Guitar ZyX

Guitar-ZyX :: Release Notes

version: 0.5.0 "BlackBeauty" (2k10.02.24)



Table of Contents



About Guitar-ZyX


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-0.5.0 uses the excellent Rakarrack open source guitar-f/x software to provide effects. Guitar-ZyX-0.5.0 is derived from Fedora(tm)-12 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.


Disclaimer


This release of Guitar-ZyX is still a work in progress. As such the usual disclaimers apply -

"
11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
"

There is no root password. So hey- Let's be careful out there...


The Guitar-ZyX Experience


Guitar-ZyX is a LiveUSB(/DVD) personal computer operating system distribution. Guitar-ZyX consists entirely of Free and Open Source Software created by thousands if not millions of people like myself, with the many features listed below. The Essential Experience with Guitar-ZyX is this:

  • If you are not using a purchased Guitar-ZyX cartridge with pre-burned 4G microSDHC flash memory, you will need to burn a multiarch-bootable microSDHC. To do this, use the zyx-live-iso-to-disk tool included in the GuitarZyX LiveDVD (iso image's root directory, and /usr/bin when live booted). At this point in time, if that is not clear enough, please practice with Fedora and their similar livecd-iso-to-disk tool first. Or wait a release or two for me to implement a gui based alternative.

  • Now, insert the microSDHC in an AceKard2i NDS flash memory adapter cartridge. Now insert the flashcart into your NDS or NDSi. Power on the NDS and let ZyXautoboot launch the Guitar-ZyX::MasterControlProgram.

  • The MCP will initially ask for the network/ssid to connect to. For now, you must be using an unsecured wifi network/access-point. (Unless you enter 'wfc' for the ssid, in which case settings including WEP configured from another online game will be used. Though this feature has not yet been tested.) Once you hit return after virtually typing the ssid, the MCP will wait in server discovery mode.

  • Now, and I find this pretty cool, hot-remove the flashcart and microSDHC from the NDS while the MCP continues to run from memory.

  • Next, insert the microSDHC in a usb reader. Now use this Guitar-ZyX LiveUSB to boot your PC, which has an electric guitar connected to mic/line-in, and speakers connected to the audio output. At the boot menu, hit the down arrow once and enter, to select 'AutoJam' mode. Alternately, accept the default boot option, which will start you with Firefox viewing these Guitar-ZyX release notes, and the ability to select 'Guitar-ZyX (reset)JamModeNoRecord' from the Guitar-ZyX submenu of the main system menu if and when you want to subsequently get your jam on.

  • Now, without any user action, configuration, or intervention, the PC should automatically boot into a digital audio workstation. It should automatically connect to the wifi network/ssid that you entered earlier *on the NDS*! Several realtime music creation applications should automatically start, populating themselves in their own KABLUI desktops. I.e. rakarrack for guitar-f/x, hydrogen for drums (usb Rockband(tm) drumkit supported), tuxguitar for tabs and composition, and rhythmbox for prerecorded music.

  • If everything worked, the NDS/MCP can now be used to remotely control the Rakarrack realtime guitar F/X processor that is running on the PC. For lack of a better term, I call the result a 'SuperTouchWhammyPad' operating in a 'CloudSession(tm)'.

  • Finally, if you want to permanently install Guitar-ZyX to a system disk, or even an external usb hard drive, you can select 'Rebootless LiveOS Installation' from the main menu under either the Guitar-ZyX or System Tools submenus.

  • Finally, every line of computer source code that was used to produce Guitar-ZyX is included in Guitar-ZyX (the .wsource.iso). And of course the VirOS(tm) tools used to build Guitar-ZyX are included as well. This means that it is pushbutton/kid simple to easily add your own modifications, mogrifications, and mutations. From just changing the name 'Guitar-ZyX', to deploying a demo-appliance which showcases your work, assisted by the work of millions of others on any PC.


