The latest 1.1.0 CVS snapshot has initial support for joysticks and
threaded timers. 
http://www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/cvs.html
The joystick support is very new, but works very well under Linux,
and fairly well under BeOS. The API may change, but only because
of a better design and developer feedback.
There is a new joystick test program which allows you to watch all
the buttons on the joystick, and the X/Y axis as they move.
The new timer code has been changed to use threads for timer handling.
This has the benefit of being usable on Linux in multi-threaded apps,
where signal semantics are not necessarily defined.
I’m interested in how it performs, compared to the old code.
(Mike, I win.
See ya!
-Sam Lantinga (slouken at devolution.com)
Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software–
“Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature”
– Rich Kulawiec