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Linux's iPod Generation Gap
An anonymous submittor says "Today's young generation can use Linux on the desktop provided it works with their iPod. Linux on the desktop still hasn't reached that stage and has to be compatible with multimedia applications like iTunes and iPod if it has to beat Microsoft's Windows dominance on the desktop. Open source gurus at LinuxWorld discuss solutions to make Linux more consumer-friendly."
Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.
/tmp or the installer will dump core. After the installer is done, edit /etc/X11/XF86Config and add a section called "GL" and put "driver nv" in it. Make sure you have the latest version of X and Linux kernel 2.6 or else X will segfault when you start. OK, run the iPod installer and make sure you set the proper group and setuid permissions on iPod.bin. If you want sound, look here [link to another obscure web site], which is a short HOWTO on how to get sound for your iPod. That's all there is to it!"
Take installation. Linux zealots are now saying "oh installing is so easy, just do apt-get install package or emerge package": Yes, because typing in "apt-get" or "emerge" makes so much more sense to new users than double-clicking an icon that says "setup".
Linux zealots are far too forgiving when judging the difficultly of Linux configuration issues and far too harsh when judging the difficulty of Windows configuration issues. Example comments:
User: "How do I get my iPod to run in Linux?"
Zealot: "Oh that's easy! If you have Redhat, you have to download quake_3_rh_8_i686_010203_glibc.bin, then do chmod +x on the file. Then you have to su to root, make sure you type export LD_ASSUME_KERNEL=2.2.5 but ONLY if you have that latest libc6 installed. If you don't, don't set that environment variable or the installer will dump core. Before you run the installer, make sure you have the GL drivers for X installed. Get them at [some obscure web address], chmod +x the binary, then run it, but make sure you have at least 10MB free in
User: "How do I get my iPod to run in Windows?"
Zealot: "Oh God, I had to install iTunes in Windoze for some lamer friend of mine! God, what a fucking mess! I put in the CD and it took about 3 minutes to copy everything, and then I had to reboot the fucking computer! Jesus Christ! What a retarded operating system!"
So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural. Hence, the preference towards Windows.
Really. It's not hard.
/dev/sdc6. Don't know why that is, but the dev said he'd put it on his TODO list.
Just emerge gnupod and make sure you compile it with the --with-ffxk-so-opti=3 directive in autoconf. That'll hose you every time. Also I recommend that you use gnutunes out of the gnxms repository; the vanilla Gentoo repos's version is hosed.
Also, my iPod only works if I mount it as
Aside from that it's pretty easy!
For more information, click here.
Nobody has heard of gtkpod? :\
We had blinking cursors and a book full of commands on how to format your 64k tape, what do todays kids want GUI's and all this ipods!
Does anyone ever get the feeling that the search for the mecca of desktop linux is being led by an attack-macaque that watches tirelessly over an infinitely large room with an infinite number of monkeys in it, all smooshing keyboards to design that distro that just might work.
and yet they can't. what is going on with that? I think by now, we've kinda grasped the things that make a good desktop. If no-one can bring that simple magic to linux now, they never will.
Promote Charity on Myspace, Show Your Colours!
All I need is Audible.com to work under Linux and I'll never have to touch windows again.
The latest version of Amarok whoops iTunes...love it.
There is no gap between ITunes and Amarok.
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't.
...with the article summary, which implies that Linux is going to have to "be compatible" with technology X in order to appeal to the masses. In point of fact, if Linux adopts that strategy it will *never* appeal to the masses, because it will always be catching up.
The only way to have significant appeal is to offer something that the masses want, that Windows can't. Hint: rock-solid security is not something the masses *want*. Yet.
Human being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
Why is this such a big deal, I mean linux is good for many things, and it's strength is that people take it in a million different directions at once. A desktop OS to be sucessful, can really only go in one direction. If say for instance the open source community were to decide to "force" everything to go in one direction (not saying this is possible) then linux would no longer be linux, so to speak. Point is, linux is good for somethings and not others...besides we have windows and OSX for the desktop, isn't that enough?
Well, what do you want? Do you want to be able to throw your music on your iPod? You can do through a number of applications, although I find Amarok's new versions (>= 1.4.1) are the most seamless way to do that. I use my 4th generation 40GB iPod exclusively through Linux, and have had minor issues (had trouble getting rid of that "Do Not Disconnect" message in Mandriva/PCLinuxOS, that's about it), but no show-stoppers. As far as iTunes, I haven't tried to pull down music from the music store. I'm assuming it's not possible right now.
I find the summary deceiving. To pose the question, "does Linux work with my iPod?" and then answer "no, it hasn't reached that stage yet" is not giving a true picture. If someone asked me that question, I would say "yes, mostly" and then get them to clarify what they wanted to do.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
Pretty much every media player for Linux supports the ipod. Amarok, Rhythmbox, Banshee, etc, etc. Not to mention gtkpod! AFAIK every mainstream distro compiles the proper support into the kernel for usb or firewire support as well as VFAT/HFS file system support. The ipod should be pretty much plug and play on any modern Linux distro.
At the very least the title of the article is misleading BS.
... I use my iPod in Linux, and it's really not that big a deal. All you have to do is mount it and then run GNUPod.
The only thing that was hard to do was flash the stupid thing, other than that it's easy as hell. In fact, I had a harder time getting iTunes to work on a Windows PC than I did getting my iPod to work on my Slackware box.
just use SuSE 10.1, you can upload songs onto any Ipod just as easily as windows! you need banshee or Amarok but SuSE 10.1 comes with those and installs them automatically. If you want Itunes install it with Codeweavers crossover X and if you are willing to spend $500+ dollars for an Ipod you can spend $50 for this program.
Water also wet. Further bulletins at as warranted.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Just what we need, an influx of the ipod generation!
Remember when AOL users got access to the full internet, including newsgroups! Do we really want these people?
http://www.atlasmagazine.com/michael/newbies.html
Remember that Apple's iTunes music is encoded with its DRM. So you cannot legally play iTunes-encoded music on the iPod.
Linux will remain behind of commercial OSes in the realm of media, not because it is Linux, but becuase of DRM.
Why don't these people who complain about non-user-friendlyness just use Ubuntu. I mean, it has the Synaptic package manager with great repositories. Also, Linux DOES work with iPods. GTKpod, people.
http://ipod.hackaday.com/entry/1234000563068565/ if someone can get teh ipod to load an OS (with out DRM), we can connect an ipod to linux.
just get freespire.... install itunes via cedega..... stfu noob... *troll troll troll*
is that easy enough noob?
iTunes lets one painlessly burn, share, listen to and buy music. Many iTunes users actually use all of its features. Wake me up when a Linux app handles all of those abilities without being a bloated, buggy piece of shit.
I have no use for an iPod. I don't walk around, needing to hear tunes all the time. I have a CD player in my car and an FM transmitter that plays MP3s from any USB-enabled device.
My job has me sitting in front of a computer all day, and I have an entire setup at home.
Additionally, I have exactly zero desire to watch video on a postage-stamp-sized screen.
And, if for some reason I DID, there's already tools available for it.
So please, all you iPod junkies, get a fucking detox.
__
Yeah, go ahead. Classify it a troll.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I have tried to cuddle up with linux and give it a shot, but i have yet to find a distro that works with my wireless card. I'm not going to use an OS that won't get me online, so stupid things like driver support for common products should be a given. Till it is, I'll have a hard time convincing myself or others to try it. That said, i know I don't use Vista because itunes breaks the glass effect when it's open (last i tried it, which was like 2 months ago), so i guess itunes is still a pretty big deal. It makes sense too, my primary use for computers is music and web.
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
I installed openSUSE not too long ago and it couldn't even play MP3s.
What a joke.
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.
So when Linux becomes user friendly, its market share will drop below one percent? Careful with the pointy end of that operator.
Point two... screw it - I'm even lazier than the parent troller.
Seriously, plug in the iPod and open AmaroK.