What's New In Guitar-ZyX-0.5.0


Rakarrack-0.4.2

The latest release of the excellent open source audio fx processor adds even more transmogrificating modules to your pallete. Midi-Learn is also available to help with other input devices. See the entry in the sidestream changelog section below for all the details.

F12

GZ-0.5.* represents a rebasing against the latest major release of its ancestor. Thus the new bootsplash and initramfs updates are in. So if you have KMS supported hardware, or append something like 'vga=0x317' to the kernel args, you should see a graphical early boot progress splash. The presumption is that sooner or later KMS will be supported for nearly all hardware. Likewise, with this update, pulseaudio has seemed to stabalized. That combined with my successful workarounds from GZ-0.4.1, is responsible for the removal of the extra warning in the disclaimer above.

UNetbootin

This release of Guitar-ZyX includes initial compatability with the UNetbootin LiveUSB creation tool. UNetbootin is available for Windows and Linux. Unfortunately UNetbootin does not yet completely obsolete zyx-live-iso-to-disk. Thus, the current prescription is- First, use UNetbootin on Windows or Linux to install Guitar-ZyX in 'Live' and installable form on a USB stick (e.g. 4G microSDHC). Then, boot that stick, and run zyx-live-iso-to-disk to make a complete 'Live' and installable form of Guitar-ZyX on a *second* stick. Now this second stick/microSDHC should work in The Experience as described above. Ideally a future version of UNetbootin will be fully compatable with *ZyX (or vice versa), and thus the extra second stick creation step will not be necessary.


Guitar-ZyX Features


  • Free and Open Source Software MultiArch LiveOS

    • The core of Guitar-ZyX is an entirely free and open source software based operating system. This free operating system can run on multiple architectures, even from the very same microSDHC boot media. Guitar-ZyX will run on x86, x64, and most importantly - the two arm architectures that are found inside the Nintendo(tm)-DS(-Lite/i). You can author and read office documents, listen to or author music, and use or even modify hundreds of free open source applications. Every line of source code for all of those applications is either included or available seperately for download.

    • Guitar-ZyX is distributed in the form of a LiveDVD or iso image file that can be burned to a writable DVD. This LiveDVD can boot a PC, bypassing any installed non-free operating system, and not modifying the local system disk. This mode of operation is quite slow to load applications, but can be quite useful nonetheless. Alternately the included zyx-live-iso-to-disk program can be used to create a LiveUSB form, i.e. on a usbflash stick or a flash memory card in a usb reader. In LiveUSB form, Guitar-ZyX is comparable in speed to a normally installed operating system.

    • Like Fedora which Guitar-ZyX is derived from, LiveUSB persistence is supported. Thus instead of a traditional LiveCD/DVD boot where changes made to the system are stored in ram and lost upon the next boot, changes persist across reboots, and even when using the LiveUSB to boot a different computer.

  • Guitar-ZyX::MasterControlProgram

    • The MCP is my open source software application for the Nintendo(tm)-DS(-lite) portable game system. It allows you to wirelessly remote control...

  • Rakarrack: Real-time Guitar F/X Proccessing Software

    • Rakarrack is open source software which can perform a vast array of transmogrifying effects on an audio stream, such as one that might be coming from an electric guitar plugged into the PC's mic/line-in port, before sending the transmogrified signal out through the PC's speaker/line-out port to your stereo speakers.

    • With the Guitar-ZyX::M.C.P. and an NDS-lite velcro-d to your guitar, you can even have fun with... A Touchscreen-Whammy-Pad able to expose realtime linear 2-axis control for any 2 FX parameters of your choice (by default, global volume and global F/X wet/dry).

  • Other Music Software

    • TuxGuitar for tab/sheet music simulation and composition

    • Hydrogen for drum synth, and generation with Rockband(tm) USB drums.

