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I personally feel it is too bad that the Linux community can't agree to build on one graphical environment.

Yes, Linux needs to grow up and have a single, consistant interface, just like Windows. Look at the many products which accept the need for conformance under Windows. Products like Softimage (example) (though they may have an advantage, being owned by Microsoft for a while), LightWave [6] (example, check out the conforming buttons and tabs), and Kai's Power Tools (example)

Media players naturally conform to the standard Windows look and feel. Winamp led the way. Soon there were competitors like K-Jofol and Sonique which felt that they could make their mp3 players conform even better to Windows GUI standards. RealPlayer quickly followed. Apple realized they couldn't rehash the Macintosh interface for QuickTime, and delivered a version that perfectly matched the Windows standard. Not to be out done, Microsoft released a new version of the Windows Media Player which perfectly complied with the Windows standards for interfaces.

Even the next version of Windows, Windows XP, has been carefully crafted to conform to existing standards. With such strong and unwavering leadership, no one would even think of using an alternate shell or replacing the entire widget set.

Thank you, Microsoft, for getting the world to agree on one graphical environment. Thanks to your efforts to end competition, there is no risk of the Windows platform fragmenting into a pile of inconsistent applications, each making their own rules.

Salieri writes, "Ever notice how it's sometimes very difficult to tell which is the real or relevant link in the article write-up? Perhaps the editors can distinguish where the main attraction is." He then clicks preview to make sure the links work.

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here you will see that this does in fact require the "Gold Pass" service. And that yes you do in fact have to have the non-free player to use the gold pass service.

Stallman has stipulated that his interview must be able to be seen by GNU/Linux systems (i.e. just RealVideo is a no-no).

Yeah, I don't have RealPlayer installed on the Linux partition on my home machine, I have to boot another OS on it to run RealPlayer...

...oh, wait, that other OS is FreeBSD, and it's running RealPlayer in Linux emulation.

(I'm not at home right now, so I don't remember which version of RP it is, but I think it was an RP 8 beta - which doesn't seem to have expired.)

Go to Real's home page, click on "RealPlayer" on the bar at the top listing "Download"s, click on "RealPlayer 8 Basic" from that page, and proceed from there. Various Linux versions are available.

Okay, I didn't realize it'd require a port. However, I take offense to your "hostile to free software" comment. Windows has an extensive freeward community

I assume "freeward" is a misspelling for "freeware." In that case, I know about all royalty-free binaries, but most of them are not free software. There's a difference.

OSS software does not need to run on an OSSOS.

But copylefted free software can never be written in Visual Basic, as that would require providing the source code of the MS Visual Basic runtime and releasing it under a compatible license. Tough luck getting Microsoft to comply there. (Or is the VB runtime covered by the operating system exception to the common licenses?)

And there isn't that large of a library of GPL'd Windows software to infect Windows programs with GPL either.

First off, is it me, or does viewing that site on my fbsd box with ns just suck?

"it's anybody's best guess. Therefore, if you use Linux and you agree to the terms and conditions of the GPL, you are-at least to some degree-placing a bet as to the implications of the code that you develop.

We've all seen this argument before, and whats surprising is their is the Open Source movement but not something of like an OpenCode movement, where developers would share code and allow others to better modify their (original programmer's) code which at times can produce better programs. Sure it hasn't been tested in court, and an argument for this would be, many GPL'd code was made on person's own spare time, perhaps as a hobby or pet project. Eitheir or, it would cost a lot for someone coding off of a pet project to rush into court to protect their GPL'd code, and not only that how does GPL based code fall into laws around the globe?

"Let's say you own a company that is building an Ethernet switch. Let's also say your value-add is software, and you have chosen to base your device on Linux. Can you imagine a court case some day that determines that all of the software you've developed falls under the GPL, and is now in the public domain? We fear this situation is impeding development in the embedded open-source arena."

Who really thinks this is an issue many of the big boys including IBM offer code which fall into the GPL that could be, and has likely been used by others as a basis for something better or more stable.

But if you write an embedded application and you link that code to Linux, is that code now subject to the terms and conditions of the GPL? That's what isn't clear."