Bring me games to Linux and Vista will go away. Unless you do that I am buying Vista and MSFT.
Time to wake up. Audio on Linux is just as bad as gaming.
/mnt. You should have been there when the rest of my family found out. Joyful memories. Thank you Amarok, you've really shown me the superiority of Linux music players!
For starters, can you actually play the audio files everyones else takes for granted. No major distro supports mp3s by default. Just install it yourself!!!! Joy. Yeah, this is what I went to Linux for, the convienice of dependancy hell.
And if you thought mp3 support was hell, wait till you browse network shares brimloaded with the fruits of iTunes' labour. AAC and m4a files almost completely dominate collections ripped using the latest versions of iTunes. You want to install support for m4a by yourself? Word to the wise; set aside a weekend. Preferably a long one.
And as to the so called "Jukebox" apps like Amarok and Rhythmbox, dear gods trust me when I say you are better off with xmms and bash scripts. They crash. A Lot. Not only that but they rely almost completely on id3 tags, which sucks if your music collection happens to be anything other than ripped from personal CDs or very good quality rips.
You want to know what Amarok did to me? I decided to add the windows network share music folder to its collection. What did Amarok do? It found every playlist file and helpfully changed all the nice neat relative paths to absolute paths. Yes, that's right! Every single playlist files has entries that begin with
If you want music on Linux, I'd recommend something like iTunes or Winamp over WINE or a VM, because the native apps aren't done cooking yet.
May the Maths Be with you!
Apart from being quite trollish and unrelistic by today's Linux distributions standards, it seems the post is like a joke somebody writes each time we have a thread having to do with making Linux even more user friendly. The problem it's that it's not funny anymore.
BTW, don't they just plug in and appear as a drive? Anyway...
It's all the peripherals. Your ipod, palm, nokia, cameras etc syncing with the calendar, todo, email, files etc. The problem isn't actually with Linux, it's with closed proprietary protocols. Saying the problem is with Linux is naive, the problem is with standardisation and with peripheral manufacturers writing software which works on several platforms. Its really an economic problem rather than a technical one.
Deleted
I don't think anyone is really asking for support for M4P (those would be the encrypted, DRMed files purchased from the iTunes Media Store) files on Linux. Everyone realizes, I think, that there's no way to do DRM with open-source software, and frankly I think this is a Good Thing.
However, people use iTunes and iPods for a lot more than DRMed music. There is this tendency here on Slashdot to assume that everyone who uses iTunes or owns an iPod has purchased lots of music for it from the iTMS. This is not true, and in fact is provably wrong. The vast majority of music on most people's portable devices and in their music libraries, comes from ripped CDs (or from peer to peer).
Linux would be doing well if it could just come up with a library management program that was as good as iTunes is, and it would be doing better than iTunes if it made it as easy to download music OFF of the iPod as it is to put it on. (That is, to do the magical and frightening-to-media-companies "reverse syncronization.")
iTunes had a large userbase long before the Music Store existed: it gained popularity (back when it was a Mac-only program) because it has a good interface for managing a lot of songs and playlists. I have yet to see (although if someone wants to point one out I'd be interested) a Linux application that is the equal of it. All the Linux programs seem to assume that the OS' file browser is the best way to manage music, and that small single-purpose tools should be used to do syncronization or updating.
I remember what managing a large MP3 collection was like before nice library management programs were developed to automatically sort files into folders by Artist/Album, and it sucked. The file browser--even a good general-purpose browser (like Konqueror)--is not the tool for this job.
While this is very true to the "UNIX way," it's not what people want. People want big, monolithic, do-everything applications. They want something that's a media player, a library manager, a file uploader, an ID3 tag editor, and a portable-device-syncronization manager. If you could build a BitTorrent client and P2P browser into that at the same time, that would be great, too.
iTunes isn't good because of the Music Store, it's good despite it. There is a huge, gaping hole that the Linux community could fill if people desired to, for a program that's BETTER than iTunes: one that works seamlessly with the iPod but also works with other music stores (non-DRMed ones: AllOfMp3.com, eMusic, etc., plus free sources), and doesn't shy away from features because it would piss off music companies (sharing/streaming of music, true bidirectional syncronization).
Apple's software is hobbled by the company's relationship with the media companies and the necessity of flogging their own music store, not strengthened by it. It means that they have to produce crippled software, which doesn't do everything that it could otherwise. The FOSS community could run circles around iTunes; heck, they could make the closest thing that Linux has to a 'killer app' for home users. Going on about DRM is just a red herring; only a very few people can afford to buy large quantities of music from iTMS anyway, the great majority wouldn't be stopped by that from moving to a clearly superior piece of software, if one existed. To my knowledge, it does not. And that's why iTunes reigns supreme.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Mac OS X is going to beat Windows dominance on the desktop. Linux is not. (The iPod happens to work great with OS X.)
:)
I've been visiting this site since 1997 and I'm continually amazed at how often the "Linux will someday beat Windows" trope comes round. Once in a while, desktop Linux seems to score some isolated victory, particularly amongst cash-strapped school districts and municipal governments. But I'm guessing the non-top-down adoption rate on the desktop remains pegged where it was in 1997: zero. There's just not really any instances of normal, everyday (read: non-geek) people walking into Best Buy and walking out with a copy of Linux. To me that remains the benchmark of desktop adoption. Constructing a user-friendly desktop is really hard. It takes research into HID. It takes artists. It takes focus groups to see how people take to new features. It takes scads of documentation. These are all things that Apple does insanely well. These are all things that MSFT does sortakinda well. These are all things that a loose-knit bunch of hackers from across the globe, well, suck at. Can you really look at KDE or Gnome be reminded of anything other than a so-so imitation of Windows XP? I am considered pretty much a Unix wizard by friends and associates, and I can't even take the Linux GUI most of the time. I'm writing this on a laptop running XP. (Which will very soon be a Macbook Pro, just as soon as Merom ships
When Leopard comes out in early 2007, and Vista is still kicking around the halls of Redmond for another year, it's going to get interesting.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Hey, iTunes is a bloated piece of shit! Just having the application playing in the background playing uses lots of resources on my Power Mac G4, not to mention tagging files or searching through the library (I had to give up on searching and browse instead, because the iTunes was almost like freezing after every character I typed in). I quite recently bought a laptop and installed Ubuntu on it, and now I refuse to use anything but Quod Libet for listening to music! It is the ultimate music application!
Linux is aimed at a totally different audience than Windows. With that said, it seems like everyone talking about Linux lately wants it to Windows-ize itself and be easy to to figure out and learn like Windows. Sure I'd like to see Linux turn into an open source competition for Windows, but that's just not going to happen. Once it's easy to use it loses its effeciency for the gurus and most importantly it loses its appeal to the 90% of Linux users that use it because it's 'NOT Windows' and no other reason. People enjoy sitting around in an operating system they don't understand, and pretending they do, because it makes them feel superior to the 'peons' using Windows. With that aside, Linux needs - out of the box - support for mpegs, mp3s, avis, wmvs, etc... before it's even going to come close to defeating Windows. Why would I want to kill myself trying to attach my iPod to an operating system that can't even play an mpeg file without extensive research on forums and package installing that would break a noob down into tears.
After beta testing Windows Vista I realized it was time to get off the sinking ship so I tried various flavors of Linux including Ubuntu which was actually the most usable linux distro I have ever played with. But I still don't consider linux a serious option for desktop users who don't want to spend a bunch of time tinkering with their systems. I've been an IT professional for over 8 years and I am not unfamiliar with unix/linux and I still found linux to be a frustrating experience, I could get it to work but it was an unecessary pain in the ass. For me I've switch to the Mac as a compromise for now. Linux is GREAT on the server side but it still has a long way to go on the desktop but the opportunity is now especially given what a piece of shit Vista is. However I think in the end it will likely be Apple that will be come out on top.....
