What About Open2x?

[Yod4z]

For music, text reader and image viewer, we're still undecided as far as I know, but there are good replacements for all of these out there now. As I said before, you'll have to use the compatibility layer for playing movies for a while, until somebody fixes up a version.

pv2x would be a great remplacement for the image viewer and Greader have a great list of futur spec and for, music player GMU or craigamp are so great but i think to enhanced for common use

 

[Yono]

• Refactoring and cleanup work on the GPH mplayer code.

What more can I say on that, the code as it stands is a bit of a rats nest and I have been working to clean it up and make sure it compiles with the Open2x kernel toolchain. I have also been hacking about with extra codec support (WMV and some containers) but none of that has gone very far. I also want to move it over to something easier to manage config files with from a code perspective then the current INI file approach.

• 
  Something that would be a great advantage for Open2x would be if you improved and integrated Ell's WMVPlayer source code to allow for wma, wmv and asf playback.

 

[efegea]

pv2x would be a great remplacement for the image viewer and Greader have a great list of futur spec and for, music player GMU or craigamp are so great but i think to enhanced for common use

For image viewer, GP2XMB already comes with a integrated image viewer


I'm really impressed with the list of features and I'm really, really interested in this project. Ugly GPH's firmware, go away!

I've done and translated a small summary of the features and posted it on gp32spain.com, it has been posted on the news zone in the front page

 

[kevcal]

This done sound very very interesting - will watch developments (sic) with interest

 

[tomj]

This sounds great I stumbled across Open2x when i first got my gp2x but I had assumed it was vapourware. It sounds fantastic. I get the impression that the gph firmware has been cobbled together and uses bad coding practice so glad that there is an alternative

 

[DaveC]

This is great news...

But I have to agree that using GMenu2X would have been a better choice...

Hope something comes out soon... As I see it, 2007 will be the year of the GP2x

I have to agree about Gmenu2X too. GP2XMB sucks. especially since it does't allow putting things into catagories. So that means all of your games, apps, emus will all be thrown all mixed up into a huge long column of icons that you can only see 5 of at once and you have to scroll one by one for 10 minutes to get to what you need. What a mess. That is ridiculous. It may be ok if you only have 10 things on the card but other than that XMB is a horrible interface. I don't see why everyone loves and has has to copy Sony so much :rolleyes: I would really hope the option get rid of the stupid Sony interface (besides being a horrible interface, I don't want my GP2X menu to look like a PSP ) and automatically boot into Gmenu2X is a definite option that will be included for sure.

Other than the XMB "interface" the rest sounds very good.

It doesn't let you sort things into nice categories, but most people could cope without that anyway. They are both very good.

How do you know that most of us can do without having our stuff better organised into catagories? I for one think it will be a big mess without any catagorization. Having things more organised helped alot in getting to what we want quicker.

 

[Alex.]

I have to agree about Gmenu2X too. GP2XMB sucks.

Orkie said that autorun scripts like the one that currently launches Gmenu2X will be available and load even quicker than they do now with the GPH firmware. Secondly, the simpler and friendlier the default interface is, the more users are likely to switch over to the next firmware. That means getting more users aboard the new firmware, which is a crucial thing.

The more Open2x firmware users, the more developers will make use of its specific features, like dynamic linking to the newer libs, and distributing apps in packages. Adding Gmenu2X yourself should be a trivial task, so no reason to bitch nor put down other people's work.

 

[DaveC]

I have to agree about Gmenu2X too. GP2XMB sucks.

Orkie said that autorun scripts like the one that currently launches Gmenu2X will be available and load even quicker than they do now with the GPH firmware. Secondly, the simpler and friendlier the default interface is, the more users are likely to switch over to the next firmware. That means getting more users aboard the new firmware, which is a crucial thing.

The more Open2x firmware users, the more developers will make use of its specific features, like dynamic linking to the newer libs, and distributing apps in packages. Adding Gmenu2X yourself should be a trivial task, so no reason to bitch nor put down other people's work.

