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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.
This is has honestly been the only reason that I still boot up in Windows.
Also seems I not the only one:
"iTunes has been our No. 1 most requested application," CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White said in a statement.
And presumably a free open source version cannot be far behind? Now, if I can just take this opportunity to ask the iTunes people to please add some (a lot) more to their back catalogue then the world will become perfect.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I have been in love with iTunes since I first used it in Windows late last year, I have all my music in it, and allow it to keep everything organized. While in Windows, everything is nice and neat and tidy, however, as soon as i switched to Linux and loaded up my tunes in XMMS, or Juk, or Kaffeine or any other multimedia player, all the titles and ID3 tags would look messed up.
While some of the open source projects out there have been doing a great job emulating iTunes, none have yet to duplicate the easy of use and great interface that Apple gives us. I wouldn't say this is the only reason why I use Windows, but I would say that while in Linux, I rarely listen to any of my music because I find it too difficult.
Thank you code weavers, and I will be looking forward to the release.
tourettes
Cheers,
Ian
Which OS? I used to use Tag&Rename when I ran my music stuff under Windows - excellent program. Don't know for Linux, and under OS X I just use iTunes to manage stuff.
Cheers,
Ian
Don't tell anybody, but this must actually break the iTunes DRM good and hard. CrossOverOffice almost certainly uses a standard Linux sound driver to get the sound data to the sound chip. This is bound to mean /dev/dsp, which is "hackable" in the sense that anyone with root access can snarf the digital audio data between when it gets decrypted by iTunes and when it gets sent to the sound chip. You can then make unlimited unencumbered copies. Additionally, knowing that the file was uncompressed from lossy AAC compression, it should be possible to recompress it in such a way as exactly to recover the original compressed file, just sans DRM encumbrance.
The same would, of course, also go for any successful attempt to run Windows Media Player under Linux.
DRM is a pipe dream. There is a fundamental physical reason why it will never work, though a formal mathematical proof escapes me right now. It's time to stop trying to do the impossible, even if that means having to swallow the unpalatable.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Why Apple Needs iTunes for Linux.. PHP-Nuke As of Late, I have been looking into buying an ipod, they are so cute and sexy, but I cant get over the fact that I cant download music legally for it. You might ask me, why cant you go onto Apple's iTunes and pay for your music, well because THEY DONT support Linux! I have been using Linux for the last 5 years and I feel that it is the perfect desktop for me. It has loads of functionality and it always seems like things are getting updated, so it feels like a new experience every time I turn on my computer. (most people don't like that, but it keeps me productive). I have everything I have ever wanted in Linux, except a legal way to download music. I have even gone as far as buying a ibook to play around with macosx and use iTunes, but I was soon disappointed that I couldn't transfer my iTunes collection I had just purchased to my Linux computer. Now there is a very cool open source project called playfair, that takes the DRM (Digital Rights Management) Software out of the AAC file that you download from apple and allows you to play it on your Linux computer. But this is again not legal, and it could be used for wrong doing. Apple doesn't understand if they would have supported the Linux community in the first place, they wouldn't have programs like this all over the Internet. The only thing they have done to support Linux at all is creating a ton of open source software that helps the open source community, but not Linux in general. I would even go as far as saying there are probably more Linux users out there than Mac users and it only hurts Apple not to create a Linux version of iTunes. Come on apple help stop Piracy and come out with iTunes for Linux!
keanmarine.com
Are you raving about iTunes or Winamp? iTunes does everything you describe, and it looks better to boot. In fact, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Winamp's media library is patterned after Apple's. Start by looking at the screenshots.
I think this makes iTunes the first mainstream online music store to run under Linux. Apple should really try a native port, 'cuz if they did they would own the Linux market for music stores.
Step 1: Port iTunes to Linux
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit!
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
Great... now only if I could get firewire to work easily and reliably on linux.
I'll admit to keeping a Win partition on my machine, so that from time to time I could boot into XP and play with apps like iTunes. I was pretty taken with iTunes at first, but the only thing it seems to offer over any collection of similar Linux apps is convenience. Why not use apps like rhythmbox (for gnome) or juk (for kde)? While neither app is as mature as iTunes (yet), they both do a great job. And both have better .ogg support than iTunes.
I would argue that ITMS, while convenient, isn't that great a value. Why not opt for one of the other services that lets you download files encoded at a higher bitrate? Or in multiple formats? Or from Linux? This is exactly the kind of application where Linux users should be looking to innovate, in the interest of offering more choices, and not just waiting for the CrossOver port. There are plenty of great projects out there doing just that, and they could all use the attention that CrossOver's iTunes work seems to be getting.
"AppleScriptable" ... one of iTunes biggest downfalls. I ran into a really weird situation a week after I bought my iPod. I wanted to create a "smart" playlist that would randomly select 20 minutes of music for exercising. Sounds simple, right?
Wrong. The ONLY way to do it was through AppleScript. You could create the playlist, but it would always have the same 20 minutes of music. I needed to script a way to remove all songs from the playlist so iTunes got the hint that I wanted 20 minutes of random music *every* time I opened the playlist.
And it's not that it was overly complicated, or differed much from what's already offered (iPod updates, for example, date-based playlists on the fly). Apple's reliance on AppleScript though, perturbed me. Basically, there was no way to get this functionality WITHOUT AppleScript. It's become an excuse.
I love being able to use embedded quicktime in firefox in linux =) It rules.
You're just joking, but actually my first thought was, that the desktop theme selection was really bad for that particular screenshot, as if someone would've shown that to me as is, taken out of this story's context, I'd have automatically assumed that it is actually iTunes for Windows running inside Virtual PC on OS X.
“Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
Damn HTML...
The Cocoa Finder has been a perennial rumor in the Mac community since OS X was launched, as though a Cocoa rewrite were some sort of magic spell that would solve all the problems in the <10.3 Finder with no further effort. In 10.3 it's just a much-better-written Carbon app.
There's an even simpler test for Carbon/Cocoa-ness: It's possible to use most Cocoa controls while a window remains in the background by holding down Command while clicking. If you can manipulate a window without bringing it to the foreground, it's Cocoa. If it always pops on top, it's Carbon.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
The name iTunes refers to what it does - plays tunes (music). It has never been meant for video, although you can now have music videos through iTMS, and they could easily incorporate video because Quicktime is running the show underneath the GUI.
/. I don't hear much about it. The average person knows mp3, if I even try to explain AAC to them they get confused, so I tell them to think of it as mp4 and of course the higher number helps them see it as better (I do know what it is, so you don't have to tell me.)
Why the crap do you want to make a thousand folders to put each individual song/movie in so that you can search them? In OSX I could do the same and search in the finder for "Rated-G Animated Movies" following your method of approach and still come up with the same results possibly faster. Using tags or metadata is much better to organize then making folders.
I can't say anything about your PC, but I have a Dual 2.0Ghz G5 and have iTunes running most of the time and it doesn't make a dent in slowing down what I'm doing. I work on Photoshop mostly and usually am not working on a file less then 100 MB. Buy some more RAM.
I can't comment on the iTMS quality as I haven't purchased anything. I do have 65 GBs of music on my drive though, and a 128 kbps AAC is roughly the same as a 160 kbps mp3 to my ears. I rip at 192 kbps mp3 though for compatibilitys sake.
And are people really asking for Ogg playback? Out of