Five of the Best Linux Audio Players

Linux has a large selection of music players and library organizers available. Here’s a list of five of the best:

Amarok

Amarok makes use of core components from the K Desktop Environment, but is released independently of the central KDE release cycle. Amarok's tagline is "Rediscover Your Music", and its development is based around this ideology.



Features include the unique "context browser", integrated Wikipedia lookup and song lyrics download. Amarok also features integration with last.fm, giving users suggestions about what to listen to next and which artists may fit their mood, as well as with Magnatune, allowing no-cost full listening of all the music in their catalog, and DRM-free purchasing. It can also be used to organize a library of music according to genre, artist, and album, can edit tags, associate album art, attach lyrics, and automatically assign ratings to music as it is played.

The next release of Amarok, version 2.0, is currently in development. It will make use of KDE 4 technologies like Phonon for audio and Solid for device interaction, along with extensive use of Plasma for the interface. Amarok 2.0 will also have better integration with online services and add support for Windows and Mac OS X.

Banshee

Banshee audio player is built upon Mono and Gtk. It uses the GStreamer multimedia platform for encoding, and decoding various music formats. Helix Banshee is a version of Banshee, available in openSUSE (non-OSS media). It is based upon the Banshee core, but adds support for the Helix framework.



Banshee has a simple but powerful interface that allows you to import, organize, play, and share your music. You cab rip CDs, play and sync your iPod, create playlists, and burn audio and MP3 CDs. Most portable music devices are supported. Banshee also has support for podcasting, smart playlists, music recommendations, and much more.

Rhythmbox

Rhythmbox is an audio player and digital music management application. Originally inspired by Apple's iTunes, it is free software, designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop using the GStreamer media framework. Rhythmbox is extensively integrated with a number of external programs, services and devices. Users may create 'smart playlists,' that are automatically updated (like a database query). Optional automatic track rating is supported.

Songbird

Songbird is developed by a group known as Pioneers of the Inevitable (with members who previously developed for Winamp), with a stated mission "to incubate Songbird, the first Web player, to catalyze and champion a diverse, open Media Web". It is built on the Mozilla platform and features an in-built web browser. Users can add features and change functionality in Songbird by installing extensions and skins. It is currently under heavy developement.

Exaile

Exaile is a music player aiming to be similar to KDE's Amarok, but for GTK+ and written in Python. It incorporates many of the cool things from Amarok (and other media players) like automatic fetching of album art, handling of large libraries, lyrics fetching, artist/album information via Wikipedia, Last.fm submission support, and optional iPod support via a plugin.



In addition, Exaile also includes a built-in SHOUTcast directory browser, tabbed playlists (so you can have more than one playlist open at a time), blacklisting of tracks (so they don't get scanned into your library), downloading of guitar tablature from fretplay.com, and submitting played tracks on your iPod to Last.fm.

If you want to find out more about all these great music players as well as other media players for Linux, Wikipedia has a very lengthy comparison of general and technical information for a number of software media player programs. What is your favorite music player for Linux?

The Best General Purpose Linux Distributions

A distribution (also called distro) is a member of the Linux family of computer operating systems. They are built around the Linux kernel and consist of a large variety of software. Here's a list of some of the best general purpose and most popular open and free distributions:

Ubuntu

Ubuntu is a complete desktop Linux operating system, freely available with both community and professional support. "Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". The Ubuntu distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world.

• The distribution is very user friendly, especially for beginners.


• It is supported by a very large community. A lot of information and answers to problems can be found in the Ubuntu forums.


• Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd, owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth, one of the first space tourists.


• Ubuntu releases new versions every six months, and supports those releases for 18 months with daily security fixes and patches to critical bugs. LTS (Long Term Support) releases are supported for 3 years for desktops and 5 years for servers.

Linux Mint

Mint is an Ubuntu-based distribution whose goal is to provide a more complete out-of-the-box experience by including browser plugins, media codecs, support for DVD playback, Java and other components. It also adds a custom desktop and menus, several unique configuration tools, and a web-based package installation interface. Linux Mint is compatible with software built and packaged for Ubuntu.

openSUSE

SUSE is an acronym for the German phrase "Software- und System-Entwicklung" ("Software and system development"), however a rumour still circulates that the name is a tribute to the German computer pioneer Konrad Zuse. The community project openSUSE is an effort to reach a wide audience of users and developers.

