[gerG]

It just occurred to me that my UNIX workstation has audio capabilities. I would like to give it a listen with some headphones, but I don't have a player on it. Considering the amount of memory and disk space that it has, it would be a great music platform, assuming that the audio is decent. My PC at work has a terrible audio card.

Are there any good MP-3 players out there for UNIX? Maybe I can talk Apple into porting the OSX version of itunes over. That would be slick!

 

[Redwoood]

What flavour of UNIX are you using?

 

[gerG]

HPs implementation, which uses the Mach kernal, as I recall. We are using the stock HP window manager, which conforms to the x-windows protocol. I will have to look into what command sets are loaded. I haven't done any hacking in UNIX for years, so the details are hazy.

 

[Redwoood]

HP-UX....

phhhh... I don't get to work with that very often...

I'm pretty sure there are some open-source mp3 players (there are millions on Linux) out there that might compile on HP-UX, however the underlying sound systems are IMHO not compatible.
Besides, I doubt that whoever set up your machine configured the sound as well... it's a workhorse after all.
And finally, chances are the built-in sound sucks anyway. It's a workhorse after all...

I don't wana discourage you but it could be pretty hard to get this thing to play mp3s. Maybe somebody else has some suggestions.

Another option might be this Turtle Beach AudioTron I saw yesterday. It uses your computer as a file server only and plays mp3s autonomously. Connection via TCP/IP over Ethernet so should work with your machine


Bye

Redwoood

 

[gerG]

Probably not worth the trouble. I just learned that I am scheduled for an upgrade to an IBM workstation (RS6000 or some such). TBD what UNIX mutation is resident in that box.

I will check into the Audiotron. Near term I will keep using my Ti-book as an oversized MP-3 player. It sounds much better than the PC.

 

[Redwoood]

Then you're pretty lucky.

My HP notebook sounds...uh.... acceptable. But you hear a lot of noise and stuff.

I was looking for an external solution myself, but I've already put too much stress on my CC this month

BTW: IBM is pretty much into Linux these days. So you might be able to do something with your new machine

Bye

Redwood

 

[Heisenberg]

Greg,

XMMS is the mp3 player of choice for linux. If you are running another flavour of UNIX with exception of HP-UX probably the a suite of mp3 related apps with the GRiP frontend/GUI is the way you want to go.

With GRiP mpg123 is the standard mp3 player that is used. The encoder of choice with most is LAME and CDparanoia is the ripper to go with.

www.freshmeat.net is the place to go to do your initial research for the apps/source you need and you can take it from there.

Your RS6000 may indeed come with linux installed as IBM is pushing linux a fair amount these days as their preferred UNIX distro. In which case try out XMMS first and install GRiP for encoding and ripping if you do that sort of thing.

I use GQmpeg as a frontend to mpg123 but most go for XMMS and GRiP.

Good luck and may the source be with you.

 

[gerG]

I doubt that Linux will be the main OS. Too racey for this place. I wonder if I could launch a Linux shell within the main OS?

Redwoood, my laptop is actually a Macintosh G4 powerbook, and it sounds substantially better than I would have expected. It easily drives my Ety 4s. If I can figure out how to get it to play with the display closed it may remain the solution (at work) until the Treo materializes. If I could just get it into my pocket...

I actually have a PCDP in the drawer, but I don't want to be shuttling CDs around all day at work. Just one more source of clutter.

 

[coolvij]

Sounds ALMOST like you want an MP3 CD player.....ALMOST....except, you want *more*.

hmm....interesting quandary.......

 

[gerG]

I fgure that if I am going to put up with the audio compromises of MP-3, I want maximim convenience. A hard disk jukebox should fit the bill. Actually I have an Archos, but Archos + airhead does not sound as good as my laptop. Accessing discs is also too time consuming.

I could also drop a better sound card into the company PC. It would have to work with NT, though.

So many options...

 

[coolvij]

Hmmm.....I would think the Personal Jukebox is what you should get. Sell the Archos - unless you do use it elsewhere, and put that money towards the PJB....which I've *heard* sounds very good, with amp or not (Tyll uses a PJB, TA, and Ety 4S + custom molds as his portable setup).

That's all I can think off.

Then again, I'd personally prefer running a nice JB application on a laptop - and using the PowerBook solely for music at work. But that's just me....