    • Audacity and Ardour for final multitrack post-fx-process,mixing and production editing

    • Asound for scriptable Jack recording

    • Rhythmbox to playback previously recorded sessions and your music library

  • Other Useful Free and Open Source Software

    • The standard Linux(tm) LiveOS distribution favorites like Firefox, Gnome-terminal, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Gimp, Inkskape, and many many more are there.

    • Last, and certainly least, Snake3D is my own little 3D OpenGL game written in C++.

  • Complete Software Development Environment (NDS Too!)

    • The standard Linux(tm) LiveOS distribution favorites like gcc, make and countless others are there.

    • But more interestingly, a completely preinstalled and preconfigured *and perfectly legal* Nintendo-DS software development environment is provided. If you've ever tried to fight the slew of slightly incompatible tools and versions out there, you'll definitely appreciate a LiveOS tailored as a turnkey NDS development workstation. (More documentation coming soon, look in ~kablui/dev to see how easy it is to rebuild and tweak the MCP. Yes, YOU are finally in complete control of the MCP. Because others out there believe in the user too.

  • K.A.B.L.U.I.(tm) Desktop

    • My default desktop configuration, found with the default 'kablui' user, is the result of eons of organic evolution of my own preferred *nix development environment. Mainly the control+up/down/left/right hotkeys provide an easy way to navigate virtual desktops and virtual tabs within applications. But beyond that, things are generally 'just the way I like em(tm)'.

  • Insecurity...

    • The NSA's 'Security Enhanced Linux' has been disabled by default. I've heard claims from the NSA that this will gain a 5+% overall system performance benefit. Not to mention, that you won't run into any major pains in the ass that are the result of your usage behavior patterns not fitting the typical/mainstream behavioral patterns that have been encoded into the default upstream selinux policy. I would very much like to support SELinux in the future, as it certainly does have its place in the world. But Guitar-ZyX and its use for music creation isn't that place, thus for me it is a very low priority.

  • DualCorruptionModulator(tm) Support

    • When StackCorruptionCorporation's DualCorruptionModulator(DCM) ships, Guitar-ZyX will support it fully...

  • ZyX Rebootless LiveOS Installation

    • Like the other *ZyX's that preceded, Guitar-ZyX also supports rebootless installation to hard drive. What this means is that after you run the installer, the whole time having used your LiveOS with the installer running in the background, you are looking at your installed operating system, and no reboot is necessary. Just remove the DVD or LiveUSB.

  • VirOS LiveOS Synthesis Software

    • The very same tools that were used to generate this LiveDVD have been included so that you can very easily generate a version that is entirely your own unique transmogrification - or 'micro-fork' - of thousands of other people's work. More docs coming soon....


Guitar-ZyX Feature :: Jam Mode (JaMode)


The JaMode commands, available from the main menu under the ZyX submenu, handle the transition from traditional desktop audio configuration, to a complete live guitar f/x jamming and recording setup. There are three commands. Off returns you to a normal configuration. JaModeRecord launches a session recording pre and post guitar-f/x audio streams, as well as one for drums coming from hydrogen, and finally, the final output you are hearing from the system. You can find the raw .wav output in ~/bin/ZyX-eroc/sessions/session-*/*.wav. This will chew up disk fast. To start a practice session that is not recording, such as is started when booting in 'AutoJam' mode, select the JaModeNoRecord.


Guitar-ZyX Feature :: Master Control Program


Short story: "Touchscreen Whammy Pad". Longer story- alpha software. See the Guitar-ZyX Experience for information on how to put the MCP to good use. Better documentation coming soon...


Guitar-ZyX Feature :: K.A.B.L.U.I.


Beyond being a somewhat silly acronym, Kablui is a set of Desktop preferences, which help me to be much more efficient when using computers. I like to type. I like command lines. It is entirely possible if not probable, that after trying out Kablui, you decide that it is not for you, and that you prefer the more traditional Gnome desktop defaults. This is fine, and why I have not made Kablui preferences into the system defaults. If you like them, when you log in as a newly created user, merely run the program "kablui" to import the preferences. Note, that in the years since kablui debuted, projects like moblin and the forthcoming gnome-shell have finally realized that full screen apps in their own workspaces is a good idea, at least for netbooks. Since I use a relatively inexpensive 1280x800 display, I tend to think such a UI should be default.