He answers his own question here how can it not be clear. If he creates an RTOS embedded app linked to Linux, the original code is core, not Linux so why would it fall under GPL, thats sort of like saying Real just let go of their copyrights and patents since their audio/video player is now GPL in essence (at least from what I can muster)

I wish I could speak more but that Elton John, Eminem duo made me wanna puke, I like the original Stan, and the newest Rob Malda version

... My big fear ... is that WMP will become the standard... I've already seen a portable WMP player.

One thing you can try is RealServer. I know that it's not a favourite around here, but they do provide a free 25-stream server which you can download and use on your Linux box. Have your RealServer configured to do realtime streaming from your card (you might need RealProducer too, I'm not sure - a "light" version is available for free as well), and you'll get very acceptable picture/sound with the bandwidth you're talking about.

All that's left is to control the tuner. For that, I'd recommend writing a small CGI script which accepts form input (channel number). That script can just call the appropriate command-line tool with the channel number, thereby changing the channel. The form field can be either in a secure area of a web server you're running, or just on the same page which has the RealPlayer embedded in it. Doesn't matter which, but I suspect that the CGI script is pretty trivial to write.

The only problem with this setup is, of course, that you can only watch one channel at a time. AFAIK your single tuner can't watch several channels, so people sitting on your computers would have to agree what to watch.

Damn. Great idea. Now I want to go ahead and do it myself!

As I said, it does use the Real Player plugin. There is a Unix version available, but I don't know if it will work with Linux. I'm actually going to be taking my second stab at running Linux over the holidays, so needless to say I don't have enough experience to tell you whether or not it will work.

- Stealth Dave
--

There are some services already existing that allow you to do this. Specifically, take a look at the Soundbooth at Wall of Sound, an offering from the Walt Disney Internet Group (formerly GO.com). It has a very cool interface which allows you to choose what types of songs to play on your station, as well as being able to choose specific artists and songs to be played. You can also choose how often these are played when you set them up AND on-the-fly as they are playing.

The bad part is that the player runs off of Real Player which has problems with Netscape 4.x (I haven't tried NS6/Mozilla with this yet, although that's my preferred browser these days). But it is still very cool!

Disclaimer:
For those of you who may not have guessed this already, I do work for the Walt Disney Internet Group, albeit in a completely different division (and building for that matter) than Wall of Sound. But that doesn't make it any less cool! Almost everyone in our department uses it instead of downloading MP3s or listening to CDs. If you like modern rock and classic rock, check the StealthDaveRocks station! (I warned you there would be a shameless plug! ;) Go to the Member Made stations and enter "StealthDaveRocks". I've been using it since the internal beta stages, and I can definitely say it rocks!

Additional Disclaimer:
My opinions are my own, and are not sanctioned by Disney, Bill Nye the Science Guy, or the U.N. Security Council.

- Stealth Dave
--

MSN is featuring the trailer of the Tomb Raider movie on their Windows Media site (300k, 100k, 56k). There's alot of Matrix style action, but the special effects don't look like anything to write home about. Also, it appears no special effects were used make Angelina Jolie look more like Lara Croft. RealVideo version is available here, and the QuickTime version is available on Apple's website.

I think that any government site would beat real.com

Linux/x86

Linux/alpha

UltraLinux (sp*rc)

Linux/ppc

AIX

Irix

Solaris

Unfortunately they don't have quite enough bandwidth for all those streams, so you may get disconnected :(

bill hicks remains relevant years after his death... watch this bit: The War on Drugs

requires RealPlayer .

RealNetworks has a fabulous UNIX development story. We always need interns to do software development and QA. mail us!

BTW: RealPlayer for Unix is available today for the following platforms: Linux i386/PPC/Alpha, Solaris, Irix and AIX, and RealServer is available for Linux/i386, Solaris, Freebsd, Irix, HPUX, and AIX. RealProducer is available for Linux/i386. I know all these projects could use the help of good interns. download them here.

Thanks,
RealNetorks TLC Techlead && RealNetworks Server Devlead.

RealNetworks has a fabulous UNIX development story. We always need interns to do software development and QA. mail us!

BTW: RealPlayer for Unix is available today for the following platforms: Linux i386/PPC/Alpha, Solaris, Irix and AIX, and RealServer is available for Linux/i386, Solaris, Freebsd, Irix, HPUX, and AIX. RealProducer is available for Linux/i386. I know all these projects could use the help of good interns. download them here.

