[jesusfr3ak4evr]

I have just finished reading the Suse 10 Linux for Dummies book, and am wondering if I will still be able to listen to all of my .ape lossless music from Linux? Does anyone here have any knowledge, tips or hints about what I should do to listen to music once I install Linux? Even though this is Head-Fi and not Linux-Fi, I figured this is probably the best place to look. Surely there is someone here that is bound to use Linux for their audiophile source machine?

 

[lossless]

You probably want to check out http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac-port/ for ape support. I haven't used it myself though since I store my music using FLAC. I can also recommend amarok for playing/managing your music collection.

 

[jbloudg20]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lossless You probably want to check out http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac-port/ for ape support. I haven't used it myself though since I store my music using FLAC. I can also recommend amarok for playing/managing your music collection.

With some work, ape will work... (hey it rhymed)but as said I have more experience using FLAC. I also second the suggestion for using amarok.

One f the best things about Linux is the community. Sign up for the suse forums, and you should get some help configuring your system to your liking.

BTW: I also highly recomend Ubuntu Linux as an alternative distro. I LOVE apt-get and the ease of use it provides.

 

[CarbonTi]

I had gotten a Mac tar file of APE compiled to work in Gentoo using the standard routine of ./configure , make and make install. It worked for some but not all of the APE files I had at the time. I think that there was a patch for making the Mac copy more stable and workable for all APE files in Linux but I never got that far with it. I don't remember but running x86_64 for Intel Xeons might have contributed to the instability. In any case, the philosophical divide I had with Monkey's Audio not being open source caused me to eventually convert all of my APE files to FLAC.

I used Wine to run a Monkeys ver3.99 install and bash scripts to decompress to WAV and then to FLAC -8. Went back in later and rebuilt the tags, a major hassle. Such is the irrationality of tecno-zealotry. I use my linux box as an audiophile source. You can make APE work in Suse, you might have to research the how-to but APE/Linux has already been done.

 

[jesusfr3ak4evr]

Encoding everything in FLAC might make things easier, but I've already got 30GB of music in .ape.

I've just finished reading a ton of material on Suse - I want to use that first. After I get used to Suse and am ready for another hurdle, maybe I'll try Gentoo, or Ubuntu, or something else But for now, Suse with the KDE and GNOME desktops seems like an easier way to get to know Linux's terminal and start to take advantage of some of its features. Granted, I don't know much of anything about other Linux distributions yet (like they might have GUI desktops similar to KDE and GNOME) - that will come with more time and reading!

I'm already posting on the Suse forums. Right now I'm figuring out how to partition my HDDs to install Linux without harming all of my stored files (music being one of the prominent pieces of storage).

That sourceforge website looks like it is for non-win32 platforms, meaning mac. I don't see anything about Linux. I will keep that, and Amarok, in mind after I install Linux. After restoring my internet capabilities, music comes in second

Oh, and one thing is for sure - I am not going to waste time rebuilding tags for music!! I used Xilisoft to get the CD info from the web and update it quickly and easily when I ripped the CDs to my HDD.

 

[sschell]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesusfr3ak4evr That sourceforge website looks like it is for non-win32 platforms, meaning mac. I don't see anything about Linux. I will keep that, and Amarok, in mind after I install Linux. After restoring my internet capabilities, music comes in second

Just look a little closer under the operating system entry.

I've never used .ape files under linux so I can't really help you there. If you're interested in converting the .ape files to FLAC files, try out gnormalize.

 

[pedxing]

It seems like someone is getting confused with mac = macintosh and mac = monkey audio codec.

Its definitely ported to Linx. How well it work? I have no idea. Download it, compile it, and install it. You can also check the existing bugs reported.

Most major distros such as redhat, ubuntu, and gentoo have both gnome and kde. Usually a specific distros supports one or the other better. I think redhat is the only one that really pushes gnome.

 

[Malus]

Just a quick look through FreeBSD's ports system gives me a few different options for Monkey audio files:

Port: bmp-mac-0.1.1
Path: /usr/ports/audio/bmp-mac
Info: Monkey's Audio Codec non-win32 port
WWW: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac-port/

Port: gstreamer-monkeysaudio-0.8.0_11
Path: /usr/ports/audio/gstreamer-monkeysaudio
Info: GStreamer plugin for monkeysaudio files
WWW: http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org

Port: k3bmonkeyaudioplugin-3.0
Path: /usr/ports/audio/k3bmonkeyaudioplugin
Info: K3b plugin for Monkey's Audio files
WWW: http://www.k3b.org/

Port: mac-3.99.4.4_1
Path: /usr/ports/audio/mac
Info: Monkey's Audio lossless audio (de)compressor
WWW: http://www.monkeysaudio.com/

Port: xmms-mac-0.3.1_2
Path: /usr/ports/audio/xmms-mac
Info: Monkey's Audio Codec non-win32 port
WWW: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mac-port/

 

[jesusfr3ak4evr]

Just making an update to this thread after running Linux for about a week now. First off, Linux is awesome...

Linux support for .wv music files (wavpack) is lacking. The only way to run them is either by using a beta, buggy plugin for XMMS or use Wine to emulate winamp, which unfortunately has been ported to Linux yet.

So, I converted all of my .wv music files to FLAC, which is a popular, widely supported codec across all platforms and even portable audio players. I did like wavpack, it's too bad it isn't in wide use yet.

I am able to use a number of programs on Linux that run prettymuch every other codec besides wavpack, however. I've found the video players do audio just as well as the audio players. Mainly I've been using Kaffeine, Mplayer, and VLC for all of my audio and video needs. I'm not sure which I like more, so I've been using all 3 for a while now. Amorak has problems reading some of my FLAC files.

I had three sounds cards in my system when I installed linux: onboard 8-channel sound, SB Live! 5.1 and Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. Suse 10.1 Linux could not run audio from any of the soundcards with the SB Live! 5.1 in the pc. I had to take the Live 5.1 card out. After that everything worked immediately. I'm using the ALSA sound driver for my Logitech Z-640 5.1 speakers and HD 595 headphones, and let me tell you, the sound is GREAT!(from the headphones anyway... the speakers are crappy to begin with ) I can change a lot of aspects of the sound through the YaST sound card settings. Not only that, but Linux has a ton of DSP proggies to choose from. I haven't used any of those yet, however.

I guess my point is that Linux is definitely a viable option for a computer source component. It, in my opinion, beats out windows.

 

[CarbonTi]

Glad you think linux is awesome and welcome to the free open source software universe. After only a week, you're still on your honeymoon with linux, may your relationship stay as sweet the first time you update your system and the update breaks something

I've found the linux audio experience to be no better or worse than using foobar in Windows. OK well perhaps slightly worse because foobar has utilities/toolkits that the linux players don't. And I can't get EAC to run in Wine so there will always be a dual-boot option on the box just for that. But my audio and computer environments are inextricably merged, and the computer-side is much preferrable to me in linux rather than in Windows so the audio-side will just have to follow along.

Stick with linux, you'll have fun and learn lots.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

old thread but this may be useful...

ffmpeg converts just about everything to anything else. The only thing it doesn't seem to be able to handle is SACD and DSD.