I happen to like gtkpod – http://www.gtkpod.org/ – and amaroK... I'm an iPod nano addict myself, so I've made sure it's included in Ultima Linux if anyone cares (I've also linked amaroK to libgpod, so it's got everything except a music store now... works just fine for me :-)
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
The basic idea of itunes is just flawed (from my perpective at least)..
... you just connect it and an scsi device(on most systems) show up, you just have to mount it ....
.....
Most players, even my stupid Panasonic car radio can read-in an MP3 list on the fly, and then play it, so why not that super-intelligent-wonderful device?
As on any normal MP3 player I have seen, you could just drop the files onto the device, and then it would create a playlist from it....
That way you could use any system, not just that retarded Itunes. That way you could use m3u files as well.
But wait: this way you would not need a windows or a mac running that bloated crap, that is nothing but a "buy more from itunes" adware pile.
And here is what really bothers me: you cannot use iTunes store from where i live, and now they even stopped selling prepaid cards at the apple stores. Still I have to download a new version of their crap almost every 3 weeks, with bigger and bigger file sizes, while i could just drop files on an USB drive's filesystem, and then press play...
I think I am one of the very few people who is sick of his ipod in every single sense, except it's physical strength (i use it at the gym every day and get it wet, and hit it with weights and run with it... then usually steam it for a few hours in my gym-bag's front with my wet heartrate monitor)
Other than that: sound:ok i guess, earphones:garbage, interface awkward, functions:bloat, control:complicated (always those menus with the idiotic scrolling)......
Oh if that little function existed, you could use it with linux just fine, as far as usb drives are enabled
mounting something too complicated? I guess do not use linux, that is my advice
Yeah, it's the peripherals. It was the constant fussing with Linux patches just to watch DVDs, or to do USB that drove me to give OSX a try when it first appeared, back in the day.
But virtualization can change that. The ability to run Linux or Mac OS X or Windows as a virtual machine on top of Linux, or OS X, or Windows is a huge win. It means that you can have your cake and eat it, too - you can use what ever OS you need to run the app or connect to the peripheral, then switch back to the OS you'd rather use for whatever it is you need to do next.
Clear, Dark Skies
Step 1. Open Add/Remove Plugins
Step 2. Select Banshee and click ok
Step 3. Start Banshee
Step 4. Plug in Ipod
Why does Linux have to appeal to anyone but the people who use it? I thought that was the whole point. If you don't feel like paying for software then you've either got to write it yourself or wait for someone to give it to you (or steal it, but that's another topic). And this is exactly what the Linux community has done; as many people here have pointed out you can use an iPod in Linux (to say nothing of using Linux on an iPod). So the majority of people find using Linux to be too difficult? So what? They can just pay for a simpler OS that does work for them. It's like paying someone to clean your house, wash your car, make you food, or any number of services, and if you're someone who's not willing to pay for those services then you either have to do them yourself, or find someone who will do it voluntarily (or to enslave).
This article is lame. It's more ESR claptrap.
1: iPods work under linux. Through the hard, evidently thankless, work of people reverse engineering them. Depending on which distribution you use, when you plug your iPod in, the icon that pops up on the desktop will be the correct model and colour.
2: iTunes will never work under linux, unless under wine or similar. iTunes is Apple Computer Inc.'s proprietary music distribution service. It is not open to outsiders. There have been several efforts to make compatible clients through reverse engineering so you can buy music off the music store ( not sure why you'd want to ), but this will not be iTunes. It won't have the branding, and it won't be exactly the same. Which is what you people clearly want and won't stop complaining until you get.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
The folks that hold the IP for MP3... Ask for a fee of ~70 cents for every copy of an mp3 enabled system you ship. That means in order to ship this in a free system SuSE would either have to charge per copy or take that hit themselves. This fee can be avoided by paying a once up amount I think it approaches the $50,000 mark I am not sure but it certainly is in the tens of thousands. It is up to each distro whether they want to take the legal risk of distributing mp3 support without paying. This is all stuff that the consumer perhaps shouldn't have to worry about - but there you have it. There are usually 3rd party packages which allow you to add mp3 support but you have to do it yourself. What makes this a further kick in the teeth is that Linux already has access to an open format that is superior to MP3 in everyway except market penetration (and purhaps CPU usage)...
couldn't do something so simple as using a file manager.
Believe it or not, iTunes hides the Shuffle from Windows. If you plug a shuffle into a machine that doesn't have iTunes installed, it will appear as a drive.
At least, mine did when I first got it. Maybe newer ones are different?
Clear, Dark Skies
On my OpenSUSE 10.1:
- Open Amarok
- Attach iPod Nano
- Amarok pops up a box that asks if I want to use it to manage a new iPod
- Click affirmative
- Transfer, delete, manage music and podcasts at will
I have not read the article so I don't understand the issue. Are the using a two-year-old version of some odd distro?
Is it just me that thinks that the "troll" was trying to be funny? Quake 3, indeed...
Remember that Apple's iTunes music is encoded with its DRM. So you cannot legally play iTunes-encoded music on the iPod.
This is an absolutely untrue statement.
Hopefully it's just being spoken out of ignorance and not malice, but at any rate, it's misleading.
iTunes encodes music that you rip from a CD to bog standard MP3 files, WAV files, AIFF files, or AAC files. With the exception of AAC files, which despite being an open format may not have a Linux codec, all of them work equally well on all platforms, using any number of different players.
The only DRMed files which get produced by iTunes (and I'm not really sure whether it's even fair to say that iTunes makes them per se) are the files purchased from the iTunes Music Store. Those are the 99-cents-a-song ones.
Maybe I don't hang out with a rich enough crowd, but I don't know anyone with more than a dozen or so iTMS-purchased tracks, and I know a lot of iTunes users. It's just not practical to buy an iPod which holds 20,000 songs and fill it up at $1 a song. As I've said before, the only people who can afford to do that, probably also have someone who's job it is to buy music for them, and don't give a damn which software it uses anyway.
It is an outright lie to say that iTunes encodes music to a DRMed format, given that the great majority of people's files do not come from the Music Store, but from CDs. The only software I know that ever did that was a Sony product that came with MD players, and ripped CDs to an DRMed ATRAC format, and an early version of Windows Media Player, which ripped CDs to WMV format.
Don't spread FUD.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Well you can wake me up when iTunes displays song lyrics on the fly, pulls up Wikipedia entries on the artist, sorts music in a sane manner, does not phone home on your music collection for an "enhanced" buying experience, is fully skinable so you can get rid of that 1900 Ford mentality of "They can have it look however they want as long as it is this shitty minimalist skin", and supports ALL the music file formats i want to use like .ogg
And I wouldn't brag about iTunes music store as a feature considering they don't even really sell YOU a song...With their permission you are granted the right to listen to their music on a limited number of computers.
Oh and did I mention that it's memory footprint is about 1/4 of iTunes?
Oh and did I mention that it KICKS the llamas ass?
"All those moments, will be lost in time...like tears in rain..."
Linux is consumer friendly, what isn't is DRM. Can I get an iPod w/ DRM? Will "Zune" be available without DRM? The consumer needs to be educated about DRM. All DRM does is rob the consumer of his or her fairuse rights. It allows those the mandate it to steal from the unedcuated consumer over and over.
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
No, you're making it to case-specific. The only way to have significant appeal is to offer something that the masses want, that your competitor can't.
And guess what? The masses want iPod compatability. It's something Windows can offer, and Linux can't.
You are so suckered by the music industry. iTunes gives you DRM garbage without long term credibility. It's a step backward from analog, except for convenience of play. Free media is technically superior and easier to use than non free.
Burn? Why? CDs are an input and an archive. I save my wavs as gziped tar archives and play them as oggs.
Amazingly enough, I can buy CDs and listen to my music with Amarok. Reasonable services will sell you FLAC without DRM. Reasonable bands let you trade their concerts without charge. iTunes does not live up to the Amarok + Wikipedia + Lyrics experience, nor is it's database as good. As time goes by, the gap in quality will widen.