Thanks,
RealNetorks TLC Techlead && RealNetworks Server Devlead.

You will need the latest copy of RealPlayer to play the DnD video link above. Heres the link to save you time.

http://scopes.real.co m/real/player/unix/unix.html?src=rpbform

check it out

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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16

• Some people say that Yamaha's VQF has better quality than MP3 given the same bitrate: http://www.yamaha-xg.com/english/xg/So undVQ/, http://www.vqf.com/
• AAC had some popularity for a while but I haven't heard much about it lately: http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/aac.html
• Many people use shorten for lossless compression: http://www.softsound.com/Shorten.html
• Some proprietary formats:
• Windows media: http://www.mi crosoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/download/defau lt.asp
• Liquid audio: http://www.liquidaudio.com/
• Realplayer G2: http://www.real.com

The spirit of Open Source is to document protocols and specifications such that programmers can code to them in whatever method is their precedence (not to steal others' code and later play Ronald Reagan's "I can't recollect" game, incidentally). The spirit of Open Source is to respond to go from "There's no program that does X!" to "I'll write a program that does X". The spirit of Open Source is to achieve flexibility in one's work and not have to go through the "This program [no specifics mentioned] doesn't do what I want, but it's the standard" runaround.

In short, you have greatly misunderstood the spirit of Open Source. Personally, I think Mitch L and company have done us a much better service than any "real programs" ever would.

Me, I'm waiting to be able to buy a Linux version of RealPlayer Plus with the recording problems fixed, so I can record an hour of an overseas news station and improve my foreign language skills...and I need the ads too, so that's not an issue either.

Anyway I was told to price solutions for producing audio and video content. Windows Media encoder and the server is free with IIS and RealProducts are EXPENSIVE.

I want the ease of WMP in WMP format on the stability of *nix/BSD. Oh and free too.

Real offers the free "basic version" of Realserver 7 for Red Hat and its clones. &nbsp Catch is that you're limited to 25 streams (and something else is missing, I think). &nbsp I have it running on Mandrake 6.5 and Red Hat 6.1 and although I haven't really put it through its paces, it's still a nice piece of work - and for free! &nbsp To do the live streams, you need RealProducer 7, which they also offer as a free basic version for Linux. &nbsp This product is unfortunately beta (or better, alpha) and needs a little work - but I'll putz around with it some more.

The one reason why I prefer Real's products is the fact that you have more granular management of bandwidth consumption - critical for dial-in users with slow modems, and I've seen some WMP stuff that is REALLY crap! &nbsp You also get a real nice web interface to configure and graphically monitor the server.

As an ISP, I expect that you'd obviously have far more than 25 simultaneous streams, but if you distribute 25-stream licenses across several cheap Linux boxes, you'd save yourself some bucks... &nbsp It would probably make sense to distribute this kind of stuff anyway.

Anyway I was told to price solutions for producing audio and video content. Windows Media encoder and the server is free with IIS and RealProducts are EXPENSIVE.

I want the ease of WMP in WMP format on the stability of *nix/BSD. Oh and free too.

Real offers the free "basic version" of Realserver 7 for Red Hat and its clones. &nbsp Catch is that you're limited to 25 streams (and something else is missing, I think). &nbsp I have it running on Mandrake 6.5 and Red Hat 6.1 and although I haven't really put it through its paces, it's still a nice piece of work - and for free! &nbsp To do the live streams, you need RealProducer 7, which they also offer as a free basic version for Linux. &nbsp This product is unfortunately beta (or better, alpha) and needs a little work - but I'll putz around with it some more.

The one reason why I prefer Real's products is the fact that you have more granular management of bandwidth consumption - critical for dial-in users with slow modems, and I've seen some WMP stuff that is REALLY crap! &nbsp You also get a real nice web interface to configure and graphically monitor the server.

As an ISP, I expect that you'd obviously have far more than 25 simultaneous streams, but if you distribute 25-stream licenses across several cheap Linux boxes, you'd save yourself some bucks... &nbsp It would probably make sense to distribute this kind of stuff anyway.

