How to multimedia xmms, rythmbox, ogle, etc.

imdeemvp · #1 28th November 2004, 11:38 AM

Lack of multimedia in fedora is one of my major complaints. This is intended for our newbies that have problems setup multimedia for mp3 music and dvd playback. Some commands are for fedora core 3, 4 and 5.

UPDATE: I started using mplayer. Make sure you download the 6 packages tchung is listing. This is my personal yum installation of mplayer which can be compare to windows media player. Totem will also meet your needs.

UPDATE: I added streamtuner for internet music lovers using shoutcast and others.

This how-to will show how to install: AmaroK, Mplayer, XMMS, Totem, Kaffeine, Ogle, Realplayer, MP3 plugins, and codecs for your music, video needs. Just added Streamtuner for listening music over your internet connection and all other streaming needs.

You need the repositories to install via YUM.

1. Not being able to work my way aroud xmms in fedora core 1 I discovered Zinf player and you can read the post for more info.

2. If you really want to rediscover your music you have to try amaroK! This is one of the latest music player by KDE and it's awesome. Amarok is not included in fedora as it is with other distros such as mandriva but it is avaliable from livna and fedora extras. You will need some kde dependencies but it you use kde as your desktop of choice it will take less than 5 mins. to install. Just run:

Code:

yum install amarok

You can also find it at the fedoranews.org

Rythmbox Player
3. In FC3 I decided to try Rythmbox which is a very good music player too. We need to install some plug-ins to make work properly. Run this command to install via yum for fc 3 and 4 users:

Code:

yum -y install gstreamer-plugins-mp3

FEDORA CORE 5 USERS USE THIS COMMAND:

Code:

yum -y install gstreamer-plugins-ugly

XMMS Player and adding winamp presets.
4. If you did not install xmms during installation run this command in terminal to install all require apps:

Code:

yum -y install xmms xmms-mp3 xmms-wma xmms-skins

To add the winamp presets go to this how-to.

5. Streamtuner and Beep Player
To listen to streaming music from the internet you will need streamtuner. Just run this command to install all needed apps and dependencies:

Code:

 yum -y install streamtuner bmp-mp3

Please note under fedora streamtuner uses beep player that is why its needed to install bmp-mp3 plug-in and another dependency.

FunkyRes showed me how to do online music using Rythmbox.

Quote:

You need to have mp3 support in gstreamer (can play mp3 files in Rhythmbox)

Download a shoutcast playlist file from http://www.shoutcast.com/

I right click on the "tune in" button and choose "save link as"

It will end in a .pls

Then from Rhythmbox -

Choose the radio option (opposed to Library)
Go to the Music menu and choose

Playlist -> Load from file ...

Select the .pls file, and it should show up in your internet radio stations. Choose it and press Play.

Same concept applies to XMMS.

RealPlayer For Linux
6. Download realplayer for linux here. Open terminal and install it:

Code:

rpm -ivh RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm

To use it go to >Sound and Video >Realplayer.

For DVD playback I've used Ogle, Totem (my favorite in fc2, and 3), kaffeine and mplayer (mplayer will play .avi, .mov and mpeg files). If you have your yum repo's setup you can always use yum to install.

Ogle Player and all needed dependencies will be installed via yum.
I will not get in a lot details about Ogle but this is the yum command:

Code:

yum install ogle

Kaffeine Player and needed dependencies will be installed via yum.
Kaffeine is another great player for dvd and mp3 music you can also use yum to install it:

Code:

yum install kaffeine

it only needs one dependency and yum will install it for you.

Totem Player and all needed dependencies will be installed via yum.
To install Totem I suggest you use Livna or Freshrpms repository because both provide the best installation including all dependencies needed. BUT before you install totem you must make sure you did not install that one included in fedora if so remove it first:

Code:

rpm -e totem

NOW you can install from yum!

Code:

yum install totem-xine

To install the codecs for mplayer open termial become root and do the following:

Code:

 
$ wget ftp://ftp1.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/essential-20050412.tar.bz2
$ tar jxvf essential-20050412.tar.bz2
$ mkdir /usr/lib/win32
$ cp essential-20050412/* /usr/lib/win32

Please note that the version may change and here is the link for the latest codecs.

To install the mplayerplug-in do the following:
Download it and install it:

Code:

rpm -ivh --nodeps mplayerplug-in-2.75-0.FC3.i386.rpm

Check you mplayerplug-in here: http://www.apple.com/trailers/

To hear some sound in firefox or mozilla install mozplugger:

Code:

yum -y install mozplugger

Grip MP3 ripper to rip music:

Code:

yum install grip

These are the rpms I use for mplayer

Rythmbox website. XMMS website Ogle website

Read this thread for more info about RealPlayer for Linux

mooninite · #2 30th November 2004, 12:18 AM

Compile latest xmms source + streaming fix patch. Compile xine. Done.

imdeemvp · #3 30th November 2004, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mooninite

Compile latest xmms source + streaming fix patch. Compile xine. Done.

