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SDL stands for Simple Directmedia Layer. It is a library which provides support for writing to the screen and audio buffer, reading from the keyboard and joysticks, as well as functions for timing and threads. It is compatible with Windows, Linux, BeOS, MacOS classic and X as well as many other systems. As the GP2X handheld runs on a linux backend, it has been ported to that and is the simplest way to write games for it.

SDL does have some slightly strange behaviours. There are a few things that it does which are hard to understand and not well documented.

The SDL Libraries are licensed under the LGPL license, so programs which link to it do not have to be LGPL as long as it is possible that a newer version of the library can be linked with the program. That's pretty sweet.

Official site:
Simple Directmedia Layer