I have much experience in this area. I run a hosting company that has built High Availability into the design of the network. Using Linux Virtual Server as a load balancer allows us to scale very easily and provides maximum uptime and speed. For scalability, to add more resources, we simple add new servers behind the LVS. The LVS is a patch to the linux kernel, so it performs very fast and it provides a layer of security, since you can forward only the ports that you want to. LVS has several different algorithms for scheduling which server gets each request.

Also, using the Roxen WebServer provides great performance for dynamic content. Roxen has built in database features that perform very well, for instance, roxen will keep the database connection open for fast access. Roxen will also allow you to write scripts that run very quickly because they get read into the roxen process memory the first time they execute, and they never have to be called again (no forking). Or, you can get away from CGI all together and write your own roxen modules that run internally in the server and add functionality. Roxen also has it's own built in markup language called RXML that includes tags for doing database queries, creating images on the fly, and many more. Bottom line, Roxen gives you the ability to do anything you want with your web server, and still give you the best performance possible.

For example, we have developed smtp and pop servers that run internally in the web servers. Our design allows us to load balance all of our services. The mail server also uses mysql to manage all the messages, email accounts, and aliases. None of the email accounts actually have system user accounts on the servers (higher security and easier to manage). Also, we get better performance out of the mail server, because instead of writing to files for mailboxes, it writes to a database. This is much easier to manage in an environment such as the hosting industry where we must maintain many domains and users.

I was an Apache user for many years, until I discovered Roxen in mid 1998. And I would never go back. I have experience running thousands of web sites, using this concept, successfully.

I also know that Real Networks uses Roxen as there web server and development environment. Maybe, somebody from there can post a comment about there experiences as well.

Actually, it does. I'm watching it at the moment. You can get RealPlayer G2 from here. This actually has all the old versions of RealPlayer.
Don't forget you need a 16-bit sound card, otherwise it won't work (personal experience having used one which Linux treated as 8-bit).

You may download Real G2 here. And Flash player can be found here (if the link works, else search the macromedia webpage).

http://proforma.real.com/real /player/linuxplayer.html

It's an Alpha. Expect it to be buggy.

This isn't listed on their download page, but is mirrored on ftp sites worldwide.

Real Player Download Form

The rpm version filename is G2player-6.0-0.99092901.i386.rpm which can easily be found through FTP Search

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I'm not a real anonymous coward, I just play one on TV.

RealPlayer G2 is available for Linux here, although Real keeps it pretty well hidden.

This is an alpha version, don't expect perfection. But it did work on the G2 version of this video for me.

The G2 version works with the G2 Alpha player for Linux. You can get it from http://proforma.real.com/real /player/linuxplayer.html.

Do you use Red Hat or Mandrake? If so, that could be the cause of your "Error 1" problems (something about Red Hat causes it to mess up) You'll have to download a beta of G2 from here to play ra files.

I don't know, why don't you download it, follow the installation instructions, and try again.

I've been using the G2 player for months. Sure, they call it "alpha", but it is better then the Windows port, almost. Download and install.

Rant all you want about RealNetworks, but at least they have a Linux version of their player, more than I can say for the next leading competitor in low bitrate streaming media (i.e. Windows Media Technology). Linux is also the base OS for the development of the RealServer.

I do understand Real's need to "encourage" people to purchase the RealPlayerPlus, because they need to make money to keep up the excellent low-bitrate R&D they've been doing. Unlike Microsoft, they can't just chalk it up to selling more NT Server software.

I just loaded it under Opera 3.60 on Win98 with no problems. It did point out that I'm missing RealPlayer G2 and Macromedia Flash Player though.

Loading under IE5 on Win95 (I have to VNC for the Opera machine) it installed VB Scripting and still provided the same message. The only difference I could see between the two was the extra colours because I was VNCing in 8bit mode.

Now linux: VNC in 8 bit mode again (Netscape 4.51/Export). I certainly see what you mean, it tells me this.

I especially love the button on the bottom of that page ("Return to fox.com - just bounces you back again!)

Tried changing the User Agent string (using junkbuster) to Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98) without success. Looked at the code and noticed that it's all done with Javascript. Turned off javascript - now the document "contains no data".

Decided I don't really want to see fox.comanyway!

Oh - lynx version 2.8.1rel.2 just gives [EMBED] for / and blank for /frameset.html.

Me neither.

-- R.

