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iTunes For Linux, Thanks To CodeWeavers
pizen writes "The folks over at CNet have the scoop that a new version of CrossOver Office (3.1) now supports Apple's iTunes. The preview version of the software is being tested and is currently only available to current CodeWeavers customers. They expect a final version to be available later this year." Reader snowtigger contributes a link to this screenshot. White demonstrated iTunes on a Linux machine at OSCON as well; a rendering glitch marred that demo, but he was still able to demonstrate playing back a song which he'd purchased from iTMS using iTunes on Linux.
Apple haven't sued Codeweavers over QuickTime under GNU/Linux so why would they do it over this?
It's running whatever software Apple offer. No DRM is being tampered with.
I think they will worry far more about RealNetworks than this.
Join the Free Software Foundation
The CodeWeavers people are pretty cool about contributing back their code changes. Their product as such is more or less a way to make wine's configuration "just work"
You mean that he purchased from iTMS using iTunes on Windows on Linux?
What about gtkpod?
iTunes is not an X windows app. That's why porting it to Linux won't be much easier than porting to Windows.
Oh and the parent is moderated interesting! No it's not it's rubbish. Repeat after me Aqua is not X! CoreAudio is not ALSA (or OSS)!!!
Yes Mac OS X has got BSD kernel, but 95% of things above that level (exlcluding OpenGL) are proprietary Apple stuff and so a nearly full blown port is requeried from Mac OS X to Linux! Nowadays programs like iTunes use more then fopen(...); and printf(...).
Serious question, as I have no system capable of running iTunes smoothly. What's so good about iTunes? If you don't intend to buy an iPod or music from the iTMS, is there anything special about iTunes that other music players don't have?
No, they aren't. X11 is completely separate from Aqua/Quartz. One of the many reasons why you need either Xfree86 or Apple's modified X11 to run X applications. Additionally, like the grandparent said, iTunes is based on Carbon, which is separate from the BSD subsystem. For the most part, OS X uses BSD for its kernel and services only: all Mac OS X native programs are written in Cocoa, Carbon, or Java.
"You know, I've never found artists not getting a very big cut as a good excuse to not pay them at all.."
Talk about your erroneous, false conclusions. I wasn't referring to iTunes as an alternative to Kazaa, but I was pointing out that it's funny that so many people are excited about the opportunity to buy low-quality DRM'd music on Linux (like their Windows counterparts).
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have an inherent right to music, just like the RIAA has no right to sales. Listen to non RIAA bands, or go out and make your own music.....
I should have a right to the music I have paid for though. That's what anti-DRM people are usually complaining about.
Don't tell anybody, but this happens under Mac OS and Windows also.
Just because you can re-route audio that doesn't mean you are breaking the DRM. Apple knows about all of these methods and has only done a pro forma job at closing them off. Basically, Apple needs to be able to tell the RIAA "We're making sure the music is uncopyable." so that the RIAA will continue to sign distribution contracts with Apple.
Don't make a big deal that you can create DRM-less copies of iTunes Music Store Music and its most likely that Apple won't bother you. Remember that Steve Jobs was the one who said, "Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails."
Sapere aude!
The AAC codec in iTunes is now excellent and really takes on all comers. The one biggest feature for me is the ability to transcode from WAV-->AIFF-->AAC-->MP3 with just the click of a button. It makes keeping a reference copy of your collection in uncompressed form very easy and desireable because you can easily automate the process to rip for portable use and smaller sizes. Smart Playlists make this even easier.
easytag. It has a parser that can fill in id3-tags from the filename, or the other way around (rename files to match id3-info). The parser is quite flexible, using user-provided patterns. So for example if the files where named like ARTIST_ALBUM_SONGNAME.mp3 you'd provide easytag with the pattern {artist}_{album}_{title}.mp3 and have it work as expected. Also supports looking up info from cddb aswell as specifying manually as a last resort.
You know, if you look outside of KDE apps they can be quite good. RhythmBox is a competent iTunes clone though gstreamer is still a bit immature - for now you may wish to use the Xine backend. If you're looking for something truly fresh then Muine has an innovative, unique (afaik) interface especially suitable for lots of albums. It doesn't do net radio though: it's purely for playing back music. Other downside is that it requires Mono. It works nicely however, in my limited experience.