Here is the list Kablui enhancements, and design philosophies-

1) The Matrix

The Matrix represents the focus on the use of ctrl+arrows keyboard shortcuts.

In kablui, there are by default 3 or more virtual desktops, which can be navigated with the ctrl-up and ctrl-down shortcuts. Typically, you will keep your favorite applications in full screen mode, in their own virtual desktop, and use ctrl-up and ctrl-down to switch amongst them. By default, the kablui desktops are prepopulated with
  • Desktop 1 "Main" -- Gnome-Terminal
  • Desktop 2 "Web" -- Mozilla Firefox
  • Desktop 3 "X" -- Your Stuff
  • ... and more when rocking out in AutoJam mode ...
The second half of the matrix, is the horizontal component. Kablui has set the keyboard shortcuts for popular applications such as Gnome-Terminal and Mozilla Firefox, so that ctrl-left and ctrl-right cycle between tabs.

In this fashion, you can think of the desktop as a grid or matrix, where rows are the main applications, and the columns are multiple instances (tabs) of those applications.

To try this out, use the ctrl-t shortcut in both gnome-terminal and Mozilla Firefox to open several tabs. Then see how easy and logical it is to switch amongst all of these tabs and between applications with ctrl-up/down/left/right.

2) The Vertical Panel

The second key element of kablui is replacing the default upper and lower Gnome panels, with a single vertical panel on the right, combined with the ZyX drawer applet in the lower right corner.

The main justification for the choice of vertical panel, other than a subjective aesthetic preference on my part, is the fact that more and more displays these days have a larger aspect ratio (e.g. 16x9 instead of the more traditional 4:3). Combine this with the fact that applications such as web browsing seem to benefit more from greater vertical screen usage, than horizontal screen usage, and you hopefully understand why I made the choice I did.

Now, lets take a look at what is present in the vertical panel:
  • Guitar-ZyX Main Menu
    • The Guitar-ZyX Main Menu provides access to the full scope of the OS.
    • The top item of the Guitar-ZyX Main Menu is the Guitar-ZyX submenu, which provides access to the most important Guitar-ZyX specific features. Currently, this includes documentation, website, release notes, Rebootless LiveOS Installer (see its section below), and a little video game I wrote 7 years ago called Snake3D.
    • Of particular note, is the Places submenu, which provides access to the file management functions that are noticably absent from the desktop.

  • System Monitor
    • The System Monitor always provides simple insight into the health and status of your computer. Four key metrics are provided:
      • blue - processor usage
      • green - memory usage
      • cyan - network usage
      • orange - disk usage

  • Terminal Launcher
    • The terminal launcher is the only launcher that I deemed worthy of taking up screen real estate. This certainly reflects my own narrow usage scenario as a developer and a heavy command line user. I don't however feel it is a bad choice for my target audience, as I feel that more exposure to the command line is something that needs to happen, if we as users are to maintain a sense of control over our computers. I very much dislike the microsoft GUI only attitude, for reasons that are best left to Neil Stephenson's book "In The Beginning Was The Command Line".

  • Window List
    • The window list, which people are familiar with, gives a visual representation of all the windows in the current desktop. The most useful thing to note, is that if you hover over it with the pointer, and use the mouse wheel, you can easily cycle amongst windows. When not using the mouse, this is accomplished with the alt-tab keyboard shortcut.

  • Virtual Desktop Switcher
    • The desktop switcher, provides a nice mini view of the entire desktop matrix. As with the window list, hovering and using the mouse wheel, will cycle amongst the 7 virtual desktops, just as ctrl-up and ctrl-down will from the keyboard.
    • windows can be dragged between desktops using the desktop switcher, as well with a right click on the titlebar of windows.