As usual, non free is getting it's ass kicked and people are routing around it. Artist and users are getting a better deal elsewhere. When they fold and leave you without a key to what you purchased, you will understand why the deal was raw to begin with. I've digitized my parents and my grandparents music collections and will be able to give them to my kids. I'm not buying into something that will prevent that. Your player won't last forever, but the music and the culture it represents should.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I can transfer songs to my old iPod mini using gtkpod and amarok, which is fine. The only problem I have is when my brother connect the device using iTunes on Windows, the program erases all the existing songs. No problem, I can just smack my brother on the head and retransfer.
However, almost a year ago I bought a Creative Zen Vision (due to the new iPod haven't arrived on my country yet, plus this Zen Vision has audio recording and FM radio capability). To this day I haven't been able to use Linux to upload my songs. Sigh.
I have concluded that "Linux isn't ready for the desktop" rants like TFA and "This is the Year of Linux on the Desktop" raves are both equally irrelevant, because they both miss the point.
If an attractive, usable desktop environment with excellent multimedia capabilities were what it took to make a desktop computing platform dominant, I wouldn't be typing this comment from my Windows box at work. We'd all be using Amigas. The /. Macolytes will argue that we all would have been (and still should be) using Apple Macintoshes of one description or other. Let's review, though: the Amiga is on the dustbin of history. The Mac soldiers along, but for all its "Volkskomputer" propaganda, only a relatively small proportion of relatively affluent Macolytes ever use them.
What dominated the desktop? What made the Personal Computer a commodity item? Bring yourself to say it: IBM-Compatibles running MS-DOS. They were ugly and primitive. It were single-user/single-task systems. Keeping one running initiated a user or administrator into the secret world of cryptic command lines and oracular error messages (ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?). It certainly wasn't an attractive platform by any standard now applied....and yet it completely trounced all its competitors. Why?
Because it was extremely attractive to the sort of person we don't like here on /.--procurement types. It was "good enough," they were "smart enough," and, goshdarnit, the IBM-compatibles ran Lotus 1-2-3! Industry kicked off the massive adoption feedback loop, and, flash forward to the present day, we're all in a Microsoft universe.
We will leave that universe NOT because the competition offers a compelling, beautiful, secure product that is compatible with the latest Apple blobject. We will leave it when the same hated procurement types start to calculate that the costs of staying in proprietary software outweigh those of running Free software. Once the argument is framed in those terms, the adoption loop will turn again, and people will be forced to use the platform they use at work, at school, or wherever.
If Linux is or isn't ready for YOU, that's really your decision. But it's pointless to evaluate desktop Linux's chances of mass adoption assuming that the masses will all flock to a better, more secure, and more usable platform without being compelled to do so by some external force.
What makes iPods complicated to use on GNU/Linux desktops, is the iTunesDB file that has to be parsed and written for the iPod firmware to be happy. If it wasn't for that, you could just mount it as a regular USB drive, and copy the files over.
A friend of mine recently bought an iPod video, and had a few fights with his media player while trying to compile an iPod plugin for it, but with no luck. When he came over to my place, I suggested that he could switch firmware to Rockbox. The installation might not have been the easiest, using dd to extract the firmware from the iPod's HDD, compile a tool which was then used to patch the original firmware with a bootloader, and then copy onto it the Rockbox binaries afterwards.
However, it is now possible to just copy music into the mounted iPod using any file browser, and it'll show up in Rockbox immidiately. Rockbox also offers many new features to iPod owners. Does the Apple firmware play OGG Vorbis or FLAC files? WavPack? AC3, then? Rockbox still can't play video files, though, but the Rockbox bootloader actually sets up a dual boot environment, so that you're able to switch over for watching videos, or playback DRM'ed files, if you have to.
I thought the mp3 player fee was only applied if you, the maker of the mp3 player, charged for the player itself. As I understood it, as long as the player was free, there was no royalty. ..?
Nathan Friedly
I read this summary and simply *had* to poke my iPod, which is sitting infront of me, plugged into this Fedora Core 5 machine, to make sure it was still there. I agree with other posters, iTunes is bloated and crappy, and linux has great support for the iPod. FC5 instantly recognizes it, and I use (and prefer) GTKpod which is slim, simple and fast for importing/editing my iPod songs.
How is it the article so elegantly avoided the obvious answer to it's intro question, 'will <Linux> work with my iPod?' Shouldn't somebody be writing an article about how Linux is keeping up with the times so well, as it has multiple free programs that offer great ipod support?
Our wealth breeds emptiness
So, mindless tools have been excluded from the Linuverse? Now we just need the kernel to die everytime a user connects to myspace.
i've run linux on my desktop for years, and while i think its pretty easy to do everything i want to do, i concede its sometimes a bit much for joe user. not that any other OS is any different.
my ipod works fine when hooked up to my linux pc, although i thought i'd trashed it on the first connection ( hadnt realised it was hfs formatted, copied one track and yanked out the usb cable.. bad move)
what really surprises me though is that there arent more corporates or educational institutions rolling out linux on the desktop. i push it wherever i go.. not too hard, just open up my dell 9300 with fedora 5, and let em ask questions (ooooh... is that a mac? seems to come up a bit!)
surely something like ' hard to plug ipods into' would be a selling point?
Open source gurus at LinuxWorld discuss solutions to make Linux more consumer-friendly.
...
In the meantime in Redmond and Cupertino, some people actually implement them.
"A panel discussion at LinuxWorld urged developers on Wednesday to get religion about Linux on the desktop and consider the generation of users who expect music and video at their fingertips."
Religion !!! I dont think developers need more religion...
I think ESR, Jon "Maddog" Hall, Larry and all this bunch of "panelist" should maybe hire and pay developers to develop the Linux Desktop instead of just flying around the world preaching about it and relying on starving student to catchup with Vista and MacOS...
There is enough talent among linux developers to create a viable Linux Desktop, but no one is actually harnessing this power.
They did it for Firefox, no stop bitching and do something if you want Linux Desktop to happen
Me? I dont care about linux on the desktop for the masses...
Your gushing assesment of all the wonderful possibilities provided by "Amarok" simply prove that there are alternatives to iTunes and products that are similar. It does not "prove" in any way your assertion that iTunes and other DRM-protected music services are inherently inferior to "Amarok" or whatever for the sole reason of not being "free". Who are these people that "as usual" are "routing" around "Amarok", exactly? Are they any of the millions of happy iTunes users that are getting their "asses kicked", perhaps? How do you know that the iTunes database is "not as good"? Where is this "gap in quality" that is "widening"? If anything, iTunes is widening the gap in regards to everything else. Would you care to prove otherwise? And WTF does Wikipedia have to do with anything? Because it has out of date and plain wrong artist biographies filled with fancruft and edited by people with cultural agendas? Or are you referring to these mythical "reasonable bands" that must live on applause and air?
Please, please stop it with the "let me tell you how it is" free-as-in-whatever religious arguments. You're not convincing anyone, trust me.
..in various posts, let me summarize how the article's implication of poor ipod support is total bullshit and ipod works with linux just fine (in fact, better than with windows).
libipod ( http://libipod.sourceforge.net/ ) is the library that interacts with the database on the ipod that stores your music.
Several music players on linux like amarok ( http://amarok.kde.org/ ), rhythmbox ( http://www.gnome.org/projects/rhythmbox/ ), gtkpod ( http://www.gtkpod.org/about.html ),( http://developer.kde.org/~wheeler/juk.html ) etc have plugins/embeddings that can interact with the library seamlessly
Ipods are detected just fine by the USB mass storage driver with no probems in any modern linux distro.
Itunes can be run thru wine (though I've never tried it), and Sharpmusique
( http://nanocrew.net/software/sharpmusique/ ) can connect with itunes, buy music, download and strip off the DRM so that the files can be played anywhere.