There is a difference between failing to mention something and keeping something a secret. Unfortunately, most privacy activists fail to realize this difference, and so it becomes the custom to assume that whenever somebody fails to mention something, it automatically means they are attempting to keep it a secret.

Yes, there is a difference. However, considering that Real has a privacy statement on their page--a long, legal document which for talks in great detail about how they gather personal information when you resister their products, and the use of GUIDs when you request realvideo content from their servers, but very noticably and egregiously does NOT mention the fact that they log every CD and mp3 you play from your own computer--we can pretty easily conclude that this is a deliberate secret. Now, IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that any time a company puts a legal document like a privacy policy up for public perusal, it can legally be considered to imply that it is reasonably complete. The fact that they ommitted the teensy weensy fact that they log every action you preform every time you use their software seems like a clear cut case of deception to me.

The fact that they ommitted it from the license agreement you need to agree to when installing RealJukebox is even more clearly illegal.

As for anyone wondering why this information could possibly be so dangerous...consider the recording industry's probable response to the mp3 revolution: watermarking. For those who don't know, watermarking is a plan to put a little electronic signature (don't worry; it won't interfere with the music quality *too* much) in every song a record label wants to sell digitally. That way, the story goes, the record labels could track the progress of these songs as they get illegally copied and passed around, and can sue people who put them up for free download, or some such thing. Point is, it was a pretty flimsy story, and it certainly didn't threaten the average user who just played mp3s off his or her local drive...until now.

I'm sure, Fastolfe, this qualifies me as a paranoid delusional, but has anyone considered the possibilities when you combine software which reads watermarks (which future versions of RealJukebox will if they don't already, pretty much by definition), software which compiles registered information (your name, address, and email) and assigns you a GUID, and software which secretly (or maybe it just does it "without telling you about it; there's a difference") sends all pertinent information about the mp3s you're playing...

Yep, that's right: suddenly, if they want to (that is, if they pay Realnetworks enough money), any record label can obtain a list--names, emails, and addresses--of a substantial fraction of those people who have pirated mp3s on their hard drives.

Wow.

Damn. And the fact that their site is signed off by Truste makes it even worse. All of this makes me want to vomit. Oh well; at least I never used the damn thing cause it stayed resident in memory and crashed all the time. In any case, that sucker's uninstalled for good.

-David

Yes.

From their README

INSTALLER AND PLAYER EXPIRATION

These versions of the Installer and the Alpha 2 RealPlayer G2 will expire on March 15, 2000.

We encourage you to visit http://www.real.com/products prior to that date to download a new version of the RealPlayer G2 for Unix, as newer versions of the product will be available far in advance of this expiration date.

BTW, has anyone checked whether this version expires?

BTW, has anyone checked whether this version expires?

Well, since Real has native players for several Unix flavors there is no need for something that pretends to be one.
---

It's a real player file, you know, the program that plays Real Audio and Real Video. I'm not sure if it runs on Sparc, but you can check it at www.real.com.

Kudos to Cara at Public Relations and the technical support people for going to bat for us Linux folks.

For the new version, go to Real Player G2 Download Site

To install the driver:

• Load X Windows
• Start an xterm session as root
• chmod +x g2a1_linux22.bin
• ./g2a1_linux22.bin
• That's it.

I would love to, but my copy of the G2 alpha for Linux expired yesterday and I can't spot a new one on the Real web site.

I'm not sure why this was marked offtopic, but this was the issure I faced when trying to find something under real audio's web site that would run Linux. I found the link off freshmeat for the download. Its a bloated 4.5 megabyte rpm, typical of proprietary software. Why people do not wish to use something slightly more accessable and reasonable on resources, such as mp3's is beyond me.

not open source or free OR linux-based, but it'll encode up to 320Kbps, and it can record up to 7x the speed of playback, depending on your machine (don't know whether it'll be much slower to encode at high bit rate or not)...plus it grabs the track name from CDDB. here 'tis...

This is something that I would really like to see. I surfed around, and found that this is something that is on cURL's wish-list. There is a reference implementation at real.com licensed under the GPL. The RTSP spec should be easy to find. I looked at the code; it doesn't look trivial.

http:/ /rochester.real.com/showcase/g2audio/jive/wierd_al /wierdal_starwars.rm

Linux RealPlayer G2 Alpha

Daniel Butler