  • System Notification Area
    • The notifcation area, shows important mini-applets, such as battery charge meter, and NetworkManager connection status. The latter is how you manage connecting to wireless networks, at coffee shops for instance.

  • Clock
    • The clock, unfortunately until I hack together some modification code, is rotated vertically. Myself, I do not find this unusable.
    • If you hover the mouse pointer over the clock, you will see the date.
    • If you click on the clock, you will see a calendar.

  • Volume Control
    • If you hover and use the mouse wheel over the volume icon, you can easily adjust or mute the volume.
    • If you double click on the volume icon, you will launch the full mixer control panel.

  • ZyX Drawer
    • Finally, the ZyX drawer represents the key design differentiation between Kablui, and traditional desktop panel defaults. You can click the ZyX icon to open and close the ZyX drawer, which is merely a panel extension, which does not permanently take up screen real estate.

3) The ZyX Drawer

The main design motivation for moving application launchers and less frequently used panel applets to the ZyX drawer, is the idea that they should not be permanently wasting screen real estate, given how often they are needed. In general, the assumption is that you will have all of your main applications already open in the many virtual desktops, especially since Kablui automatically starts the most common ones when you log in. In the default ZyX drawer, you will find the following:
  • Command Line
    • Want to launch an xterm with custom options? Just type -
      "xterm -fg green -bg black" and <enter> in the command line applet.

  • Popular Application Launchers
    • terminal (Gnome Terminal)
    • web browser (Mozilla Firefox)
    • email client (Thunderbird)
    • music player (Rhythmbox)
    • word processor (OpenOffice.org writer)

  • Utility Applets
    • brightness (for laptops)
    • sleep
    • fast user switcher
      • It has been far too long in coming, but it is finally possible in OS distributions like Guitar-ZyX to have multiple users logged in at the same time on a single computer, without each having to close down all of their applications while the others log in and work.
      • Guitar-ZyX follows a long tradition of generosity towards users, and comes with a default guest account. If your friend wants to borrow your computer to surf the internet, but you don't want to worry about them accidentally screwing up your desktop, just do a fast user switch to the guest account.
    • hide/show desktop
    • lock screen
    • trash
    • search files

  • Edge Button
    • The edge button, like the ZyX drawer icon, can both be used to either close an open drawer, or right-clicked on to add your own launchers and applets to the drawer.


Security Considerations / Production Notes


The below process is what I used prior to Fedora/RedHat(tm)'s 2008 security breach which resulted in them using a new signing key for every release. For the timebeing, consider this an alpha distribution, but knowing that should a significant user base develop, I will move back to something as paranoid as below. Thought what I currently do is fairly secure/paranoid already.

Production
Guitar-ZyX was produced on a non-internet-connected system, built from scratch. The system may have been left unattended for various amounts of time between installation, and its use in the production of Guitar-ZyX. Therefore I cannot personally vouch that any FBI/CIA/NSA/Mafia/Miscreant-next-door-teenager sneak-and-peak-and-god-knows-what-else warrants were not executed. For non-beta releases I intend to configure the production system from scratch immediately prior to production, to mitigate those (paranoid/minor) risks. The following procedure, or something similar, was used to minimize any chance that corrupted software was used to produce Guitar-ZyX:
  • Get Fedora 9 DVD directly from linuxidentity magazine from Barnes and Noble(tm) - 2008
  • Install the known authentic F9
  • Use this Fedora GPG key to verify the sha1sum fingerprint file downloaded from mirrors.kernel.org
  • Use the verified sha1sum to verify the integrity of the downloaded Fedora 9 LiveCD
  • Install the verified copy of Fedora 9 LiveCD
  • Skimp on a code review of my own VirOS code to generate LiveCDs. Will not skimp on non-beta releases. Hint hint community- please look over my stuff and help me catch the security bugs that are no doubt there.
  • count on yum and GPG keys in the verified F9 LiveCD, to ensure the integrity of packages installed from an rsynced (on a seperate internet-connected system, transported via sneakernet to the production system) mirror of F9 Everything and Updates repositories.