The reason your ID3 tags look messed up is because you only put track information into the ID3v1 tags and not the ID3v2 tags. ID3v2 being what most players use for song information nowadays
All is not lost however, you can turn off ID3v2 support in XMMS under the MP3 decoder options. XMMS will then read the song information from the ID3v1 tags and your problem will be fixed in a snap.
Cocoa apps are, in theory, not hard to port over to GNU Step unless they use a lot of the new features. GNU Step apps can usually just be tweaked a bit and recompiled as Cocoa apps.
That's all well and good, but like the parent said, iTunes is written in Carbon, which is like the old OS 9 api's, so it doesn't use ANY of the bsd like api's for anything.
What does Juk have over iTunes as far as managing you music collection?
iTunes is free (like Juke)
iTunes is on v4.6 with the accompanying stability and polish
iTunes has sound normalization
iTunes has song ratings
iTunes plays CDs, internet radio, and streaming music from other computers
iTunes rips songs
Unless there's a version of Juk I don't know of... Juk doesn't rip songs or play CDs?
GPL Deconstructed
i use juk (kde app) to listen to my music, and i used it to rename all the chilli peppers songs of one of their albums (files named properly, but id3 tags were like 01 - unknown or similar. under juk, click tagger > guess tag information > from filename.
it worked out the correct id3 tags perfectly
JuK is painfully slow with 600+ albums...
No.
1. There's two title bars. The windows one with the "_ [ ] X" buttons and then the (X)(-)(+) one from the Linux.
2. How do I know the second title bar is Linux? The controls are on the right side.
...and that's all there is to it.
GtkPod is an excellent program for managing the iPod but the authors make no claims regarding iTunes, which of course they would never be granted access to in any case. Apple controls the iTunes commerce channel.
<pedantic>Actually, Cocoa, Carbon and Swing are the frameworks you can use. Java, Objective-C, AppleScript, Python and Perl (and more every day) are languages you may choose from in order to target those frameworks.</pedantic>
Cocoa and Carbon are both considered 'native', though. For a new project, the only real choice is wether you want to go procedural and target Carbon or OO and target Cocoa. Legacy code bases will naturally choose Carbon to leverage existing code, but there are virtually no differences in capabilities (now - there were) between the two frameworks now.
In fact, most of the Cocoa objects use the same low level data structures and functions under the hood as the Carbon framework - so much so that Apple offers 'Toll Free Bridging' between the types. An NSString object can be swapped with a CFString reference without having to convert it at all. The idea here is to encourage 'hybrid' Cocoa/Carbon applications - but the the fact that this works proves that there isn't much difference under the hood between the frameworks.
The advantage of using the Cocoa framework is simply being able to use Objective C (very funky at first, but very cool language) and an extremely elegant framework that does most everything you might need with minimal work. If you're starting a new project, you should be using Cocoa. It's fast, powerful and is Apple's Wave Of The Future. I don't expect Carbon to go away any time soon (you try telling Adobe that they have to rewrite Photoshop from scratch), but I do expect lack of effort at some point. This doesn't mean that Carbon is somehow non-native.
iTunes is a legacy application (released initially for OS 9), therefore it was started on the Carbon framework. However, a LOT of the refinements Apple developed using iTunes (alternating row colors on lists, split views, controls in table cells, etc) has made it down into the frameworks and are now available to both Cocoa and Carbon.
PS - Interesting tidbit: The Finder was initially a (badly) modified Carbon application when OS X was first released. It was re-written in Cocoa for 10.2, and I believe it is the ONLY Apple application that has made that transition. It's either a testament to the simplicity of the Finder (right) or the power of Cocoa (likely) that they were able to change so easily. Not that I don't have my gripes...
Culture is more than commerce
Actually, it's still in carbon. Very easy test: attempt to execute an operation that would normally hang Finder (emptying the trash, etc.). Notice the wait cursor you get (hint: it'll alternate between the pinwheel and the stopwatch). Unless the developer has added the stop watch resource into the program (which Apple hasn't), the stopwatch is a legacy wait indicator from OS 9 and Carbon.
If that is indeed the problem, under the Advanced menu in iTunes, you can batch convert any number of files to a newer (or older) version if ID3 tags, v2 included. It will copy over all information as necessary.
It wasn't ported. The iTunes code was not touched. It runs on top of a layer, there is no infringement.
Wow - you're right. I could have sworn I heard Apple trumpeting about that change, but I seem to have mixed one of those silly rumors with real life. Damned pre-coffee posts.
