Last week we (well, mostly Tomas if I'm honest) made our first release of Guacamayo, a reference Linux distribution for media playback devices in a networked world. The core technologies are the usual suspects: Yocto for the distribution, GStreamer and PulseAudio, Rygel and Media Explorer.
The first release caters for the "connected speakers" use-case. On boot it connects automatically to the network over ethernet (wi-fi coming soon) and using Rygel exposes a UPnP/DLNA MediaRenderer, with hot-plugged USB speakers automatically switched to if plugged in. I've been happily using it on a laptop with my Raumfeld system, and Tomas has tested it on a BeagleBoard with a UPnP control point app on his Android phone.
So, what's next? I'm working on a web-based configuration tool for the headless systems, and Tomas is integrating Media Explorer so we'll have something you can plug into a TV. Tomas is testing this on a Zotac ZBox at the moment, and any week now I'll have a RaspberryPi to experiment with.
If you're interested and want to know more, we have a small
wiki at GitHub and
you can often find us in #guacamayo
on FreeNode.