Xine music player

[woodsmoke]

Hi
This is probably only for the very OLD people like the old woodsmoker but... back in the days of the ancient forests of the elder years there were some applications that really were the workhorses of applications such as a music player.

Nowadays is is all bells and whistles and things are just EASY...I mean...what is it with THAT!!! Easy/

One of the original "players" for music, internet streams, radio stations such as SOMA FM and such was an app called "Amarok".

Amarok was just kind of "left in the lurch" by the newer AND BETTER players but there are many KDE sites that have Amarok supposedly available, and I am sure that there are OSs that include Amarok, but, alas and alak there is not much available for KDE or for Kubuntu or Debian etc. there is an "Amarok Common" in the repo but well, hey...what do you do with it?

After spending a few hours trying to get Amarok on my Neon build I gave up and instead went at it another way and discovered that XINE... which used to be hooked cheek and jowel with Amarok is... ALIVE AND KICKING!!!!

So after adding this and that and such I now have Xine running on Neon and it plays just as great as it did...

As an aside for the YOUNGER folks Xine had a marvellous set of "visualizations" one of which was "GOOM" that was just gorgeous... it really did set a standard...

CURIOUSLY for the older than dirt folks I literally discovered tonight that the Xine app has built into it a bunch of SKINS!!!! WOAH!!! I enabled the GOLD one...and it is GAAWWWGEOUS...!

Now some of the controls do not work like..."a VCD"... things have moved so FAST!!!

For the young at heart and that are new to Linux or Ubuntu or KDE and want to explore...

you might give a whack at installing Xine and see what used to be...

or not. LOL.

woodtripdownmemorylanesmoke

[Beerislife]

Ahhhh, Xine! Wow! I don't like new Amarok so use Strawberry music player. It does what I want.

[jglen490]

I probably used Xine a long time ago.

Amarok was great.

Clementine was the best ever replacement for Amarok.

Strawberry is a worthy replacement for Clementine.

Life goes on, and life is change.

[woodsmoke]

Hi guys!
thanks for the comments!

Jgl!em
I like Strawberry, it has a great interface!

Beerislife.

You BUILT IT! Woah! have not been able to so do !

I'm just an old hardware doof so, yeah.

However, you posting that made me think back to the old XMMS days, not XMMS2, back at "Crunchbang!" , I wrote an article for LinuxForums that had a lot of reads about how "the new to Linux" people could use it as a kind of "training wheels" about "configuing" an app because it was all command line to do anything and because of the multitude of skins that people had made.

I wonder if folks would think about "doing a thread" where "everything is in one place" with a complete "do this, do that" and very simple and step by step instructions to get it built as an 'exercise" , maybe get people involved a little more than some forums that are all about "code this and do that" dunno, just a thought.

thanks again for the replies folks!

woody

[woodsmoke]

LOL Well, this has kind of turned into what was FORMERLY needed to get Compiz-Fusion running, for those who have never had to struggle with it.

HERE IS A BIG SHOUT OUT TO...SOMEBODY... who has been patiently fiddling with Xine over the years... SOMEBODY...I really would like to know who... has been "at least" maintaining the basic system.

For folks with WAAAY too much time on their hands, buried in the repos are at least "many" of the skins.

I am presently using "gudgegreen" and it is properly listed in the setup window, which btw has a HUGE amount of information about what is going on within the system.

Again, not all of the buttons are functional, but one does what one can, I'm considering actually wasting purchasing a BluRay player to test using Xine... never had one... yeah I have a blu-ray player but not in the Blue on Blue Wall computer! lol

More to come...

woodwaaytoomuchtimeonhishandssmoke

[GreyGeek]

I remember Xine!
I still have my Music directory populated with MP3's of my favorite music: Les Preludes, Phantom of the Opera, Mozart, The Planets and a few others. Sadly, it doesn't matter which player I use to play them I can no longer hear the beautiful high notes or the gorgeous low tones, or much of the stuff in between. It all sounds like its coming through a tin-can-string phone.

Moral for you younger folks: ALWAYS wear ear protection when you are using power tools, firing weapons, or attending concerts. I remember taking my son to Omaha to hear their Symphonic orchestra play the Planets. We were on the first row right in front of the big speakers. The music from those speakers were so loud the pressure waves beat on my chest. The music was glorious! By the end of the concert I had constant pain in both ears. The price I had to pay is more than I bargained for. My son is 57 and his hearing is still good, but he never worked with power tools or on road construction as I have, and he has never fired as many weapons as I have or as often, even while serving in the army, so he may escape major hearing loss. I hope so.

I wear headphones with the volume set to max to hear what on the Internet. On occasions my wife, setting several feet away while watching the tube, asks me to turn my sound down because it is too loud, so I try to find a level which still allows me to hear but doesn't bother her as much.