That only strengthens my original point, though - with the only difference being that Apple hasn't moved any of their applications from one framework to the other. Apple themselves treat Carbon and Cocoa as equals and the proof is in the Applications they develop.
Culture is more than commerce
Winamp's ID tag editing functionality is a pale, wan ghost of what iTunes can do. This is the specific reason why I now use iTunes. I don't use Winamp as a video player because it is a spectacularly crappy one, so iTunes fits my needs very nicely. I like being able to rate songs and see when I last played them right in the playlist, but for all I know WA5 might do that. I have WA5 but I haven't bothered to install it because WA2 plays shoutcast streams just fine, and the first time I installed WA5 (version 5.0 as opposed to 5.0x) it wouldn't work, I'd try to run it and it just never started. Maybe I jumped the gun but from that experience I decided that nullsoft has lost its thunder and I should stick with the old winamp for my shoutcast needs. :P
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It's bulk changes that attract me to iTunes as opposed to winamp, because I can select a range of files and ID them at the same time. For example I can select all the songs by a given band and set the artist and genre, then I can break it down into albums and set the total number of tracks, album name, and year, then I can set track numbers one at a time and so on. It's not as good as using a dedicated tagger but I just want to tag from inside my player. The only thing I don't like about iTunes (besides the amazing slowness, at least on windows) is that the list jumps to the current song when the current song changes. That is really, really stupid.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Indeed.
http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/
I use it all the time to view movie trailers and the like.
http://crossover.codeweavers.com/pipermail/announ
Hopefully it will be added soon so I can rid myself of Windows once and for all.
Just downloaded the latest alpha, and installed iTunes, but the pulldown menus are kinda b0rked (common with not-quite-there Crossover/Wine apps). It's a step forward, though. I find XMMS perfectly useable, and with the LongPlayer companion app, i have a great random jukebox, on par with iTunes w/ Party Shuffle.
The DRM in iTunes is contained wholly in the encryption around the raw AAC stream. DeDRMS decrypts it and gives it to you exactly as it was before, but unprotected. That's breaking the DRM. The decompressed pcm is by no means as useful as the original file; you can't compress it again with a lossy algorithm without it sounding like crap. By recording the data sent to the dac, at worst you're breaking the license -- but what's it matter, Apple lets you burn any song an unlimited number of times.
You can even use public QuickTime API functions to decompress encrypted songs.
karma: ouch!
I understand that you may want to keep your own organization for your music files, but it so happens that your set up is identical to the one used by iTunes!
Yes, in the iTunes folder you will find a subfolder called iTunes Music. In it, every artist has one folder, with a subfolder for each album. Additionally, there is a folder for albums that are compilations of songs from different artists, and some artists have an "Unknown Album" subfolder for the files with empty Album tags.
Now, if you insist on doing it the hard way, I believe that you can simply drop your whole collection into iTunes every time. I haven't tested it (as I let iTunes organize my music), but I believe that it won't even try to re-link what has already been linked.
Well, as you are an AC I believe that I Have Been Trolled.
One caveat of this system that you do not take into consideration is compilation albums. I have Soundtracks for example that have various artists; and I do *not* want iTunes breaking these into artist folders, when they are sound tracks, or other compilations.
SB.
If you make the "Part of a Compilation" option "Yes" then it puts all the songs in a folder of the album's name under the folder Compilations.
The problem is the signal is already decompressed by the time it gets to the sound card driver. "Breaking iTunes' DRM" means getting access to the unencrypted compressed sound data. There is no known way to recover the AAC compressed source from the decompressed version--to preserve the same sound quality as the original iTMS file you have to recompress lossless (which creates a much larger file)--if you just recompress as AAC or MP3 you will lose quality from the roundtrip, although presumably this is fine for some. Basically, iTMS DRM is supposed to guarantee that you cannot create a unencumbered small file of the same quality from your downloaded songs, plus put a convenience barrier to discourage casual file swapping.
if you tick "compilation" in the info/id3 pane in itunes, it creates a artist directory called "compilations" and puts the album, then the tracks in there (the file names do not have the artist tho... iirc)
"compilations" also comes up as an artist in the browse section
*however* (and this annoys me muchly) this is not replicated on the ipod - the ipod ignores "compilations" altogether and u get a billion artists in the artist browse list
to get around this i give compilations "compilation" as the artist and name the song "artist - song name" and soundtracks have "soundtrack" as the artist
its a bit crap but u only have to do this for the ipod, not if all u use is itunes