CD-ripping and transfer to ipod can be done seamlessly in amarok (if you have lame etc installed). It's easier than in windoze thru third party rippers and itunes where there are all sorts of restrictions and issues.
Both "pc-compatible" (fat filesystem) as well as "mac-compatible" (HFS filesystem) will work equally well on any linux box coz linux has drivers for both filesystems.
Last but not least, there is ipodlinux ( http://ipodlinux.org/Main_Page ), where you can install linux firmware in your ipod itself. Advantage is that you can play videos in your nano, music management is thru filesystem rather than database so just treat it as a mass storage device in any OS, and a host of other linux stuff will work on it, and you can play any music format that can be played on linux, not just mp3's (ogm,wma etc). You can even play quake on it if you want.
My nano ran just fine with my Mandrake box with no probs. Anecdotally, I had more problems with it on windoze (usb connection to it acted wierdly, though the usb bus was fine; I didn't care enough to analyze what was up).
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
And disappointingly, its always still current. Linux has a seriously split personality and I don't think its ever been the right way to be. On one hand we have this excellent well documented, stable server platform. Here I love it. Couldn't ask for anything more (don't hate me BSD users!).
Of course the flip is the 'ready to dominate the desktop' thing. I've been using Linux for about 8 years and the one thing I haven't seen is a distro thats ready to take the place of a real, dedicated user environment.
Now I'm guessing that making it ugly and cludgy by trying to keep both the archaic (but server friendly) aspects together with the newer (and definitely still immature) GUI pieces is a big part of the problem.
I've got a box that can do everything, but only half as well. Its silly really. Top it off with the nuts and their struggle against *any* real change and you get exactly what you should expect to get: a system thats terminally mired in a wealth of old-school ideas (filesystem layout, lack of consistent driver API, DE abstraction, application fragmentation, etc).
For a lot of people these things are all very good, but for the 'average' user it make Linux the subtle nightmare that it really is.
I've been practically begging, for years, for someone to break the rules. Piss RMS off. I don't care really. Just give me an operating system that works like its 2006, proprietary drives and ALL.
I'm using XP Pro now. I'll probably end up moving to Apple at some point because I respect them for focusing on the front end and still giving their users the power on the back end (exactly where Linux distro's get it all cocked up).
Anyway, basically, I think its fear of rocking the boat and if there is *anything* more constricting then proprietary code thats definitely it.
Quack, quack.
Linux is missing vital abilities. Linux users say sour graps. Other linux users say it sorta works but yu have to do 100 things and you dont get all the features. other linux users say it's an evil plot from the man to ruin everyones lives (more sour grapes). Silly little masochist apologists. Get a job, buy a Mac. Get the best of all worlds. Ankle-biting will get you nowhere.
I've been upgraded to "bad"!
DRM-locked music is inherently inferior to free music. I've got flac or ogg versions of all the music I like, and can get flac or ogg versions of all the music I want. And you know what? I'd PAY for that, if anyone had the temerity to sell such service. I just won't pay for DRM-corrupted art of any kind. I don't need it and I don't miss it. I'm not a college-kid either. My friends and associates have musical tastes that run the gamut from classical and world music to jazz, and any flavor of rock or pop you could think of. Oh, and country. Know what? None of us will use DRM-fouled products. That's just the way it is, and we're not the poorer for it. But the music industry will be poorer for not having us as customers. The world is full of music of all kinds. You can hear absolutely everything and anything without resorting to DRM-damaged products. And if the music industry collapsed and died tomorrow, musicians would still find a way to be heard - at least the good ones would. Now kiss my ass you miserable clerk for some avaricious entertainment lawyer.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I second that!
Amarok is amazing, and it supports iPods and regular USB Storage MP3 players, it also has PodCasting support, CD cover discovery and download, a context browser with lots of features, a powerfull scripting engine, and much more!
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
If you can't find a way to sync your iPod with your Linux machine you haven't really been looking!
When will we get to mod articles "-1, Troll"?
0 1 - just my two bits
An important factor of the whole Ipod/Itunes issue, and many others issues with Linux 'compatibility' has to do with brand awareness. Amarok and Radio Shack .mp3 player with Kaffeine Et Al will never be good enough, or better because it doesn't have that trendy "every one else is using it" panache of an Ipod with Itunes. It's like the generic K-mart Traxx sneakers versus Nike's. You may run twice as fast and the shoes may be more comfortable ad infinitum; but for some people it's the Nike swoosh logo that counts more than anything else. I am not saying I agree with this mentality, but many users think with this herd mentality....
there is a pretty wide gap between any media app on Linux and iTunes, QuickTime or even Windows Media Player. The whole media experience is inferior on my Ubuntu box as compared to my Mac mini, there is just no argument. On Linux I watch video in a small, usually non-resizable window with questionable if not absolutely bad sound. Amarok is a step in the right direction but far from the overall experience I get with iTunes, they do a nice job of copyiing the library functions and basic functions are the same, but it isn't nearly as intuitive to use. We could go on all day with these comparisons, but there isn't much to debate, for a rich meida experience Linux is not the best choice.
I've had a far easier time getting wireless cards to work with Linux then Vista. Are you sure you have a well known card and not some generic?
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
i've been using my ipod nano in amarok for months now. works perfectly. just like itunes... and i believe amarok is a much more capable music playerto begin with.
There is nothing genius about the iPod, iTunes, etc. Apple made a quality product that had fewer buttons and created a music store that was "relatively" easy to use. Every user of this site knows how easy it is to use apt-get (or equivalent) to get the software to access an iPod or most any other mp3 player. This is not an issue.
We can all bitch about DRM, about how it screws everybody (consumers, musicians, whatever), and it will not change the fundamental fact that the music conglomerates will only release their music with it. The fact that Apple is making decent money off of iTunes is a fair indicator that the public will eventually accept DRM even when they understand the strings attached. We have lost the debate.
With the supposed DRM exclusions in the new GPL (which, I admittedly haven't read, and I could be wrong), Linux will be even less relavant with consumer devices as time goes by. I can tell my kids all about they great music they can download unencumbered and it won't make a goddam bit of difference if they can't get whatever MTV-regurgitated crap is popular that week. Open source needs to deal with DRM, and content protection, in a sane, rational way. It is not enough to say "DRM is bad, DRM is bad". It is reality. People need to seriously evaluate open source DRM projects like Authena and Sun's project, and make a concerted effort to work with the media conglomerates to implement it. It is going to be a hard sell, but maybe not impossible.
Ultimately, it will not matter if my kids can drag-and-drop to their iPod from Linux if the content isn't there.
Linux is ready for the desktop, right now. [...] What it isn't ready for is the MS/Mac zealots, but then, it never will be because they have no desire to change, nor to admit there even is a viable alternative to their favorite OS.
I would say that Linux was ready for the desktop ten years ago, and has become LESS useable since then. I am currently running SuSE 10.1, and while it was slightly easier to install than Slack 2, it's a complete mess as far as user interface goes. The old Unix desktop paradigms have fallen by the wayside, and we are left with a dog's breakfast of Windows conventions slowly strangling the older Unix conventions. Ctrl-C for copy?!? Fucking brilliant. Just killed the the app I was copying from. Should have tried Ctrl-Alt-C in that window. Or not, if it's from an office app that uses it's own clipboard, since you won't actually be copying anything to the clipboard you think you're copying to, and you'll end up pasting some random 5K block of text that you copied from somewhere else an hour before.
Yup, Linux has been ruined by legions of disgruntled Windows users trying to replace their Microsoft shite with something stable. Thanks to their tireless efforts, we've now got Winux. All the badly designed shite that drives you crazy on Windows, but hey at least now it's stable and secure. Fortunately you can still get yourself back to a somewhat consistent Unixy environment after a couple of days of abolishing the atrocities of KDE, Gnome, Firefox, and assorted other crap, but since all the developer effort is going into making that crap even crappier to appeal to the next wave of disgruntled Windows refugees, I don't hold much hope for real advancement in the Linux UI realm.
