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Rhythmbox Gets iPod Support
Bhondai writes "The latest release of the popular GNOME based iTunes clone, Rhythmbox has, amongst new features, initial support for the iPod. Things are still a little unpolished at this moment (requiring manual mounting of the iPod to /mnt/ipod), but this does look promising. A list of changes and new features in Rhythmbox 0.7.1 is available at Footnotes."
Well I guess it does but despite the trollish title, I wonder if it on-the-fly convert OGG to MP3 when it transfer tunes to the ipod ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I remember speaking to one of the developers in the IRC channel specifically about this. Their response was "write a gnome-vfs module for it."
Granted they had a point, but that isn't as seamless as a solution if you ask me. It's about time gnome had a good ipod solution.
- tristan
As in automatic mounting and unmounting, syncing with multiple devices and so on, rather than remain unpolished like so many Linux projects. I remember trying to sync a USB Clie with Linux and, although programs like kpilot were out for a while, they still required manual commands in a terminal window to work.
what's so impressive about this? If you have to manually mount the ipod, then the only new feature is a front-end for "cp" and "ls". Anyone care to enlighten me?
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
Have anybody tried this yet and know how well supported it is?
Does it work just like a usual mp3 player (have to copy manually) or can you sync your entire library to it (like you do with iTunes)? What about syncing playlists?
And I couldn't find the README.iPod file in the 0.7.1 source.. anyone know where I can find it?
This was the one of two things holding me back from moving to Linux, as I use my iPod and iTunes a great deal on Windows. The second thing is the ability to import iTunes library data (which is conveniently stored in a nice XML file) into Rhythmbox. That way I can migrate from iTunes to Rythmbox with little trouble. That last feature would make the deal for me. I'd like to move my x86 machines to Linux and save up to get a nice Mac too. =)
Before we get this important feature Linux cannot make serious inroads in the corporate desktop market. It's not even a complex feature, just requires linking to libxml and some 500 lines of code. I made a patch for this myself but the RhythmBox developers rejected it claiming they don't want any more dependencies (libxml), but I believe the real reason is that they don't want to touch DRM. But the fact is musicians can't work for free and at some point we need to start paying or the whole industry will die.
I've been using this from CVS for about a month, and it only reads from the ipod. Write support is planned for the future.
/mnt/ipod/ will do nothing but store it on the iPod hd. You won't be able to play it
In response to the comment about cp/ls - the iPod uses a proprietary database (iTunesDB) to store meta-information, so cp *mp3
This is not innovation. Instead of looking at proprietary software and saying "let's do that!", developers with free time for GUI software should innovate. You heard me. Apple has developer mindshare not because of iTunes, but because it comes up with things like iTunes before anyone else does.
... meh. I run OS X on my desktop these days. I'd rather use the original iTunes. I can't recompile it, but I don't need to. I'm not saying OS X is the pinnacle of anything, just that in the end the GPL isn't as important to me as the feeling of a coherent, not-totally-derivative interface. (And yes, I know Apple's interface is derivative. It just isn't *as* derivative.)
For all the talk of GPL != theft, there sure are a lot of clones of non-free software out there. Sometimes that's convenient for interoperability, but it's always a bad idea as a strategy -- it's just playing catchup. If Gnome, say, had said "let's make a really really good music player, with integration for everything useful and a nice interface" in 1999, it would be a lot more credible on the desktop. But no, the open-source world as a community waited and then imitated.
There are only a few GPL GUI apps that took a reasonably original idea (or reasonably original selection of ideas, to be fair, because most "original" software is made up of well-documented ideas) and did it well. In fact, I said "a few" to cover my ass -- I can't think of any at all.
Sigh. This is sounding more like a troll than I wanted. I guess it is one. I'm just disappointed. One reason I switched to Linux way back when is that it seemed fresh -- it might suck a bit, but it was justifiable and tolerable suck. It would get better fact, I assumed, and it would get better in strange, unheard-of ways. It sort of did. Mostly it didn't. Now it's just trying to look more like Microsoft and Apple's stuff.
How many Aqua GTK themes, now? And they *all* missed the point. It's not about pinstripes. Even Apple started backtracking on the pinstripes a bit. Pinstripes are the chrome, guys. Sticking them on GTK just gives you a ricecar*. What RealPlayer is to marketing, the Linux desktop today is to nerdery. In both cases, atypical users are making bizarre assumptions about what more ordinary users might like. RealPlayer had the advantage of early adoption. Linux has no advantage. It's judged on its merits, and its desktop merits for non-developers are slim to nil. Huge friendly transparent PNG icons don't matter. You gotta make it feel friendly yet solid. Solid yet friendly. Meditate on that for a while.
You don't get that pleasant-yet-stable feeling from clones. You just don't. It's like translated poetry, or the book of a movie. It misses the important parts and makes a big deal out of the boring stuff.
The GIMP is a clone (and if you don't believe it, compare things like the order of the layer transparency menu to Photoshop's). Sodipodi is suck. The only good video editing software isn't GPL. Blender couples the simplicity of emacs with the interface of vim. XMMS is a clone. OGG Vorbis is a conceptual clone -- it may not share any code with MP3, but you can't tell me it isn't essentially an "oh, yeah, we can do it too" situation, even if it's for all the best reasons. OpenOffice is complete garbage: it's ugly and unstable compared to the ten-year-old wopro my Mac Classic runs.
Okay, so there's Nautilus. That's the only thing that's really pushing any part of the envelope as a desktop app. And maybe Kudzu. Other than that, it's just a little chrome on Xerox PARC, Microsoft, and Apple.