Lockdown
Certain services and configuration that I deemed unnecessary were removed from the default Fedora style installation. Some other day when I'm not tired of writing release notes, I'll enumerate. For now, use chkconfig --list, iptables -L, ps auwwxf, etc... to investigate the security configuration of Guitar-ZyX.


Known Issues / Bugs


Here is a brief list of known bugs and issues that were not fixable in time for this release-


  • Guitar-ZyX has grown in size to the point of not being easily usable with a non-SDHC NDS flashcart. If you have a 2G non-SDHC flashcart, you can easily manually copy everything except the /boot/LiveOS directory to the 2G card, while using an SDHC or LiveDVD to run the PC.


  • Hydrogen and Ardour may have problems maximizing their windows correclty with a vertical panel.


Sidestream Changelogs


Here are the changelogs for some of the Guitar-ZyX sidestream projects since the last real major release - 


---------------
Rakarrack-0.4.2
---------------

( from the announcement to the rakarrack-users mailing list,
  note most of these features were already available in the GZ-0.4.1 )

News:

AUDIO:
- Two new effects have been added: Analog Phaser and Derelict Distortion.
- Limiter at the end of the chain.
- Four new waveshape types: Crunch, Hard Crunch, Dirty Octave+ and Modulated Square improving all the Distortion effects..
- Four new LFO wave types:  Ramp Up, Ramp Down, Zig-Zag, Modulated Square  improving Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Pan, etc.
- Sub Octave in Distortion effects.
- Reverse Echo.
- Compressor support for adjustable knee, switch (Mono/Stereo), improved automatic gain function.
- Global Wet/Dry (FX%)
- Improvements in Wah-Wah, Tuner and Harmonizer.

MIDI:
- Up to 104 controllable parameters.
- MIDI Learn for each preset, up to 20 effect parameters can be assigned to a single MIDI control message.
- jack MIDI

GUI:
- Scalable Fonts
- Background Image.
- New Logo and Icons.
- Minor things.

PRESETS
- 15 New Presets.
- Improvements on most of the old ones.  
- Improved consistency between preset volume levels.

DOCS:
- Help updated.

BUGS:
- Fixed data problem with Big Endian architectures, now rakarrack runs properly on PowerPC and maybe others.
- Fixed important CPU usage bug related to computation of denormal numbers.
- Other minor bugs fixed.

Thanks, comments and suggestions are welcome.

The rakarrack team:

Josep Andreu - Ryan Billing - Douglas McClendon - Jose Luis di Biase - Hernan Ordiales 


-- Josep Andreu  

-----
GZMCP
-----
- improvements will be coming in Guitar-ZyX-0.5.1...

* Sat Jan 16 2009 Douglas McClendon  - 0.2.2010_01_16

-----
VIROS
-----
* Wed Feb 24 2010 Douglas McClendon  - 0.6.2010_02_24
- misc cleanups for Guitar-ZyX-0.5.0
- ISOLABEL back to CDLABEL for the sake of unetbootin

* Fri Feb 12 2010 Douglas McClendon  - 0.6.2010_02_12
- misc cleanups
- initrd to initramfs
- vxmog: correctly clean up other kernels
- f-zyx: selinux initialization as per contemporary mkinitrd
- synthesize: removed some acpi= workarounds, added qreaper workaround
- style: decided x$ is needless (until I see proof otherwise)
- bugs: TMPDIR environment checking corrected
- smirfgen/xmog: ancestor bootsplash integration
- smirfgen: put kmods in natural subdirs
- smirfgen: parse ldd output a bit better
- zbuild: new smirfgen only xmog mode (zyx-smirfgen xmog)

