Happy 10 Years Xbox …

Ten years ago today, the XBOX console was first introduced to North America. Since then, it has seen the release of many great games, including many of the best selling video game series’ of all time, and one of the largest online communities for games which allows gaming online, downloading new games/content, and tv, movie, and music streaming. The XBOX is now one of the top selling consoles of all time.

Even more impressive however, are the efforts of people who receive no compensation for their work other than the thanks of like minded people. Shortly after the release of this console, a modding community was founded and has been growing steadily since then. XBOX users are now able not only to play XBOX games, but games from nearly every console up to the 5th generation through emulators. There are also full versions of Linux running very well on this console.

XBOX users also have access to arguably the best media center application on any platform. XBMC started because the XBOX needed a good media player, but it evolved into something so much larger. Streaming media files from the network with library organization, weather support, XBOX game trainers, a game/program launcher, and an entire build of python to run a plethora of scripts which can be created by anyone. XBMC has been unsurpassed by many other media applications, some of which you must pay for.

The best part about all of this? It is available completely free and open-source, made by other XBOX users in their free time.
I think it’s high time to congratulate everyone who has contributed to make this console come as far as it has.

Thank you Mwaterbu for allowing me to post this on the front page as I don’t believe I could have written it better.

Happy birthday Xbox Classic and thanks for all the good times.

Xman.

Ubuntu and Xubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric).

In the last news posting I had said a LXDE ubuntu image would be made (Lubuntu). However, it turned out, that there were a few issues with LXDE, including a stability issue with chrome and Xserver, that I hadn’t seen before. Instead I went for XFCE desktop (Xubuntu), which is a good replacement for the old gnome2 desktop that Ubuntu used to have (and what I currently run on my desktop machine). I have also provided a standard Ubuntu image, with the Unity 2d desktop. Unfortunately the Unity desktop doesn’t really work well on the Joggler (At least for me), but it is provided here anyway.

Updates for all images.

Ubuntu 11.04, Linux Mint 11, and Joli OS 1.2 were all updated with new features and usability improvements. Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric is in the pipeline, but due to the new “Unity” interface not being very usable on the Joggler touchscreen, a Lubuntu release will also be made that will use the lighter LXDE desktop. A Bodhi linux image is also in progress, which uses the Enlightenment window manager and has a touchscreen mode that may work well on the Joggler.

The following outlines the improvements with the latest images:

  • Linux Kernel 3.1
  • New Xorg evdev, with excellent right mouse click emulation.
  • In kernel ethernet driver replaced with vendor driver to avoid some lockups.
  • Distro package updates, and updated XBMC.