custom-install

Installs a title directly to an SD card for the Nintendo 3DS. Originally created late June 2019.

Summary

Windows standalone

1. Dump boot9.bin and movable.sed from a 3DS system.
2. Download the latest releases.
3. Extract and run ci-gui. Read

   windows-quickstart.txt

   .

With installed Python

Note for Windows users: Enabling "Add Python 3.X to PATH" is NOT required! Python is installed with the

py

1. Dump boot9.bin and movable.sed from a 3DS system.
2. Download the repo (zip link or

   git clone

   )
3. Install the packages:
   • Windows: Double-click

     windows-install-dependencies.py

   • Alternate manual method:

     py -3 -m pip install --user -r requirements-win32.txt

   • macOS/Linux:

     python3 -m pip install --user -r requirements.txt

4. Run

   custominstall.py

   with boot9.bin, movable.sed, path to the SD root, and CIA files to install (see Usage section).
5. Download and use custom-install-finalize on the 3DS system to finish the install.

Setup

Linux users must build wwylele/save3ds and place

save3ds_fuse

bin/linux

cargo build

target/debug/save3ds_fuse

bin/linux

movable.sed is required and can be provided with

-m

--movable

boot9 is needed: *

-b

--boot9

BOOT9_PATH

%APPDATA%\3ds\boot9.bin

~/Library/Application Support/3ds/boot9.bin

~/.3ds/boot9.bin

~/3ds/boot9.bin

A SeedDB is needed for newer games (2015+) that use seeds.
SeedDB is checked in order of: *

-s

--seeddb

SEEDDB_PATH

%APPDATA%\3ds\seeddb.bin

~/Library/Application Support/3ds/seeddb.bin

~/.3ds/seeddb.bin

~/3ds/seeddb.bin

custom-install-finalize

custom-install-finalize installs a ticket, plus a seed if required. This is required for the title to appear and function.

This can be built as most 3DS homebrew projects with devkitARM.

Usage

Use

-h

Examples:

py -3 custominstall.py -b boot9.bin -m movable.sed --sd E:\ file.cia file2.cia
python3 custominstall.py -b boot9.bin -m movable.sed --sd /Volumes/GM9SD file.cia file2.cia
python3 custominstall.py -b boot9.bin -m movable.sed --sd /media/GM9SD file.cia file2.cia

GUI

A GUI is provided to make the process easier.

GUI Setup

Linux users may need to install a Tk package: - Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install python3-tk

sudo pacman -S tk

Install the requirements listed in "Summary", then run

ci-gui.py

Development

Building Windows standalone

Using a 32-bit version of Python is recommended to build a version to be distributed.

A virtual environment is recommended to isolate the packages from system directories. The build script

make-standalone.bat

Install the dependencies, plus cx-Freeze. In a virtual environment, the specific Python version doesn't need to be requested.

batch
pip install cx-freeze -r requirements-win32.txt

Copy

custom-install-finalize.3dsx

Run

make-standalone.bat

dist\custom-install-standalone.zip

License/Credits

save3ds by wwylele is used to interact with the Title Database (details in

bin/README

Thanks to @nek0bit for redesigning

custominstall.py

Thanks to @LyfeOnEdge from the brewtools Discord for designing the second version of the GUI. Special thanks to CrafterPika and archbox for testing.

Thanks to @BpyH64 for researching how to generate the cmacs.