

And export the build environment to the path.

. ./PowerBlocks/export_build.sh

Build LLVM & Clang

Clone the latest version of LLVM and set up build folder.

git clone https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git
cd llvm-project
mkdir build
cd build

Configure LLVM. You can configure it to generate binaries for Windows or Linux.

Linux

cmake -G Ninja ../llvm \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${SDK_HOME}/toolchain \
  -DLLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD="PowerPC" \
  -DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS="clang;lld" \
  -DLLVM_ENABLE_LLD=ON \
  -DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=OFF \
  -DLLVM_INCLUDE_EXAMPLES=OFF \
  -DLLVM_INCLUDE_TESTS=OFF \
  -DLLVM_INCLUDE_DOCS=OFF \
  -DCLANG_INCLUDE_TESTS=OFF \
  -DCLANG_INCLUDE_DOCS=OFF \
  -DLLVM_ENABLE_BACKTRACES=OFF

Windows

cmake -G Ninja ../llvm \
  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=${SDK_HOME}/toolchain/mingw-toolchain.cmake \
  -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${SDK_HOME}/toolchain \
  -DLLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD="PowerPC" \
  -DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS="clang;lld" \
  -DLLVM_ENABLE_LLD=ON \
  -DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=OFF \
  -DLLVM_INCLUDE_EXAMPLES=OFF \
  -DLLVM_INCLUDE_TESTS=OFF \
  -DLLVM_INCLUDE_DOCS=OFF \
  -DCLANG_INCLUDE_TESTS=OFF \
  -DCLANG_INCLUDE_DOCS=OFF \
  -DLLVM_ENABLE_BACKTRACES=OFF

Now Build & Install

ninja

ninja install-clang install-lld install-llvm-ar install-llvm-ranlib install-llvm-objcopy install-llvm-strip install-llvm-objdump install-clang-resource-headers

Windows Setup

Fix Symbolic Links

In order to run on Windows, symbolic links must be fixed.

cd ${SDK_HOME}/toolchain/

python3 fix_symlink.py

Copy DLL Files

Windows will need the MinGW runtime DLL files. The exact path may depend on your MinGW version.

cp /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/14-win32/libgcc_s_seh-1.dll ${SDK_HOME}/toolchain/bin/

cp /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-w64-mingw32/14-win32/libstdc++-6.dll ${SDK_HOME}/toolchain/bin/

Building Picolibc

Now we want to build executables for the Wii, not the SDK target host machine. So we will use the compilers we just made.

cd ~/Workspace

. ./PowerBlocks/export.sh

Clone Picolibc and setup build folder.

git clone https://github.com/picolibc/picolibc.git
cd picolibc
mkdir build
cd build

Copy the patched setjmp.S file for PowerPC 750.

cp ${SDK_HOME}/picolibc/setjmp.S ../newlib/libc/machine/powerpc/setjmp.S

Enforce using Makefiles for picolibc's build system. The build commands have been known to be too long for ninja.

export CMAKE_GENERATOR="Unix Makefiles"

Configure it:

cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=${SDK_HOME}/picolibc -DEXTRA_C_FLAGS="-I${SDK_HOME}/picolibc/"

Build and Install:

make -j$(nproc)

make install

Lastly, copy over the license file for picolibc:

cp ../COPYING.picolibc ${SDK_HOME}/picolibc/COPYING.picolibc

Conclusion

The PowerBlocks SDK that we cloned earlier should now have the compilers and c runtime installed.

It is ready to be used like the builds on the PowerBlocks Releases Page.