[LAA] Guitar-ZyX LiveOS [nds & x86] v0.4.1 released

[Douglas McClendon]

Announcing the release of  Guitar-ZyX-0.4.1 LiveOS [nds & x86]

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About
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Guitar-ZyX(tm) is a LiveDVD/USB operating system distribution, that
can immediately boot both your Nintendo(tm)-DS, and your x86/64 PC,
into a guitar pre-amp f/x processing appliance, complete with
wireless dual screen touchpad remote control.  You can even velcro
or embed the NDS in your guitar if so inclined.  In addition to
switching among 77+ different f/x presets, the NDS remote control's
touchscreen can also linearly control any two of about a hundred
independent f/x parameters in real-time.  I.e. a very cost effective
TouchScreenWhammyPad.

Guitar-ZyX-0.4.1 uses the excellent Rakarrack open source guitar-f/x
software to provide effects.  Guitar-ZyX-0.4.1 is derived from
Fedora(tm)-11 and has compatable full access to the upstream software
repositories including updates.

Guitar-ZyX is entirely free and open source software, with all source
available, for both the PC and NDS components.  All necessary
compilers and build tools are also included, allowing anyone to
modify and enhance in any way their imagination and code-fu skills
allow.

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Information
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Guitar-ZyX is currently an *alpha* release.  NO WARRANTY.  Use at
your own risk.  Interested alpha-testers are encouraged to provide
feedback on what works, and what still needs to be improved.

For information on many other features, and the best current
documentation, please review the latest release notes, available here

filteredperception.org/smiley/projects/guitarzyx/relnotes/index.html

or visit the main project page

http://filteredperception.org/smiley/projects/guitarzyx

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What's New In Guitar-ZyX-0.4.1
------------------------------

Guitar-ZyX-0.4.1 is primarily a major upstream rebasing release.
That is, now f11 based.  But there are many enhancments to
'sidestream' projects. Here are the details-

Guitar-ZyX MCP ::

Version 0.2* of the MCP now includes a main menu system.  This allows
access to the filesystem in order to launch other applications such
as DSOrganize, and dozens of ZyXdevSuite examples.  Browsing visible
SSIDs is now supported, and many more menu accessible features are
just around the corner.  There is now a command to download and
execute updated MCP code via wifi, vastly easing development.

Rakarrack-0.4.0.dmc ::

The latest prerelease CVS sources including the fruits of my new cvs
write access are included.  Josep Andreu has made many bugfixes and
improvements, including new skinnability and font scaling.  Ryan
Billing has added new DSP modules, which I'll eventually understand
enough to properly explain.  And my Global Wet/Dry is now an upstream
feature with a slider even(FX%).  And more presets from all of us.
Rolling Echo is kind of interesting, while Tricky Dick is just an
homage to a crook.

Breaking News: rakarrack-0.4.2 with midi-learn was released the same
day as Guitar-ZyX-0.4.1.  An update will be available at some point,
though compiling from source should be trivial for anyone interested.

Guitar-ZyX JaMode ::

The big sledgehammer session initiation scripts have been vastly
improved.  Now, when you select one of the JaMode commands from the
ZyX submenu of the mainmenu, they will execute much more quickly, as
well as utilizing an aesthetic splash screen with progressbar during
the transition.  There is one to launch a recording session, one to
launch a practice (non-recording) session, and one to return to the
normal desktop audio system.

desmume-0.9.5 ::

Every aspect of the MCP can now me developed and tested via
emulation, except sadly wifi/networking.  But still, that is a vast
improvement over the bugs that were interfering with input handling
in prior versions while in a 3D mode.  Sound works, virtual cflash
fatfs of the current directory sortof works, scaling the window, ....
(recording movies still seems broken though)

ZyX-LiveInstaller-0.2.2 ::

The same enhancements and bugfixes that led to its availability in
the official Blueberry release of SugarOnAStick, are now included
in Guitar-ZyX as well.  Many bugfixes, thanks to a much broader
range of testing.

VirOS and *ZyX ::

Enhancements have been made to VirOS which make it robust and
possible to build across major ancestor releases.  Also, many other
things, particularly in the traits, have been massively cleaned up,
though probably as much cleanup remains to be done.  Time will tell
if this facilitates a much more rapid rebasing against f12.  Note,
that it will still be another release or two before integration with
the relatively new upstream bootsplash is done.  This is because f12
introduces a major rewrite of the initramfs infrastructure.

qemu-0.11.1 ::

/usr/local/bin/qemu is based on upstream sources, with kqemu support
intact, which on my laptop yields a greater than 100% speedup even
with linux kernel 2.6 for both the guest and host.

Games ::

Standard gnome-games like freecell/solitaire, and chess are
available.  Frozen Bubble is also included - a much better rip off
than the one I coded partially in assembly more than a decade ago
for a CoE project.  And most importantly, PokerTH is now available
for all of your open source online texas holdem needs.

...

peace...

-dmc

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"Be Seeing You..." -6
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Fedora and Nintendo are protected trademarks, whose holders in no way
endorse or support this software.  Guitar-ZyX, G-ZyX, CloudSession,
and VirOS are also protected trademarks, and may only be used in the
redistribution of unmodified versions of free and open source
software that already includes them.
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