Intended for newbies......not every one knows how to compile.

windjunky · #4 30th November 2004, 02:39 PM

Why didnt FC3 ship with MPlayer? Until I read imdeemvp's "FC3 Installation Notes" I couldnt remember what i used on FC1 and was pissed that what came with FC3 didnt play any of the video's I wanted it to. Whats the point of HelixPlayer and Totem if they can't play anything (avi, wmv, qt, mp4...etc) Why even include those?

imdeemvp · #5 1st December 2004, 07:58 AM

According to this reply we are to do it ourselves: http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/sho...7&postcount=32

neilius · #6 1st December 2004, 03:26 PM

If you use the yum.conf from the Fedora FAQ site, you can simply type:

Code:

yum install xmms xmms-mp3 xine libdvdcss

which will install xmms, the mp3 plugin for xmms the xine media player (which rocks, but you can use mplayer instead if you like, xine just works better for me), all it's dependancies and the libraries needed to decode most DVDs that are encrypted (which is pretty much most DVDs you buy).

So with one command you can now play pretty much anything you want to throw at Fedora, apart from RealMedia stuff (I don't use RealPlayer due to problems I was having with it anyway). You can also get rid of RhythmBox, HelixPlayer or anything else that's now redundant if you like by using

Code:

yum remove <program>

without < and >.

And to get xine to autoplay DVDs when you insert them, just go to Application --> Preferences --> Removable Storage and add the command 'xine -pd' to the DVD Videos section. Lovely jubbly!

Maybe someone can add this to the Fedora FAQ under the heading of 'How can I play my DVDs in Fedora Core 3?'

Hope this is of help for some people!

Regards,

Neil.

imdeemvp · #7 2nd December 2004, 07:52 AM

I get you point but some of our user are new to linux so I prefer to me a little more simple. Its like this: You dont give a baby a burger but you feeding with milk. Next thing you know all they wanna do is go to mcdonald's.

Shadow Skill · #8 2nd December 2004, 09:18 AM

Off topic sort of:

Well I for one am quite glad fc3 doesn't ship with mplayer, in fact no distro should ship with that crappy thing, its insulting that they have not granted the gui full functionality after so much time, no one should support their shoddy work.

On topic:

The point of this how-to is to help the less adept get up and running so they stick around long enough to become adept and write howto's of their own. That's all that should be aimed for in this section of the forum imo.

Off topic again sort of:
MVP do you happen to know where rhythm box's ipod support dissappeared to? One version back on fc2 had a beta ipod support feature but it seems to have evaporated. Also can RB play aac and ogg files? One last thing is it normal to see two processes named xmms when looking in the system monitor, my xmms really loves to lock up, stop playing abruptly and even lock up the whole system, I was wondering if the dual xmms process thing might be at fault?

imdeemvp · #9 2nd December 2004, 09:32 AM

To be honest I dont have an ipod (expensive!) so I dont have an answer for you. If you install the gstreamer plugin you may have the possibility but I dont know.

fryem720 · #10 6th December 2004, 05:46 PM

Been tooling with linux for about 6 months, but still consider myself a real newbie.

A few things. I used to love rhythmbox, until I moved all my mp3s from one partition to another on my external HD. Now rhythmbox refuses to play them. Permissions are the same, etc. It's almost like it still thinks they are where they used to be. When I try to reload my library, it seems to find them but won't play them. Any suggestions?

Also, there are about three songs (out of about 1400) that never would load into the library due to a gstreamer problem. What gives?

In the meantime, I discovered xmms, which I really like alot. Very powerful, very versatile, very configurable. I was also able to start streaming internet radio from Shoutcast and Live365, something I couldn't figure out how to do with rhythmbox.

My only real complaint - and its a big one - is the lack of a media library function like rhythmbox has (but, which isn't working for me at the moment. Ahem.) I found a media library plugin here:

http://xpg.dk/blog/projects/xmms-media-library

but it's pretty limited in functionality. It will find your music where you tell it to look. Double-clicking on a song will add it to the playlist. But that's it. No configuration options. You can't sort songs in any way at all. How they show up is the way you will always see them.

Does anyone know of a better library plugin for xmms?

Shadow Skill · #11 6th December 2004, 08:21 PM

Well I figured out that I had to recompile rhythmbox to get the Ipod support [it was quite painless for once.] the thing is I can't get my aac files [formated by Itunes as .m4a] to get into rhythmbox if I compile it with gstreamer it just doesn't read them; if I try it using the xine backend just crashes when it tries to import my aac files which number about 300 or so songs and increasing everytime I rip one of my brother's cd's. So I am not going to reconvert all of those songs especially when aac files take up less space, just to please these players. Sigh Multimedia audio support is truly in a sad state with Linux

I am stuck using xmms crapware until gstreamer is fixed or rhythmbox gets its act together. What is strange is that totem-xine plays my aac files just fine but rhythmbox with the xine backend can't even import the songs without blowing up...

Forlorn · #12 21st December 2004, 05:23 PM

I found on the rhythmbox page a plugin for xchat that displays the title in xchat. I couldn't get this working. Any help?

fryem720 · #13 21st December 2004, 05:28 PM

BTW, for anyone who's interested, I didn't find a media library plugin for xmms, but I did find a stand-alone library that can organize your stuff, let's you create playlists, edit tags, and also let's you choose which media player you want to play stuff in directly from the media library. Here it is:

http://madman.sourceforge.net/

weapon · #14 31st December 2004, 02:21 AM

Just a quick tip for people using Grip /Lame, I thought i woild Post my settings for lame (to install lame: yum install lame) -vbr-new -b 96 -q 0 %w %m --replaygain-accurate (highest quality but on my 2600 ripping still takes longer than encoding)

Weapon

rae · #15 31st December 2004, 07:57 AM

This is the best movie player I have found for fc2 or fc3. The fc2 packages work on fc3 with very few dependencies. http://www.videolan.org/. VLC playes averything including most wmv files. Enjoy!!

rae