The work on the rest of it is great. It is Sony's part that I don't like. It just seems very odd to boot up into a PSP interface on the GP2X

It would also be nice to be able to use the NAND for things that we want to use it for. Not everone uses text readers, servers, PDFs, or picture viewers. Some of us just use it for games and it would be nice to be able to delete unwanted apps and put the stuff we want to use there, such as the menu of choice. I would hope it would be a bit more flexible that way.

 

[Blah]

As for a bit of user NAND space, I don't know how much space we'll have left over at the end yet, so I can't comment on it yet. I'd rather not have any if possible because it's a bit messy.

So do you think it is easily possible to create a ramdrive (virtual drive located in RAM) to enable file transfert between different cards? It would be a cool bonus and why not load small programs in it, so that they could run faster? like 32mb ramdrive + 32mo ram
Would it be useful? I mean, programs load stuff they use a lot in memory when they load... So can we expect some performance gain in loading the WHOLE program into a ramdisk?
Of course it's not a top-priority task, but it could be useful :rolleyes:

Yes it is possible to mount a ramdisk right now with command-line tools. It wouldn't be too hard to make a usable wizard ramdisk configurator thingy. :huh: :lol:

 

[jbrodack]

i havent tried the new gmenu2x beta but the one i have doesnt work with tv out. i know ryo said that it was because of a problem with the gp2x firmware. would we be more easily able to use custom menus like gmenu with tv out with open2x?

 

[reiboul]

Am I the only one to like GP2XMB? I think it looks nice (animated backgrounds and icons) and is very simple to use. A good mix between the original systeme (look for apps in the file system) and a shortcut-based GUI.
I personally don't use THAT much applications! Why would anybody have links for every apps in the shortcut menu? If I could have only 5 shortcuts that would still be OK (gpsp, picodrive, pocketsnes and some homebrew/ported games)

As it has been said, a good-looking GUI is always more attractive than a powerfull, less atracting one, and it will be possible to install gMenu easily, so I agree with open2x's developper about Open2x

 

[pcklee123]

Will the xserver be compatible with TVout? The current one only works at 320x240, Is it possible to use kdrive-sdl instead of kdrive-fbdev?

 

[Tobriand]

I've not tried GPXMB, so not sure how it compares to Gmenu2x, but hey, if I can keep autorunning Gmenu2x, I'm fine with whatever. Sounds like there's some brilliant work going on - can't wait for the release. Well, I can... I'l just play more pokemon emerald *before* it comes out lol

 

[___]

this sounds really promising. I think this will be another awesome boost for the scene. Also, I can't understand why everyone is whining about gp2xmb... it might not be the most functional but seeing that orkie proposed to give the users a choice between gp2xmb and gmenu2x in the end, I think it would be good for newbies to have gp2xmb as default.

I just wondered about the package-manager. What exactly is that needed for? We do not have loads and loads of libraries to install by ourselves, we do not need something to set up configs and all that for us and we do not require an excessive amount of data to be managed as we are using precompiled, pre-set-up apps anyways... is it meant to manage firmware data? Like, installing updates for the *future* media player that will be integrated in the firmware?

I think it would be quite annoying not being able to choose the paths for our binaries anymore.

 

[Orkie]

I just wondered about the package-manager. What exactly is that needed for? We do not have loads and loads of libraries to install by ourselves, we do not need something to set up configs and all that for us and we do not require an excessive amount of data to be managed as we are using precompiled, pre-set-up apps anyways... is it meant to manage firmware data? Like, installing updates for the *future* media player that will be integrated in the firmware?

I think it would be quite annoying not being able to choose the paths for our binaries anymore.

As I said it is totally optional, so you'll still be able to have things however you like. It will mainly be there for things like SuperTux where there are hundreds of tiny files which take ages to copy over and take up more space than is needed. When I say it'll be back in a new form, the new form will be cramfs images which the games are run directly from, providing compression as well as neatness. You won't even have to store these in specific places if you don't want, though it would be neater to keep some kind of order

About the RAM disk idea, I guess it's possible but I don't really see the advantage myself so I'll experiment with it if I find the time after everything else is done.

