Void

After eight beta releases it is finally here: The Gmu Music Player version 0.7.0. This Gmu release comes with full source (GPLv2 licensed) and is available for the GP2X (with Open2X firmware), the GP2X Wiz, the Dingoo A320 (with Dingux) and the Ben NanoNote.
Please note that due to the new theme engine old Gmu skins are no longer compatible with this release. Creating new themes is rather simple though. For those who are interested in creating Themes for Gmu, just have a look at the supplied default theme for now. If I find some time, I’ll write a little theme creation tutorial later on.
Compared to the last beta release there are only a few minor changes and bug fixes. Most of these changes are relevant for porting Gmu to new devices and are less visible to the end user. Still, it is worth upgrading Gmu even if you have been using the last beta release, as some bugs have been fixed.

Attention Ben NanoNote users: In the current firmware (2010-03-26) libSDL is broken, which prevents Gmu from working with that version. To use Gmu you need to replace it with a working version. For your convenience I’ve added a suitable version to the downloads (see below). You need to replace the file in /usr/lib with this versionn (or another working version). This libSDL version is compiled with fbcon support instead of directfb (which seems to be broken).

gmu-0.7.0-DINGOO.zip (Dingux version, 660 KB)
gmu-0.7.0-GP2X.zip (GP2X & Wiz version, 720 KB)
gmu_0.7.0-1_xburst.ipk (Ben NanoNote opkg package, 145 KB)
libSDL-1.2.so.0 (Replacement libSDL for the broken libSDL in the 2010-03-26 Ben NanoNote firmware, 950 KB)

gmu-0.7.0.tar.gz (GPL’ed source, 170 KB)
gmu-openwrt-package-config.tar.gz (OpenWRT package configuration, 2 KB)

Gmu has been around for quite some time now and previous versions of Gmu always have been released as Freeware. Today I release another version of Gmu. It is another beta release of the 0.7.0 series and hopefully the last beta release until the final 0.7.0 release.
Over the past few years, people have frequently asked me if I would release the source code of the Gmu music player, but until today I didn’t. Although I had planned to release Gmu as open source software, I always wanted to make Gmu somewhat feature-complete, first. Now Gmu is very close to such a state. Of course there will always be features worth adding and bugs that need to be fixed, but (in my opinion) it is in a very usable state.
Actually, I had planned to release Version 0.7.0 as Gmu’s first open source release. The reason for doing it earlier with this 0.7.0_BETA8 version, are the guys at sharism.cc who develop open source hardware like the Ben NanoNote which I have mentioned a few posts earlier. They would like to ship those NanoNote devices with Gmu as the device’s music player.

What’s new in this release? Actually not that much considering new features, but there still has been a notable change. I’ve improved Gmu’s theme engine such that it will be possible to use Gmu on devices with screen resolutions other than the good old 320×240 resolution used on the GP2X, Wiz and Dingoo. This is not of much use for those devices but allows for easier porting of Gmu to other devices. Unfortunately, this change also means that you cannot use your old Gmu skins, but it is rather simple to create your own new themes with the new theme engine. Just have a look at the new “default-modern” theme, which comes with this Gmu release.

So here it is. The Gmu Open Source Edition released under the GPLv2 (GNU General Public License version 2). Also, for your convenience, there are binary builds for the GP2X, GP2X Wiz and the Dingoo A320.

gmu-0.7.0_BETA8B-GP2X.zip (GP2X and Wiz release, 707 KB)

gmu-0.7.0_BETA8B-DINGOO.zip (Dingux release, 671 KB)

gmu-0.7.0_BETA8B.tar.gz (GPL’d source code, 163 KB)

When trying to build Gmu please have a look at the BUILD.txt file first. There are important information on how to build Gmu binaries for different targets.
Also, new users should have a look at the README.txt file that comes with every Gmu release.

Update: Right after the release a minor bug has been discovered, which I have already fixed. So here is an updated BETA8B release.