TOPIC: IPOD SOFTWARE
Installing Nightingale music player on Ubuntu 13.04
25th June 2013Ever since the Songbird project concentrated its efforts to support only Windows and OS X, the Firefox-based music player has been absent from a Linux user's world. However, the project is open source and a fork called Nightingale now fulfils the same needs. Intriguingly, it too is available for Windows and OS X users, which leaves me wondering why that overlap has happened. However, Songbird also is available as a web app and as an app on both Android and iOS, while Nightingale sticks to being a desktop application.
To add it to Ubuntu, you need to set up a new repository. That can be done using the Software Centre but issuing a command in a terminal can be so much quicker and cleaner, so here it is:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nightingaleteam/nightingale-release
Apart from entering your password, there will be a prompt to continue by pressing the carriage return key or cancelling with CTRL + C. For our purposes, it is the first action that's needed and once that's done the needful, you can execute the following command:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install nightingale
This is in two parts: the first updates the repositories on your system, while the second actually installs the software. When that is complete, you are ready to run Nightingale and, with the repository, staying up to date is not a chore either. In fact, using the above commands brings another advantage: it is that they should work in any Ubuntu derivatives, such as Linux Mint.
It isn’t all iTunes in the UK
8th December 2007The iTunes store was a breath of fresh air following an experience of several OD2 offerings; broken downloads were a regular nuisance, but that may have been down to my not having a broadband connection at the time. Its seamless mix of purchasing, downloading and playing impressed me so much that I used no other media player for my music in the days when I almost exclusively used Windows.
Now that I have jumped ship to Linux, having to fire up a Windows VM to hear my music is starting to feel a little over the top. The result is that I am keen to use DRM-free digital music when I can. Because I like to stay legal, it means that I would like to buy DRM-free files on the web. Here, iTunes leaves me down a little, since most of what they offer is locked down, and I have to burn a CD and extract from it to release music from its iTunes-only shackles.
So when I saw on an article on Tech.co.uk that made mention of 7Digital and that they purveyed unlocked music, my interest perked up. The file formats on offer are WMA, MP3 and AAC and there are high quality 320K variants of the latter two of these about too. Only the WMA files have any DRM associated with them. Previewing whole albums is a simple matter of clicking on a single button, a trick that iTunes would do well to learn. Payment using PayPal augments the usual credit card options and any purchases seem to be available for download more than once; pottering over to the My Locker part of your account provides you with access to your purchases, another of its trump cards over iTunes. Downloading is on a file by file basis, though, and it is here that I notice an area usually addressed by a player like iTunes: the ability to download whole albums at once and background directory creation. Not having to have player has one advantage, though: platform independence. Anyway, a spot of shell scripting would resolve any file management gaps. Overall, there's a lot to commend 7Digital, and I wouldn't be surprised if I were to return some time again. It might even usurp iTunes as my digital music store of choice...
iTunes: a resource hog?
1st August 2007When I started to use iTunes, it very much played well with other software applications running. Then, a few versions later, the playback began to suffer with iTunes running in any way other than on its own. A solution that I have is to fire up the Windows Task Manager, go to the Processes tab and find iTunes.exe in the list. The next thing is to right-click on this, select the Set Priority and change the setting to Above Normal. Windows will warn you about what you are doing, even if it usually doesn't cause any other problems. Yes, it sounds a bit extreme, yet it always solves the playback problem.
So long as iTunes is merely playing music, all is well. However, when it starts ripping CD's, it's a wholly different matter. That is a CPU intensive operation, and setting the process priority to Low is an excellent idea. I recently got caught out by a default setting of ripping any music CD inserted into the PC and, at Above Normal priority, the PC got locked up. Eventually, I got things back under control and lowered the priority. Needless to say, iTunes will just list the contents of an inserted CD from now on. I have learnt my lesson; keeping the command line open to get at command line process tools would be a superb idea for the future, especially as I know where to find these on the web.