DaveC: You're a bit out of date with regards to GP2XMB. It doesn't just throw everything into a long list anymore, it's more like the original firmware's folder navigation. Can I add an option to just clear the NAND? Basically no, the structure doesn't lend itself to picking and choosing what you have on there and I can't support everybody's strange custom configurations, though of course if you want to write a script to change that afterwards, that's fine by me. Anyway, I thought using the NAND was a terrible crime?

 

[PokeParadox]

Orkie already said he'd put together a GMenu2X package for those with gripes over using GP2XMB... I was really grumbling before since I would have had to put GMenu on EVERY SD card to use it with the lack of NAND space, but with Orkie's compromise I don't see a problem. Additionally I will give GP2XMB a fair try when the Open2X firmware is released I anticipate I won't prefer it, but we'll see

 

[efegea]

What about a Mac OS-like package manager? Just link together the zip mounting thing and a package manager and voila...you just put the package, a .zip renamed, on the SD, and the menu (GP2XMB) mounts it and executes the binary. This way we don't have to have a lot of files on our SDs, only the packages and the roms.

Well that's not exactly a package manager...but who matters

 

[DaveC]

Am I the only one to like GP2XMB? I think it looks nice (animated backgrounds and icons) and is very simple to use. A good mix between the original systeme (look for apps in the file system) and a shortcut-based GUI.
I personally don't use THAT much applications! Why would anybody have links for every apps in the shortcut menu? If I could have only 5 shortcuts that would still be OK (gpsp, picodrive, pocketsnes and some homebrew/ported games)

As it has been said, a good-looking GUI is always more attractive than a powerfull, less atracting one, and it will be possible to install gMenu easily, so I agree with open2x's developper about Open2x

Well you said it, you don't use many apps. I , and many others, *do* have alot of apps (I already have two full pages of emus, just emus, that is not including homebrew and PC ports) and having to scroll through icons one by one is quite annoying. With 8 gig cards working the XMB will get overwhelmed quick. Plus it is a clone of the PSP. Why does everything have to copy Sony these days :rolleyes: XMB may be "pretty" but I don't sit there admiring the interface, I just use it to get to the app as fast as possible.

DaveC: You're a bit out of date with regards to GP2XMB. It doesn't just throw everything into a long list anymore, it's more like the original firmware's folder navigation. Can I add an option to just clear the NAND? Basically no, the structure doesn't lend itself to picking and choosing what you have on there and I can't support everybody's strange custom configurations, though of course if you want to write a script to change that afterwards, that's fine by me. Anyway, I thought using the NAND was a terrible crime?

Well I hated the original firmware's navigation That is why I don't use it. It took forever to get to what I wanted. Browsing through a directory tree everytime I wanted to load something was quite annoying, cumbersome and time consuming. I don't understand this form over function mindset. OOoo it is pretty, not very functional but it sure is purty like a PSP With Gmenu2X I just turn it on and all of the apps are like 4 or 5 pad taps away.

Writing to the NAND was only a "crime" if it did it automatically and constantly. That has nothing to do with loading something on there once in awhile and forgetting it.

 

[Orkie]

Well you said it, you don't use many apps. I , and many others, *do* have alot of apps (I already have two full pages of emus, just emus, that is not including homebrew and PC ports) and having to scroll through icons one by one is quite annoying. Plus it is a clone of the PSP. Why does everything have to copy Sony these days :rolleyes: XMB may be "pretty" but I don't sit there admiring the interface, I just use it to get to the app as fast as possible.

DaveC: You're a bit out of date with regards to GP2XMB. It doesn't just throw everything into a long list anymore, it's more like the original firmware's folder navigation.

Look, please stop whining. You aren't going to get your own way by keep repeating yourself. I have made the decision to use GP2XMB and for now, it stands. You will be able to use GMenu2x too - where is the problem?

 

[pcklee123]

Something that would be a great advantage for Open2x would be if you improved and integrated Ell's WMVPlayer source code to allow for wma, wmv and asf playback.

I tried mplayer from debian on the gp2x (chroot to debian) and it works for WMV files as well(just very slow)