January 11th, 2010
The Ben NanoNote is a handheld device with hardware similar to the Dingoo A320. It runs Linux as its operating system (OpenWRT). Instead of gaming controls it has a qwerty keyboard. Probably the most interesting aspect about this device is its open hardware design.
Here is a photo of a Ben NanoNote running the Gmu music player. The Gmu port for the Ben NanoNote is not finished yet, so there is no public release yet.
I do not currently own a Ben NanoNote myself. That is why the photo has been taken by zear of the Dingoo community, who has been helping with testing Gmu on the device.
Posted in Ben NanoNote, Gmu | No Comments »
December 31st, 2009
Here is another Gmu release for the GP2X (Open2X), the GP2X Wiz and the Dingoo A320 (Dingux). It is the last Gmu release for this year. 
It comes with some new features and bugfixes.
The new features include:
- A shutdown timer: Gmu can be configured such that it shuts itself down after a number of minutes or after the last track has been played. Gmu can also execute a command to shut down the entire device, so you can use this feature as a “sleep timer”. This obviously won’t work on the GP2X-F100/F200 because of the device’s mechanical power switch.
- A log bot: Gmu is now able to keep track of the played tracks by writing them to a text file. This can be used for various purposes. It might be useful for feeding those data into the last.fm system for example.
- Faster seeking: When seeking through a song Gmu now increases the seeking speed
- An increased number of playlist slots: Gmu can now handle up to 32 playlists (instead of 8).
Besides those new features there are some bugfixes, e.g. the auto-play feature has been fixed. That was previously broken in the 0.7.0 series of Gmu.
Gmu for the GP2X and the GP2X Wiz:
gmu-0.7.0_BETA7-GP2X.zip (850 kB)
Gmu for the Dingoo A320:
gmu-0.7.0_BETA7-DINGOO.zip (780 kB)
Please have a look at the README.txt file that comes with Gmu. There are lots of useful information and configuration hints.
Posted in Dingoo A320, Dingux, GP2X, GP2X Wiz, Gmu | 4 Comments »
November 30th, 2009
Here is an updated keymap file for the Dingux version of Gmu, with only a minor, but useful change. Almost all usable button combinations have already been used, except the SELECT + DOWN combination. I’ve mapped the page down action there, so you can navigate faster in large playlists and directories.
dingoo-keymap.zip (739 bytes)
To use that file just extract the zip file and replace the .keymap file in your Gmu folder.
Posted in Dingoo A320, Dingux, Gmu | No Comments »
September 24th, 2009
Finally, the results of the Craptastic Coding Competition 2009 have been published. Although my entry didn’t make it in the top three, you still might want to try it. It is a Dingoo release (Dingux) called
Alice in Crapland.
As you can already see on the screenshot it is a jump’n'run game.
You can download the game right here:
crapland-game.zip (3.7 MB, Dingux)
Maybe eventually I will release a GP2X version of this game too. Also, I consider improving this game further (adding more levels, a menu and a few enhancement here and there) as suggested by Nova. Ten days isn’t that much time for developing a game anyway. But as you can see, it is a crappy great game already, so go and grab your copy right now! 
Posted in Dingoo A320, Dingux, Games | No Comments »
September 15th, 2009
Here is another Gmu release for all supported systems. It is mostly a bugfix release.
The most important bugs that have been fixed with this release are the backlight-power-off issue and the volume issue, both only occuring on the Wiz. There are a few other changes which are applicable for all systems, though.
Grab the new Gmu release for your device here:
gmu-0.7.0_BETA6-GP2X.zip (0.8 MB)
gmu-0.7.0_BETA6-DINGOO.zip (0.8 MB)
Please note, that you will need the Open2X firmware to run this release on your GP2X. On the Wiz it runs with the default firmware. On the Dingoo you’ll need the latest Dingux firmware release.
Posted in Dingoo A320, Dingux, GP2X, GP2X Wiz, Gmu | 25 Comments »
August 18th, 2009
Here is a new Gmu release. It is available for the Dingoo A320 running Dingux, the GP2X running Open2X and the GP2X Wiz.
This release comes with several new* features:
- Module decoder plugin (using MikMod) for playing tracker modules (such as MOD, STM, S3M, IT, XM, …)
- Improved MP3 playback performance on GP2X and Wiz (MP3 @ 85 MHz on the GP2X) due to improved ARM assembly in mpg123
- Hardware and software volume control which should allow better volume control on the Wiz and might reduce background noise
- Lyrics support (text files and lyrics from ID3v2 tags are supported)
- Cover artwork support
- Display-off feature on the Wiz
- Various bugfixes
* At least they are new for the 0.7.0 branch. Some might have been available in the old 0.6.X branch already.
