Features

A devcontainer with BlocksDS and melonDS for Nintendo DS homebrew development.

What's Included

• BlocksDS SDK: Complete toolchain for Nintendo DS homebrew development
• melonDS Emulator: Latest version with GDB debugging port forwarding
• Desktop Environment: Lightweight Fluxbox desktop accessible via VNC or web browser
• Development Tools: C/C++ extensions, Makefile tools

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Docker or Podman
• VS Code with Remote-Containers extension

Opening the Dev Container

1. Clone this repository
2. Open the folder in VS Code
3. When prompted, click "Reopen in Container"
4. Wait for the container to build and start

Accessing the Desktop

The container includes a graphical desktop environment accessible in two ways:

• noVNC (Web): Open the forwarded port 6080 in your browser
• VNC Client: Connect to localhost:5901

GUI applications launched from the VS Code terminal will appear on this desktop.

Usage

Building DS Projects

BlocksDS provides the standard Nintendo DS development toolchain. Create or open a BlocksDS project and build using make.

Running with melonDS

Launch the emulator from the terminal:

melonDS your-rom.nds

The window will appear on the VNC session.

Working with Git

You can take two approaches that I can think of. One is to fork this devcontainer and use that as the starting point for your project. Another option is to clone this repo privately and treat it more like a workspace: your projects get stay in their own repos and you use Git submodules to add them to your devcontainer workspace/repo.

Ports

• 5901: VNC Server
• 6080: noVNC Web Client
• 3333: melonDS GDB ARM9
• 3334: melonDS GDB ARM7