Fortunately Apple stepped up to the plate, and provided a genuinely revolutionary step forward in Unix UIs. A lot of us have quietly walked away from Linux desktops in the last 5 years because of Apple. Linux servers are still the shit, so I'm still a fan, but the Linux desktop is hopelessly lost, and IMO has been since Redhat 4 shipped with fvwm95 as the default window manager.
I plugged in my iPod to my iBook running Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 to change the batter -- guess what? Rhythmbox came up, with the iPod there. I doubled clicked on a song, and it played.
fak3r.com
All of that can be done with plug-ins (my iTunes automatically grabs lyrics for every song, which appear on my iPod on the next sync), and iTunes doesn't phone home unless you specifically tell it to. Skinning is a disaster for any app, and every Winamp theme I've ever seen has been a retina-burning, psychedelic experience that left me with the need for diapers.
And nobody cares about Ogg.
"Sufferin' succotash."
I truly dislike iPods. I own a generic 1Gb s1mp3 player, and a sony mp3 walkman. Between the two of they share my every requirement.
On the desktop usablity, tho, I would like to see a distro without a gui in which the shell has voice recognition and a parser or some other way to easily find out which command you're supposed to be using. I love the linux cli, and think that it should be all you need to see.
"Computer, tell me the time"
COMPUTER:~# date - print or set the system date and time
"Affirmative"
COMPUTER:~# Fri Aug 18 16:02:13 NZST 2014
Key here would be a FS in which all changes are reversible. A hypothetical ext4fs, where the 4 denotes a journal that also stores when each file was deleted, etc, and overwrites only the oldest bytes. Or something; I'm not real technical.
Linux has maintained it's high quality because it doesn't cater to consumers.
Take the white suppository, and I'll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes...
Buy a Mac... that's what this is all about *nix stability with a nice GUI that works, right?
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
These settings have worked well for me.
fullscreen video:
ffmpeg -vcodec xvid -b 300 -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec aac -ab 96 -i input.mpeg -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 output.mp4
Widescreen (such as a DVD source):
ffmpeg -vcodec xvid -b 300 -bufsize 4096 -g 300 -acodec aac -ab 96 -i input.mpeg -s 320x190 -aspect 4:3 output.mp4
===========
I use gtkpod for my music management, and GPixPod when I want to throw some photos on my pod. Rythmbox for the occasional podcast.
I like Rockbox. The quality of playback and the crossfading is nice. Volume can go higher than apple will allow using Rockbox. Themes are nice too. I don't like how it alphabetizes the track listings of an album. There's no simple way to make playback follow the ID3 track order. No video support either, so I dual boot my ipod between standard firmware and Rockbox quite a bit.
Fuck the Zune.
Unplugging iPod without unmounting it first does usually not cause any problems on Tiger. You can be updating the songs in that moment, you can add arbitrary files on the drive: No problems will arise in about 98 of 100 cases. Of course: if iTunes was writing to the Database-File while you pull the plug (you have to be verry lucky to be fast enough) you have to sync the device again.
Is this different on Linux?
Nobody cares about Ogg my ass! Plenty of "normal" people use it, and more and more video games are starting to use Vorbis (partly due to saving money on the MP3 patent licensing fees). Vorbis has been proven to be of much higher quality than MP3 (usually found to be on par with AAC) in the same size of a file, and it's IMNSHO a much more awesome name than "MP3".
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
"Today's young generation can use Linux on the desktop provided it works with their iPod. Linux on the desktop still hasn't reached that stage"
1) I use linux on the desktop
2) I sync my ipod with that
In addition, I use Amarok in conjuntion with last.fm instead of iTunes.
Easily the best music player out there.
Open source gurus at LinuxWorld discuss solutions to make Linux more consumer-friendly.
This statement is just as relevant now as it was back in, say, 1998...
I don't want my Linux "consumer" friendly. I want it hacker friendly. And it is. So *whack* hands off! There are some great usability things in the works that, when implemented, probably will make things more consumer friendly. Fine. Just please don't let that be the goal.
i ng-drm-money-maker-thought-stealer running either. Such things are for consumers.
The tipping point for Linux was when Oracle decided to support it? That was enough to stop reading, but unfortunatly I continued on.
The more windows consumer users are attracted to Linux the more they will expect it to function like windows. I want new users. I want fresh thinkers. I don't want cube fodder bugging my OS. I don't want a dancing paper clip in the corner. I don't want a mega-media-super-duper-everything-all-in-one-amaz
I am a happy consumer. I consume quite a bit actually. Linux is my escape from consumerism. Yet again we see a counter-culture wanting to be mainstream.
I am not a zealot at all, I just would like to propose the question: What do you want Linux to be? The everything OS? Best Desktop/Server/Embedded/Big Iron system?
I don't mind using Windows for some things, but the second that Windows and Linux start working and acting the same - forget it.
Well...
I'v Used just Lnux at home for over 10 years. I recently added Windows, and I do enjoy he fact that almost any device (not just Ipods) will work out of the box with my XP machine.
So my latest machine has not been converted to Linux, and won't be.
It's just a matter of what you like to to to achieve what goal. On Linux, having a new toy alwais means tinkering. I actually like tinkering, but I want to chose when to tinker and when to play...
I still have a Linux Box around (And a Minix 3 box these days) for tinkering, and XP because it gives me good fucntionality.
But maybe it's just me....
I have no idea what you are talking about.
The whole mp3 craze exsits *because* there is no DRM on those files and because they are easy to share.
It doesn't matter what itunes or any other drm encumbered offering does, it's still just a tiny part of the whole music-as-files world.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
"And nobody cares about Ogg."
You mean that *you* don't care about Ogg, and don't really know anyone who does, and perhaps can't personally think of good reasons why anyone should.
By that high standard, your average person could cheerfully assert that "nobody cares about Linux" or "nobody cares about network security" or "nobody cares about the SCO lawsuit".
So, next time a user compromises network security because of a post-it with their password on it, remember: nobody cares, so what are you getting so irate about?
I wonder whether any of these "when will Linux be ready for the desktop" people have actually used it. Linux music players come pre-installed on all major distros and desktops, and, out of the box, can talk to iPod, and can even share music with iTunes. WTF else do people want?
Well you can wake me up when iTunes displays song lyrics on the fly, pulls up Wikipedia entries on the artist, sorts music in a sane manner, does not phone home on your music collection for an "enhanced" buying experience, is fully skinable so you can get rid of that 1900 Ford mentality of "They can have it look however they want as long as it is this shitty minimalist skin", and supports ALL the music file formats i want to use like .ogg
Oh, hell, wake *me* up when iTunes lets you just plug an iPod into the machine, drag and drop the songs you want on it from your filesystem onto an icon for the device, unplug the iPod, and start playing the songs.
That's how every other hardware MP3 player works. That's how every other software media player works. But not iTunes. iTunes wants you to create a library, drag and drop the files into the library, then drag them from the library to the iPod. I mean why?
When I switched to Linux back in the past century, it was nowhere nearly as nice and polished as it is now and I went from 100% NT fan boi to 100% Free Software in a couple of months.
I set up my machine to dual boot, but in the end I think I booted windows less than 10 times after I installed Linux and after a year of disuse I nuked NT.
Granted, I've never been a big gamer so that made the switch easy, but just about every single application I used on windows had an equivalent or better replacement on Linux.
What was even more impressive was the huge amount of exelent documentation that was available, compared to almost nothing on windows.
I guess my needs were simply better suited for Linux that most peoples, because for me switching was not only easy, but downright pleasant.
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
Or I can watch streaming video in RealPlayer and. . . listen to MP3s. Xine works just fine with DVDs. I'm not even using the latest and greatest Linux distro, I had those capabilities as of Fedora Core 2 and use them just fine in FC3. And I can watch almost all WMV and QT files. (I assume the ones I can't view are in exotic codecs) To watch proprietary video formats, download and install w32codecs.