Grab your copy of the latest Gmu release here:
gmu-0.7.0_BETA5-GP2X.zip (GP2X and Wiz release, 820 kB)
gmu-0.7.0_BETA5-DINGOO.zip (Dingoo release, 750 kB)
Posted in Dingoo A320, Dingux, GP2X, GP2X Wiz, Gmu | 8 Comments »
July 27th, 2009
I’ve added a display brightness control menu to dmenu on my Dingoo, which makes it possible to easily adjust the display backlight brightness. The brightness setting will be saved to disk and automatically loaded on boot.
Here is what I’ve done to accomplish this.
First I have created two shell scripts. One for saving the new brightness setting (brightness.save) and another for actually adjusting the brightness (brightness.set). Both files need to be in the local/sbin directory.
brightness.save (56 bytes)
brightness.set (138 bytes)
Then I have added a new submenu to my dmenu.cfg with menu entries for various brightness settings (10 %, 25 %, 33 %, 50 %, 66 %, 75 %, 100 %). I have used a light bulb image as the menu icon. It needs to be in the res directory inside the dmenu folder.
Menu Brightness
{
Icon = "res/brightness.png"
Name = "Display Brightness"
MenuItem Brightness100
{
Icon = "res/brightness.png"
Name = "100 %"
Executable = "./brightness.save 100"
WorkDir = "/usr/local/sbin"
}
MenuItem Brightness75
{
Icon = "res/brightness.png"
Name = "75 %"
Executable = "./brightness.save 75"
WorkDir = "/usr/local/sbin"
}
MenuItem Brightness66
{
Icon = "res/brightness.png"
Name = "66 %"
Executable = "./brightness.save 66"
WorkDir = "/usr/local/sbin"
}
MenuItem Brightness50
{
Icon = "res/brightness.png"
Name = "50 %"
Executable = "./brightness.save 50"
WorkDir = "/usr/local/sbin"
}
MenuItem Brightness33
{
Icon = "res/brightness.png"
Name = "33 %"
Executable = "./brightness.save 33"
WorkDir = "/usr/local/sbin"
}
MenuItem Brightness25
{
Icon = "res/brightness.png"
Name = "25 %"
Executable = "./brightness.save 25"
WorkDir = "/usr/local/sbin"
}
MenuItem Brightness10
{
Icon = "res/brightness.png"
Name = "10 %"
Executable = "./brightness.save 10"
WorkDir = "/usr/local/sbin"
}
}
Finally, I’ve inserted an additional line into the local/sbin/main script to load the brightness setting on boot.
/usr/local/sbin/brightness.set
This line needs to be inserted before running dmenu.
That’s it.
UPDATE: As you can read in the comments below, there was a bug in the scripts, which caused the screen to turn all black when using it for the first time. I’ve modified and updated the brightness.set script such, that it sets the brightness only when there has been a value stored before.
Posted in Dingoo A320, Dingux | 7 Comments »
July 22nd, 2009
A new Dingux version has been released, which comes with a new rootfs. An EXT3 partition on the SD card is no longer needed. Actually EXT3 support has been dropped from the Dingux kernel in favor of FAT to make installing Dingux from Windows easier and reduce the kernel size. Due to other changes dynamically linked programs need to be recompiled for this Dingux version.
Here is a new Gmu release which is compatible with the latest Dingux release.
To run Gmu extract the zip file to your SD card and execute gmu.goo in the Gmu directory.
gmu-0.7.0_BETA4-DINGOO-newdingux.zip (0.8 MB)
Posted in Dingoo A320, Gmu | 7 Comments »
July 19th, 2009
Here is another Gmu release of the upcoming Gmu 0.7.0! This time it is a version for the GP2X Wiz. It also runs on the GP2X F100/F200 with the Open2X firmware installed. Beware that this is a very experimental release. Unfortunately I currently do not own a Wiz myself, so I was not able to test it on the Wiz.
gmu-0.7.0_BETA4-GP2X.zip (0.6 MB)
On the Wiz use gmu-wiz.gpu to run Gmu. On the GP2X use gmu-gp2x.gpu instead.
Posted in GP2X, GP2X Wiz, Gmu | 6 Comments »
July 18th, 2009
Here is another Gmu release for the Dingoo. Most notably it fixes an annoying bug where the backlight would not turn back on after a while when the hold mode had been enabled.
gmu-0.7.0_BETA4-DINGOO.zip (0.9 MB)
You need Dingux with a uclibc-based rootfs to run Gmu.
Posted in Dingoo A320, Gmu | No Comments »