* Mon Jan 18 2010 Douglas McClendon  - 0.6.2010_01_18

-----------------
ZYX-LIVEINSTALLER
-----------------
* Fri Feb 12 2010 Douglas McClendon  - 0.2.3-1
- enhancement: use /etc/zyx-liveinstaller.banner.png if it exists
- bugfix: tmpfs symlinks now owned by owner of their target
- update: mkinitramfs new syntax
- zyx: no tmpfs mounts like ancestor anymore

* Tue Jan 19 2010 Douglas McClendon  - 0.2.2-1

Alpha Test Plan


If you would like to help me out and test this alpha quality software, the following I consider the most basic functionality-


  • Can you boot the LiveOS? Seeing autojam, i.e. rakarrack and other applications automatically started.

  • Can you use rakarrack with your guitar without changing any default mixer settings?

  • Can you create and use a LiveUSB version of the LiveOS with zyx-live-iso-to-disk

  • Can you install the LiveOS to hard disk with the ZyX Rebootless Installer?

  • Can you trivially modify and recompile the included GZMCP source code with the included complete development environment? Does the modified copy still work on the NDS?

  • Again, more and better documentation on how to complete the above tests will be available with the next release, hopefully quite soon.


Thanks!


The following is a necessarily incomplete list of people whose generous contributions to the Free and Open Source Software community have made Guitar-ZyX possible. For a more complete list, please review the changelogs and documentation for each of the hundreds of software packages included in the Guitar-ZyX distribution.

  • All Free and Open Source developers collectively - work on linux(tm), gnustuff, etc...
  • All 'Fedorans' collectively - work on Fedora, ...
  • Dave Murphy (WinterMute) - work on libgba, libnds, ...
  • David Zeuthen - fedora bluesky seer, ...
  • Ed Hutchins - rbdrums2midi, StackCorruptionCorp cofounder, ...
  • Grek DeKoenigsberg - upstream process help, fudcon, ...
  • Jason Rogers (Dovoto) - work on libnds, ...
  • Jeremy Katz - work on livecd-iso-to-disk, ...
  • Jeroen Van Meeuwen - fellow fedora forker, (i.e. IP issue trailblazer) ...
  • Josep Andreu - work on Rakarrack, ...
  • Josie Thorpe - artwork for (Fork-)*ZyX, ...
  • Linus Torvalds - Linux creator, ...
  • Paul Nasca Octavian - guitar f/x work included in Rakarrack, ...
  • Richard Stallman - GNU father, work on GCC, GDB, ...
  • Ryan Billing - work on Rakarrack, general guitar-f/x gurudom...
  • Sebastian Dziallas - testing ZyX-LiveInstaller, work on Sugar-on-a-Stick, ...
  • Stephen Stair - work on dswifi, ...
  • Steve Foster - testing Guitar-ZyX, StackCorruptionCorp cofounder, ...
  • Thomas C Gilliard - testing ZyX-LiveInstaller, ...
  • and countless others...


Enjoy!


I hope you enjoy your experience with Guitar-ZyX and Kablui. For further information, please refer to the following resources-


Trademarks


Acekard, Debian, Fedora, Firefox, GamesNMusic, IceWeasel, Linux, Mozilla, Nintendo, R4, RedHat, and Rockband, are all registered trademarks of entities entirely unrelated to Guitar-ZyX. No part of Guitar-ZyX is supported, licensed, or endorsed in any way by any of those trademark holders. Please inform me via the below email address immediately if you suspect any unauthorized use of a mark in Guitar-ZyX. Guitar-ZyX, G-ZyX, Fork-ZyX, E-ZyX, VirOS, ZyX-LiveInstaller, CloudSession, and K.A.B.L.U.I. are all protected trademarks, which may generally be used while redistributing unmodified packages of software that are distributed under Free and Open Source licenses - such as all the software in this release of Guitar-ZyX. If you wish to modify the software I make available and distribute with those marks, let me know. Peace...


Release Notes Last Modified (c)2010/02/24
by Douglas McClendon
http://filteredperception.org
dmc AT viros DOT org (aka smiley)