WiiHD: 2. Setup

2. Setup

2. WiiHD's Homebrew Setup

The following is for informational purposes only. WiiHD does not advise anyone to use or install homebrew. We are simply providing information to those who have already chosen to do so and have weighed the risks themselves.

If you want to install everything manually yourself, keep reading this page. If you want to take the easy way out and use WiiHD's pre-made zip file to get some of the best Wii Homebrew pre-configured and ready to be unzipped straight to an SD card, scroll down and go to the next page, on Installation and look for the Starter Kit.

Now's the time to break out your SD card. You need to download the Twilight Hack, the Homebrew Channel (beta 8), and some applications. Quake, is of course, highly recommended.

Now you need to unzip the twilight hack directly to your SD card. This will create a directory in the root of your SD card called "private", and the save files for various regions are in subdirectories. Don't worry about that now, the Twilight Hack is setup on your SD card, we'll tell you how to install it on the next page.

Now let's setup the Homebrew Channel. Look above for the link. Read the disclaimers and understand them. Then download the zip file, and unzip it. The only thing you need right now is the "boot.elf" file. Feel free to put wiiloaded on there, but we won't be covering it in this edition of the WiiHD homebrew guide.

Now you need to create a directory, also in the root of your SD card, called "apps". Every application you download will have a folder of it's own inside "apps".

Now download an application, like Tetris and unzip it to your "apps" folder. Some apps are already set up to work with the newest version of the homebrew channel, other aren't. Tetris is, but if you download Quake, for instance, you'll need to follow a few more steps.

The main file of any app is going to be something.elf or something.dol. It needs to be in a easy to find directory (if it's quake, name the directory Quake) in the apps directory. Inside that directory, rename that main file boot.dol or boot.elf. Now you need a meta.xml file if one hasn't already been provided. This page explains the composition of that file, just fill in the information between the various tags. Now you need an icon, any picture saved in PNG format with dimensions of 128x48 pixels will do. If the developer hasn't made one, users often upload them in various places.

So now in your game folder inside of apps, you'll have at least 3 files, boot.dol (or boot.elf), meta.xml, and icon.png. They have to be named that way.

Read the readme file in the program you're using for any additional requirements. For instance, in Quake, you have to download the shareware version of Quake if you don't already own the full version, locate the .pak file and move it to the appropriate subdirectory in your Quake directory.

Once you've got all your apps setup, you're ready to run the Twilight Hack and install the Homebrew channel. Hit the next page (video guide included) to find out how.

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