Linux audio player

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 04 July 2004 12:09, Mike wrote:
>On Sun, 2004-07-04 at 11:06, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Sunday 04 July 2004 09:17, Mike wrote:
>> >Good evening everyone,
>> >
>> >
>> >I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good audio player for
>> > Linux. I am currently running Fedora Core 1. I looked at XMMS,
>> > which is really nice, but it lacks a good library management
>> > system. I don't know if anyone has used WinAmp 5 for windows
>> > yet, but I really like the library management system it has, and
>> > would like to use something on my Linux box like that.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >-Mike
>>
>> Methinks you malaign xmms without looking at its menus at all. 
>> Its selection of inout/output libraries is pretty good, but due to
>> mp3 lisenceing concerns, you may have to go find the mp3 player
>> stuff and install it seperately from the xmms install.
>>
>> --
>> Cheers, Gene
>> There are 4 boxes to be used in defense of liberty.
>> Soap, ballot, jury, and ammo.
>> Please use in that order, starting now.  -Ed Howdershelt, Author
>> Additions to this message made by Gene Heskett are Copyright 2004,
>> Maurice E. Heskett, all rights reserved.
>
>Gene,
>
>I looked through all the menus, and I cannot find anything to manage
> my MP3's. I may be missing something. I have over 5000 mp3's, and
> would like some way to manage them. Sometimes I'm only in the mood
> for a certain type of music. Winamp has a library window as well as
> a playlist window. You can use the library windows to search your
> entire library on different variables such as Song title, artist or
> genre. Then you can drag and drop them into your play list and
> listen to them. You can save the play list for future use. You can
> also use the library window to burn to CD, but thats something I
> don't really need.
>
>Is this the same type of Library management you say that XMMS has?
> What menu is it on? Because I can't seem to find it.
>
No, sorry.  I thought you were referring to the support libraries to 
play or convert your music.

As to the mp3 support, it is not included in most distro today because 
of licenseing concerns, mp3 support will be targeted by the patent 
owners according to what they've said, they want their approximately 
$25,000 fee per mp3 generator/encoder used, something Red Hat et all 
can't take a chance on.

So you will have to run down and install something like mpg123 (or is 
it mpg321, I forget) or mplayer I think also handles that.

However, there is a free from patents alternative called ogg, that 
makes files with about the same amount of compression, and actually 
in blind a/b tests, usually wins the quality shootout.  But you 
cannot convert from one format to the other since each throws away 
different stuff, and the result is pretty bad for a cross conversion.  
You would have to do like I have, and re-rip your collection.

xmms, with the mp3 stuff installed, automaticly switches between them, 
as does mplayer I'm pretty sure.

Do a google search for ogg if its not on the www.xiph.org (com?) site.  
Good stuff IMO.

>Thanks for you help,
>
>
>-Mike

-- 
Cheers, Gene
There are 4 boxes to be used in defense of liberty. 
Soap, ballot, jury, and ammo.
Please use in that order, starting now.  -Ed Howdershelt, Author
Additions to this message made by Gene Heskett are Copyright 2004, 
Maurice E. Heskett, all rights reserved.