Playing Ogg

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Aug. 6th, 2008 | 03:20 pm

I like to listen to music while I work. In support of the Play Ogg! movement, I converted some of my audio collection into the patent-unencumbered audio file format, Ogg Vorbis.

To convert my audio CDs to Ogg, I use the friendly abcde package. It converts the CDs to ogg in batch mode, and it does a nice job of retrieving and storing the album and track information and organizing things into neat folders.

To play the music I use the command-line program ogg123 which comes with the vorbis-tools package. Everyday, I send the program the name of every music file I have on the computer and have it play them with shuffle turned on. The command has a shuffle option, but since I'm sending the files on standard input I shuffle them with the shuf command that comes with GNU coreutils.

Here's the command I type everyday.

  $ find -type f -name '*.ogg' | shuf | ogg123 -q -@ -

This setup is missing many things most other popular audio player software have. It doesn't have a fancy graphical user interface nor even a handy Emacs interface. However, it's really reliable, and sometimes when you have to logout out of your graphical windows environment and work in just a terminal screen -- you can still listen to music! I always found that feature very important when trying to proceed with an operating system upgrade.

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Comments {4}

21st century

from: anonymous
date: Aug. 8th, 2008 09:39 am (UTC)
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True, true, true, but then, I can't shake the feeling that I now know why I occasionally come across folks who seem to think that Linux still doesn't have a GUI.

Hint:
Use Soundjuicer for cd ripping. (Other candidates are Banshee, Rhythmbox)
Use Soundconverter for transcoding to Ogg (Other candidate: Oggconvert)
Let your media player figure out how to get the album art and so on.

This is just for the people who use GNOME.

Thanks for listening.

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Aaron S. Hawley

true

from: [info]aaronhawley
date: Aug. 8th, 2008 01:59 pm (UTC)
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Yeah, but i think that ignorance about graphic user interfaces available atop the Linux kernel is past and gone. Most people know that.

Most people don't switch to GNU/Linux because it doesn't come preinstalled on systems, not exposed to it work or in school, because it doesn't run some proprietary game, they need a proprietary office suite, or need to have some proprietary Web browser plug-in.

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consumer niche

from: anonymous
date: Aug. 20th, 2008 06:57 am (UTC)
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Most people don't switch to GNU/Linux because it doesn't come preinstalled on systems, ...

When you say "people", do you mean "ordinary people"? I'll take it to be synonymous with consumers.

I think ordinary people are doing the right thing by not switching to Linux in droves. They are using Ubuntu, which is nice, but it's usually alongside their Windows- or Mac-box. But, for example, if a consumer drives to Best Buy (a high-margin but consumer-friendly electronics store) and buys a printer, it's a gamble as to whether it works on Linux. It MAY work but not without a hassle.

The efforts at marketing Linux to consumers have been targeted at the low-end segment. I think you can still buy a computer with Linux pre-installed at Walmart for $300 or less. There hasn't really been a comprehensive systems-integration effort for consumers.

Apple has figured out the formula for marketing tech products to ordinary people. Not to say I'm a zealot by any means. They know who their audience is: home users, creative media types, academia. They aren't a hit with enterprises because they don't really appeal to that market, and there are other companies that can do it better.

Also, here's a good philosophy for making good consumer tech products, software or otherwise, based on what Apple does:

1. Don't patronize the consumer. Assume they're intelligent but not necessarily computer-inclined.
2. Pay attention to ergonomics and design. Intentionally design the product; don't make it a result of Darwinian evolution.
3. Make it work with other devices. "Plug it in" is what people understand, so try to use that.
4. Shiny! Shiny!

So, yes, if consumers aren't crazy about Linux, it's totally understandable. Linux has other niches.

-- anonymous

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Aaron S. Hawley

Re: consumer niche

from: [info]aaronhawley
date: Aug. 20th, 2008 01:59 pm (UTC)
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True. You do have to watch what hardware you buy for a GNU+Linux system, but no more or less than Apple. Mac OS X uses a lot of the same print drivers of the GNU+Linux system.

I have experience with Mac OS X and can say that its reputation is often disconnected from reality. People get confused by the "shininess". Mac OS X is sexy app with a series of bad hacks on top of BSD-ish unix that Apple has had to go back and fix, or the hacker/user community did it for them.

What Apple has shown is that their marketing department can sell a system using a lot of free software, even if its cobbled together. They'll fix it later and name it another wild cat.

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