RGBDS (Rednex Game Boy Development System) is a free assembler/linker package for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. It consists of:

• rgbasm (assembler)
• rgblink (linker)
• rgbfix (checksum/header fixer)
• rgbgfx (PNG‐to‐Game Boy graphics converter)

rgbds-linux is a fork of the original RGBDS which aims to make the programs more like other UNIX tools.

RGBDS requires libpng and pkg-config to be installed.

On Mac OS X, install them with Homebrew. On other Unixes, use the built-in package manager.

You can test if they're installed by running pkg-config --cflags libpng: if the output is a path, then you're good, and if it outputs an error then you need to install them via a package manager.

To build the programs on a UNIX or UNIX-like system, just run in your terminal:

make

Then to install the compiled programs and manual pages, run (with appropriate privileges):

make install

After installation, you can read the manuals with the man(1) command. E.g.,

man 1 rgbasm

Note: the variables described below can affect installation behavior when given on the make command line. For example, to install rgbds in your home directory instead of systemwide, run the following:

mkdir -p $HOME/{bin,man/man1,man/man7}
make install PREFIX=$HOME

PREFIX: Location where RGBDS will be installed. Defaults to /usr/local.

BINPREFIX: Location where the RGBDS programs will be installed. Defaults to ${PREFIX}/bin.

MANPREFIX: Location where the RGBDS man pages will be installed. Defaults to ${PREFIX}/man.

Q: Whether to quiet the build or not. To make the build more verbose, clear this variable. Defaults to @.

Windows builds are available here: https://github.com/bentley/rgbds/releases

Copy the .exe files to C:\Windows\ or similar.