This saddens me. I don't like it. Sometimes I try to do something about it, but
Come on, guys. Let's see some GUI innovation already. Or is it already there and I'm just not noticing? Name some software that's:
0. GPL.
1. Useful.
2. Pleasant to use.
3. Not an instantly recognizable clone of something non-GPL.
4. Stable.
* Spelling intentional. Google it. In short, a lousy car decked out to look fast. Equivalent to "polished turd".
The idea of an iTunes clone makes me sort of nervous. If Apple made such a blatant clone of a flagship OSS project, and made it closed-source, wouldn't they be torn to shreds by angry Slashdotters? I thought were were supposed to be innovating here, not copying. And yes, I'm aware that in a sense Apple has done exactly that with BSD, but that's allowed under the license, and they've been goo about giving back (so far). (Same with KHTML.) Just imagine that RhythmBox came -first-, and -then- Steve Jobs announced iTunes. I bet there would be some fuss.
For Apple Legal to smack this project down. Apple Legal doesn't seem to striking fear into the hearts of many like it used to. Personally I think Apple could benefit from porting iTunes to Linux (Does it work under WINE?) Also what's the chance of this project implementing FairPlay?
Are you secure enough in your masculinity to run 'man touch'?
Please, please, please can you change the slashdot GNOME logo? The one currently being used on Slashdot was phased out years ago.
I've had some minor issues with RhythmBox over time. For starters, I'm pushing a general gnome question across here... does every app automatically work with ESD? It seems like there should be a direct OSS or Alsa option, particularly for those of us with good cards and hardware mixing. RhythmBox I find to be slow at startup when playing mp3s, that is, every time I start to play an mp3 it not only slows and pauses for a second, but slows my entire system. I'm not sure what the issue with this is, but it's noticeable in every single release I've tried (stable and development). Lastly, I'd just like to say that I think GTKPod is an excellent solution for iPod users on Linux, it's what I've been using all along and seems to work great with a lot of features. I'd really like to start using RhythmBox, but until I can get decent audio playback out of it and it's features can match GTKPod I guess I'm sticking with Beep Media Player and GTKPod.
...
With your spelling capacity, it probably was because you typed "rm hte box *.mp3" Anyways, your statement is crap, RhythmBox doesn't write to mp3 files, so it can't hose them.
There are much more Linux applications for portable MP3 players, not only for the Apple iPod but for the Creative Nomad Jukebox, Diamond Rio 500 and more.
Yeah, yeah - and in Soviet Russia iPods mount you...
--
This sig is inoffensive.
Rhythmbox has a lot of promise, but they need to slow down for a second and fix the bugs which are preventing people to use what could be a really killer app.
transmission_err
...creating perl, python and ruby. This is, IMO, where the real OSS innovation lies - Linux itself is a clone.
But this could all be a stage in development. There will be cutting edge stuff in the future I'm sure. But remember, while you're innovating your socks off, to *steal* from the best.
h
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
It's kind of ironic that their homepage banner shows rhythmbox playing "Bring Me to Life" by Evanesence.
Seeing as their server is on its way to being Slashdotted, maybe a better choice of Evanesence song would have been "Going Under?"
My understanding of the speed difference is that FireWire is a smarter technology that has more processing power built in. As such, it can maintain a higher transfer rate more consistently. Whereas USB is dumb and needs to talk with the processor to work, as such, if there are other processes running while transferring, USB will slow down. Of course, I just read that on /., so it's probably wrong ;-)
Robert Love frequently blogs about his progress on Project Utopia - which aims to bring all these udev, HAL, dbus and gnome-volume-manager components together in one integrated, device-plugin-happy whole.
See his various weblog entries on Project Utopia from januari for a sneak preview.
Don't forget Hastings's Law:
Before you can advance the state of the art, you have to reach the state of the art.
Rhythmbox is shaping up nicely, but don't forget that it really hasn't been aroud all that long. The Rhythmbox developers might do amazing, crazy things with it, but that will have to wait until they lay the foundation by adding the features people need, first. iPod owners need iPod support.
Consider the GNOME desktop itself. At the time it was started, KDE was already working and useful, and Windows already had years of evolution. GNOME has been playing catch-up for years!
I'd say the GNOME desktop is now in many ways state-of-the-art, the major exception being the File Open and File Save dialogs. I personally also think it is essential to have some kind of "device manager" that lets you browse your hardware (see what IRQs are in use, see whether the system thinks you have USB 1.1 ports or 2.0, etc.); that's coming very soon (HAL plus DBUS plus an application and boom, you have it). So GNOME is a few short steps away from the state of the art, and will soon be able to push it forward. GNOME Storage looks interesting, for example.
Despite the efforts of Microsoft and Apple, the desktop really isn't a swiftly moving target. Most innovations (e.g. ActiveDesktop) weren't useful or popular, and have been dropped; the ones that were kept are all easy to do. Within a short time, both GNOME and KDE will be caught up to the state of the art. And that is when advances become possible.
Note, however, that sometimes the state of the art is adequate, and there is no reason to push beyond it. Cars still have a steering wheel, a gas pedal, and a brake pedal, after how many years? Why not a gamepad interface with little thumb joysticks? Answer: people are used to what we have; people like what we have; it ain't broken, so don't fix it. The current desktop model, multiple overlapping windows with some sort of panel where you can see what you have running, is well-established and popular.
Still, if you want to do something completely different, it's easier than ever now. You don't have to build a whole desktop, you can focus on just changing the behavior of one piece of an already-built desktop. You want something shockingly new? Build it and see if anyone likes it. If it really is cool, people will help you. Even if you aren't a coder, mock up some screenshots and show them around.
I won't be helping you though, sorry. I'm pretty pleased with GNOME and the way it's going already.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely