Dharma Beta 3

Nearly one month after the release of Beta 2, the latest Dharma pre-release is ready for testing. We have been working very hard to to stabilize XBMC for the final release; there have been over 300 commits to the release branch since the last beta. Notable fixes include:

• Lots of Live fixes and clean-ups. We want Dharma Live to work out-of-the-box as much as possible. Those who have been plagued with broken ALSA upgrades and unsupported soundcards will be happy to know that these issues have been resolved. In addition, most ION/ION2 systems should just work ™, though there are a few small issues remaining.
• Shoutcast, which is now an add-on, was causing hard-freezes. Now Fixed.
• A bug causing redundant http requests has been fixed. Scraper sites (Hi TMDb and TheTVDB!) should see significantly less requests per session.
• Several new addons. Many scrapers have been fixed. The popular Transparency! skin is now in the official repository; a total of 9 available even before official release!.
• Many more small fixes. Small fixes are good.

There are still a few known bugs:

• CrystalHD support is great, but drivers and libraries still require manual intervention for installation in Live/Linux. This may or may not be fixed in time for release.
• No packages for Ubuntu Maverick are available as of now. We’re working hard on this.
• A few small miscellaneous bugs. Small bugs are bad.

Update: All users of Live Beta2 or earlier are advised to backup their XBMC profile (~/.xbmc) and reinstall. Due to the way some drivers were installed before, a smooth upgrade is unlikely. This should now be resolved for future releases.

Go forth and download!