Admittedly, I have yet to get gstreamer to work, though to my shock, XMMS started playing back mp3s when I installed w32codecs.
The thing to remember with Linux multimedia is. . . the applications won't work on every machine, if one doesn't work on your box after a reasonable amount of screwing around, try something else.
However, the fact that this stuff generally doesn't work out of the box is in large part why I don't recommend Linux unless it's in an environment where it can get tech support. If you are your own tech support, fine. But for typical users, this stuff needs to be set up by admins.
Tech Public Policy stuff
as a user of windows as my primary OS, and a user of gentoo as my secondary OS, i have a few was on how to make linux more user friendly:
1. kill off X, write something new, something that isnt from the stone age
2. centralise the desktop effort, instead of everyone doing their own little project to improve 1 bit, all work on the same project and work on 1 bit each, making a better product at the end.
the thing is, X is older than the universe its self, and its had hack after hack to try and make it better as needs and time goes on, but, its just a big hack ontop of a big hack now, something new needs to be done, from the ground up. and it needs to be built as a desktop, not as a gui server. thats what makes the windows desktop what it is, its just there, on that machine, you dont need to be messing around with remote access with X when you have something like VNC or RDP.
when linux has a fast, responcive and friendly GUI system and desktop, then that is what will make linux a good desktop OS.
portfolio
foobar2k
nobody's perfect
And Quod Libet. Nuff said. Are these guys mad? And how are we supposed to take seriously the opinions of a website called redherring.com?
Sheesh.
No, seriously, what he meant was that nobody who matters cares about Ogg.
As someone who wrote Java programs professionally, the write-once-run-anywhere hype is just that, hype. Even now, Java apps don't look or run the same between OS X, Windows and Linux.
And as someone who writes Linux device drivers for a living, I assure you my problems with DVDs were a lot deeper than the pseudo encryption.
Standards are only the "key" if everyone standardizes their hardware, too. Which, come to think of it, is the main advantage of Macs.
Clear, Dark Skies
"Nobody cares about Ogg my ass! Plenty of "normal" people use it"
.DOC and .PPC files, i.e. without knowing or caring what it is because the OS combined with applications programs manages everything for them automatically. If you don't think that this is the case, then try asking a random iPod owner what the difference between AAC and MP4 is, or someone who uses Outlook everyday in their job about PPC files, what they're used for, and where Windows keeps them.
In the same way they use AAC, WMA, or for that matter
"more and more video games are starting to use Vorbis"
And games are written by -- yes, you've guessed it: PROGRAMMERS. Question of the day: what is the overall percentage of the computer-using public that develops games? How many of the people at whom such games are targeted know or care that Vorbis is being used? How many give a hoot about any of a game's file formats? In the sort of statistics that the company marketing a game will use for market research, all of these figures are close enough to zero that they will be lost in the error factor of their sampling methods, hence the fact that ads for games don't tend to harp on at length about what formats are used for each type of file.
The reality of of the matter is quite simply that people are largely oblivious of file formats in general, and not Ogg-Vorbis in particular, thus Windows' default view not showing file suffixes, but putting a little icon next to entries telling people what they're used for (music, video, WP document, etc.), together with any relevant metadata that describes them, and Apple using a similar system both in OS X and the iXXX apps which ship with it. People watch TV without knowing or caring about how the transmitter encodes sound, video, and colour information, and listen to FM radio without worrying about how the two stereo channels are encoded, so the fact that they also listen to music on their computers and portable players without even thinking about how the particular bit patterns that get turned into sound happen to be organised isn't particularly surprising.
I'm not going to change your sheets again, Mr. Hastings.
On windows, if you don't have IDE drives, the installed for the Via 4-in-1 driver fails 100% of the time. There is no other way of getting their drivers on a Windows machine.
Oh bugger.
Works on Linux (mainly because I don't have to use Via's installer).
It turns out that you need to have IDE turned on in the BIOS for installation. But Via had to say this, there is no way of finding out from the system or install routine.
I've been an Amarok developer for 3 years, and I'd like to comment.
;)
Amarok beats iTunes in quite a few ways; eg. wikipedia artist-lookup, lyrics lookup, suggesting music from you collection for you to play next, last.fm integration, cover downloads, playback formats supported, etc. Certainly we have every feature iTunes has except a music store. And we have patches to allow purchases from Magnatune sitting on the mailing list.
We aren't as simple as iTunes. Out interface shines in some areas, like our drag and drop focus, simple toolbars and browser metaphor, but is hacked together and complex in other areas. In many ways this is a symptom of open source development, but we do have a focus on making our interface easy to learn and uncluttered, and I'm sure this has helped us to become popular on Linux.
At the end of the day iTunes is targeted at different people. Can a music player that supports multiple audio backends and multiple database backends ever be as simple as one that comes with them built in and mostly unconfigurable? Yes, you can hide that stuff in an options dialog. But no you'll still have a system that is more difficult to make bug-free, and that has more potential for strange behaviour.
If you put the time in, Amarok beats everything else out there; we've put the time in to ensure that. But it isn't there yet, in terms of catering to the iTunes demographic. And I'm not sure we really want to do that anyway.
If anything our focus for Amarok 2 makes us even less like iTunes, and perhaps not in a general appeal kind of way. But if you like music, and have a lot of it, you'll love Amarok 2. It's not ready yet though..
Vorbis has been proven to be of much higher quality than MP3 (usually found to be on par with AAC) in the same size of a file
Proven? I love the concept of ogg vorbis (even bought a pretty expensive iAudio player because it handles both ogg and flac) and did some quite extensive tests using my quite good headphones (AKG K501) and stereo (Rotel amps, TDL speakers). I encoded Mike Watt's Contemplating the Engine Room, which has beautiful solo e-bass lines, into ogg vorbis (oggenc) and mp3 (lame) in various quality settings.
To be honest, all of them sucked. The harmonics simply vanished to a large degree. Yes, the base frequencies were still there, the instrument didn't disappear, you could still follow the notes. But the specific sound of the instrument, which is created by the harmonics, was gone. I now encode in flac. People who say that they can't tell the difference between mp3 and CD don't know what to listen for (harmonics, spatial information), don't know how the instruments actually sounds in the first place, or listen to music that can do without the fine details.
But: while lame lost the harmonics, oggenc also added a nasty hiss, even at the highest quality setting. (And this setting makes the use of a lossy format pretty questionable, as it is not that much smaller than flac.)
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Seeing as wheels are stone-age technology.
X is amply sufficient: otherwise why would UT2004 play faster with the same GeForce drivers under X11 than under Windows GDI?
I have all my music in mp3's in a PC with FC4 ext3 filesystem with monthly crontab mirror backup.
But the front end is a mac-mini with OSX which connects to the music via NFS and services my i-pod.
Also I have another front end, a laptop with Windows XP that connects via samba and services anothe i-pod.
If I like a song, I buy the used CD and rip it in mp3 VBR using Linux grip.
I know that 20 years down the road there's a pretty good chance I will want to hear
PF "Careful with that Axe Eugene"
I don't know what app or what what OS or what music player is going to do it.
But what I know is that neither Apple or Microsoft or Sony or EMI will decide
or monitor what I do with MY MUSIC!
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
that if you're going to attempt to be a Linux apologist, you should try and actually help the folks who are having problems, rather than insisting that they are the problem. The GP is right, I come across this attitude all the time. Indeed, when I first installed Linux a couple years ago, I did it despite the general community of obnoxious "you are so not the haxor"-geeks, not because of them.
There are two side to this: the clueless noobs who want Linux to be just like Windows (which means, essentially, self-configuring or trivially configurable) and the self-proclaimed Linux Uber-geeks, who insist that everyone should be able to figure out obscure, undocumented command-line configurations by trial and error. This is a problem both with Linux itself and with many applications written for Linux.