[woodsmoke]

Hi
Thanks for the comment oh Grey One!
woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Hi
Well folks...
THIS IS KIND OF A GAME CHANGER!!!!

I have a DVD player on my big screen Kubuntu t.v. of course and play DVDs on it all the time.

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE!!!

I have been CAREFULLY going through each and every command, button, you name it on Xine and JUST AS A LARK...

Put I put in a simple home made DVD with a couple of cartoons on it and the DVD BUTTON WORKED!!! IMMEDIATELY!!! It just played!

So, I tried a commercial DVD, Hercule Poirot individual movie from Acorn, and IT PLAYED!!!! AND did NOT need arrow keys!!! it just PLAYED, I used the mouse to go through the menus and it also very obligingly WENT THROUGH the CHAPTERS !

SO NOW IS THE BIG QUESTION !!!!!!

There is also a BluRay BUTTON!!!!!

the problem is that I do not have a BluRay player although I do have a disc

So, the question is... I COULD purchase a Bluray SATA drive but... it will probably only ever play one BluRay except for the next few years.

So, there are also a bunch of caveats about a player and I will list one site from this year
https://www.howtogeek.com/240487/how...rays-on-linux/

And then I will list the Amazon player

https://www.amazon.com/Orange-Juice-...tronics&sr=1-8

So, actually I have a couple of questions.

it SEEMS TO BE that SOMEBODY is trying to maintain Xine

Xine DOES play DVD's using the DVD button on the GUI.

So, the questions are:

a) Does anyone know a maintainer who KNOWS about the button or ANY of the buttons, BluRay or other?

b) Do I really need to fork out maybe 80 bucks just to test a button on Xine! LOL... I've spent MORE before on a risky piece of hardware, but dunno about this...so

thoughts anyone!?

woodsmoke

[oldgeek]

I like the idea of a 'howto' thread. It would centralize procedures which might otherwise be scattered all over the place. What does the administrator of this forum think about the idea? Woodsmoke, you are occasionally a genius of simplicity (though not always when you write! Sorry, I'm a retired English teacher and editor).

[woodsmoke]

Hi Oldgeek!

You pose an interesting question.

And, I will think thereupon.

However, I, as a forum member, in other fora, have advocated "this kind of thing" before in another space-time continuum.

"The thing" would probably, maybe, split off into three or four larger ideas, one being about hardware, and the other about "the GUI" and then also into the actual code that produces the GUI and also interacts with the hardware.

What I, PERSONALLY, would like to see is not some kind of "special thread or whatever" that would "make Woodsmoke's thread special" and then some people might "get in a huff" about why does HE have a "thread" and " I " do not!!

An ancillary idea to that is that we could then have "all sorts of specialized threads" suddenly pop up which would mirror what you mentioned tangentially.

I advocated YEARS ago at Linux Forums that the old "xmms" player, not "xmms2" could be used as a kind of "meeting thing for "newbies" ( and I DETEST that term! ) because it offered:

a) an introduction to "Linux lite" in terms of learning the older file structures, a very few "command line" things and just a general "introduction" to "the Linux way of doing things".

b) An introduction, surprisingly, to the "artful" folks because of the PLETHORA of "skins" so that people with a leaning to :

i) computer art
ii) hand drawn art that was amenable to being on a GUI.
iii ) working within the overall "theme" of different parts of an OS and or GUI's

iv) BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, the developers of XMMS, and others, had a PREMADE TEMPLATE with which people who "just want to do something" could " fill in the space with color " and then...most importantly... sit back and SEE WHAT BROKE!

In other words XMMS could have been a kind of "ice breaker" for the new to Linux folk and also the "old hands".

The article did have a big run and a lot of people viewed it and not a single person posted. And that is OK!!

So...back to your idea.

Kubuntu forums is known as being a very friendly place and also a place for new folks to try on the " training wheels " as it were, so...

If you, or an administrator, could kind of set some parameters as to what was going on in it in terms of hardware, coding, artwork, "whatever" and have a moderator who would actually check in on it to determine who had been posting, what about, you name it, then yes I would think on that, but I would not want it to be something to cause any kind of friction in the forum.

And, if nobody actually tosses a rock into the water, then I would MAYBE "just start a separate thread" and we see where it goes. BUT TO REPEAT, I might "start the thread' but it would NOT BE Woodsmoke's thread, I would want it to be everybody posting whatever that they would like. And if it just stays with me posting and nobody else is interested, then ok.

Thank you for the comment, I will think on your comment I have kind of tried to post some parameters abut MY ideas NOT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE think and I would wish that they would post, and thank you again for the comment.

woodsmoke