I really like Linux. I have a Fedora box running at work, a Ubuntu box at home, and another box at home waiting to be converted to some other distro. Nevertheless, the truth is that Linux is not (generally speaking) as easy to use as Windows in terms of either hardware or software configuration. Until we admit that this is a problem for widespread adoption, it's going to continue to be difficult to convince people that Linux is just as good as Windows even though we know that in many ways it is actually even better. One way to make this better (aside from actually coding things to be easier to work with) is to offer support to people who are interested in using Linux.
New users are turned off when they attempt to dip a toe into the waters of Linux and discover that not only is the water much colder than they are used to, but there are obnoxious children splashing everyone, insisting that the water is warm and it's the new user that's the wrong temp.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Here's the procedure for ripping a CD in itunes:
- Insert CD to your CD drive, close tray if necessary.
- Start ITunes. Wait a moment while Itunes detects the CD in the drive.
- If connected to the internet, Itunes will (by default, at least) try to look up the CD information via the Gracenote CDDB service.
- ITunes should have automatically opened the playlist corresponding to your newly inserted CD. Now you can adjust file/artist/etc. info *if* and as you see fit. (Importing 800+ CDs, I had to adjust maybe 20 of them... for the most part, it "just works" to find the CD information. Your mileage may vary.)
- Click the "Import CD" button to... you know, import the CD.
- (???)
- Profit!
ITunes imports with your choice of NON-DRM'ed formats. The only way it attaches DRM to the track is IFF you buy & download it from the Itunes Music Store. If you don't buy from ITMS, you don't get DRM. And if you made the mistake of buying from ITMS, it's not that hard to strip the DRM off -- burn the tracks to a CD, and re-rip them to your hard drive. I'll grant that that's a time-consuming & expensive proposition if you've purchased more than a dozen or so tracks from ITMS, but it *does* remove the FairPlay restrictions on the track, so if you find yourself desperately looking for a way out of ITMS, that's probably the simplest way out.I've ripped, as I mentioned, somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 CDs to an external hard drive, and have been easily able to take those files and play them anywhere else on any other system equipped to play mp3 audio. ITunes may not be as feature-rich as Amarok, but it is certainly not the DRM-laden nightmare most make it out to be.
So, in summary: ITUNES + YOUR CDS != DRM LOCK-UP. Only downloads from the ITMS are locked up that way, and it's just about as simple as can be to import CDs using Itunes -- insert cd, edit info, click a button, and you're done. (And, incidentally, in Itunes preferences, you can actually set it to automatically rip & eject any audio CD you insert into the drive, in case clicking a button is too much work.)
And every other mp3 player gets hosed by the iPod in sales... wonder why that might be?
I've talked to a few people who I would term tech savvy rather than computer savvy. They know the latest technology ie ipods, DVD recorders, youtube but they're not computer savvy. They know how to connnect these to computers but they don't know how to rip CDs or edit DVD's on the PC without pushing a few buttons. This may be an argument to make Linux more accessible but IMHO, I can't see them converting to linux, MS, whether you like it or not, is a brand, it is a philisophy of being able to doing something with a few clicks. Linux can never or should emulate that if it hopes it becomes mainstream. It just will never happen, the MS brand is too strong.
Considering that the main repository contains an old version of amarok that routinely ruins my itunesDB (and I haven't, for the life of me, figured out how to switch to the "unstable" branch of the repository), it was quite a trip to figure out how to make it work.
I still had to format it a couple of times using itunes on a borrowed windows comp, which was not fun either.
Gtkpod is merely flaky and confusing, but at least works reliably.
It honestly made me want to go back to gentoo, where you had written howtos, and explicit ways on how to get the latest versions. Of course, that's like cutting off your left arm to save fingers on your right hand, if that makes any sense.
*grumbles
Cause they've got a bigger marketing budget, and because they were the first to make the idea fashionable.
Nothing to do with quality of the product, if that's what you're implying.
Look, if you have not used Linux in the last couple of years say so, it is fine, we will understand.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You patronize the previous poster for being patronizing. Go figure.
But Linux adoption is not and end to itself.
If people do not have the spine to use stuff that respects their rights (DRM contravenes fair use and makes difficult to assert your fith to full ownership of music you buy) do not blame in people that have got a clue.
Next thing you will suggest is that democratic countries should become a bit more repressive so people used to be repressed feel at home.
If you want to be free you have to pay a price, in the case of sofware the price may be conveneince (and here, this is becoming a non issue, I have used Linux as my desktop for 10 years and have found ways to make for the relatively inconvenience of using something not so popular).
What you describe as an attitude problem is simply to stand for your principles.
The mainstream users should in this case wisen up or be screwed, Linux, FLOSS and principles can't be bnet in order to accomadate an ignorant, masochist, majority.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Look, iTunes used to run in OSX only.
It did not run in Windows.
According to your reasoning that was a Windows shortcoming.
Now wiseguy, pray do tell us who fixed this shortcomming?
Was it MS?
Nope. IT was Apple Computers Inc.
So put the blame where it belongs. iTunes does not run in Linux because Apple don't want it to. Those are the culprit party, not the Linux comunity.
iPods work perfectly fine in Linux btw, there is plenty of software out there that allows you to transparently drap and drop MP3 files in your iPod (without doing any modifications to the music player).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... you deserve to be abused by the companies that should be serving you.
Fortunately there are enough people that care about the particulars that Linux and FLOSS in general are now taken seriously in the press, the media and the corps that matter. The general public will follow sooner or later.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It is simply impossible to listen to all that music in lifetime, and it is an exercise of futility to hoard it all if you will never use most of it....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I've been using Gentoo Linux for almost a year now. Got an iPod at christmas, and iPod support does exist in linux. Amarok has had iPod support since version 1.4.0, and the transcode plugin helps to convert from any format (most of my collection is ogg) to a compressed m4a. It automatically converts to this format when needed, or all the time if you really want to pack your ipod to the brim.
wait, so you're telling me that people are still using this linux thing? man, how persistent. give up already.. the war is over.
Bring me games to Linux and Vista will go away.
Wouldn't that require Vista to be *here*?
Yes, yes, and Linux sucks because it doesn't run Duke Nukem Forever.
Who cares if Java programs don't look the same on different OSs? Are you one of those people who say everything has to look like Windows XP?
Oh. My. Have you ever even used more than one operating system? Are you vaguely aware that OS X has a different user interface model from Gnome or KDE or, *gasp*, Windows? Do you have any awareness at all of how disruptive it is for an end user when one application puts it's menu bar in the "wrong" place or doesn't use the "right" keyboard short cuts?
You know, for someone who's off on a standards rant, you sure have little understanding of what actually goes into making something cross-platform compatible.
Clear, Dark Skies
You must have some incredibly stupid users if they can't even figure out that a program is using different keyboard shortcuts or puts widgets in different places. Inconvienent, yes, but it shouldn't be such a big problem. So you're telling me if they tried to drive in a different car, they couln't do it unless it had the exact same layout? Any idiot could figure it out even if the brake and gas were swapped. At least things are labeled on a computer and it won't crash into anything or blow up. You might loose something important, but Bill Gates proved no one cares about that (and backups help a little)
Not to mention the fact usability doesn't have anything to do with compatiblity, which is what I was talking about.
Also, said problem coulod be easily resolved by making the standard more generic. Why should the programmers be placing menus and buttons anyway? If they go into a standarized place, then the toolkit should handle it.
Try Rockbox...http://www.rockbox.org/
Ban Engadget - moderators censor comments!
Who the hell would want to pay for music when you can get it free off of Limewire or Frostwire? Man, some people are stupid...
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
Okay. With this attitude you've got, I'm going to guess that you aren't even out of school yet.
Here's a hint: you aren't going to hold down a job very long by telling your users that they're stupid simply because you don't like the idea of following user interface guidelines.
Clear, Dark Skies
I, too, use FLAC at all possible times, but transcoding to Vorbis for an MP3 player seems to work well for when space is tight and Rockbox is available.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'