• It is sponsored by Novell.


• SUSE includes an installation and administration program called YaST2 which handles hard disk partitioning, system setup, RPM package management, online updates, network and firewall configuration, user administration and more in an integrated interface.


• Many Linux innovations are originally developed as part of the SUSE project.
  

Sabayon

Sabayon is an advanced, scalable Linux distribution from Italy. It focuses in cutting edge software and hardware support and it is a showcase of the latest Linux technologies. "Sabayon" is the name of an Italian desert, made with raw eggs.

• miniEditions are single-CD and LiveCD releases of the distribution, normally introduced a week or two after a DVD release.


• A feature named "Entropy", exclusive to Sabayon, incorporates package management.


• It is based on the Gentoo distribution.

Fedora

Fedora is an openly-developed project designed by Red Hat, open for general participation, led by a meritocracy, following a set of project objectives. The goal of The Fedora Project is to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from open source software.

• Development is done in a public forum.


• The project will produces time-based releases of Fedora about 2-3 times a year, with a public release schedule.


• It is the distribution of choice for most of the scientific community and serves as a base for projects like Scientific Linux.

PCLinuxOS

PCLinuxOS places specific emphasis on desktop computing, concentrating its efforts for home or small business environments. It is often abbreviated as PCLOS and it is based on Mandriva.


There are currently over three hundred Linux distributions in active development, constantly being revised and improved. DistroWatch maintains an indicative popularity ranking of distributions on its web site.

All of the above and most other Linux distributions offer Live CDs that allow you to run the operating system without installing it or modifying anything on your system. There's also the option of installing a distribution inside MS Windows. CD and DVD images can be downloaded and burned via the web or bit torrent. You can buy ready-burned distros online and you can even have them mailed to you for free from some of the developer websites.

If you think that other distributions should be in this list, please leave a comment.

Get svn+ssh to work with TortoiseSVN

If you have followed the how-to at the official TortoiseSVN website and are still having trouble connecting to the server, try changing the SSH client in TortoiseSVN Settings\Network to something like

C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin\TortoisePlink.exe -l yourlogin -pw password

Change to the path to TortoisePlink.exe on your system and replace the bits in italics with your login information. Good Luck!

Setup Mozilla Thunderbird to work with Microsoft Exchange Server

1. Setup a new account under Tools/Account Settings/Add Account...
   Select "E-mail Account" and add your details.
   Use IMAP and input your incoming exchange server.
   


2. Subscribe to all required folders by right clicking on the account name and choosing 'Subscribe...'.


3. Change the trash folder's name to 'Deleted Items':
   Follow the instructions in the Mozilla Zine.


4. Go to Tools/Options/Advanced/Config Editor:
   Set boolean mail.check_all_imap_folders_for_new to true.
   Set boolean mail.imap.expunge_after_delete to true.


5. Go to Tools/Account Settings for the IMAP account:
   Have it place a copy of sent mail to the 'Sent Items' folder.
   Also have it save drafts and templates in the 'Drafts' folder.
   Go to Junk Settings and have it send all junk to 'Junk E-mail'.


6. If you are not using the Thunderbird default SMTP server, go to Tools/Account Settings/Outgoing Server and configure your outgoing SMTP server.

And that should be all...

Remove Ads in MSN Live Messenger

To completely remove the ads in MSN Live Messenger, download ResHacker and use it to open msgsres.dll (found in the Live Messenger install directory) after you create a backup.

Resource Hacker^TM is a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables and resource files.

Then, to remove the annoying flashing ads in the buddy-list window browse to 4004/923/ and find and edit the line
<Constrainer layoutpos=top ID=Atom(SSConstrainer) Layout=FillLayout()>
to
<Constrainer layoutpos=none ID=Atom(SSConstrainer) Layout=FillLayout()>



You can also just block these ads.

To remove the text links in the chat windows browse to 4004/920/ and change
element id=atom(adbannercont) layout=filllayout()
to
element id=atom(adbannercont) layoutpos=none layout=filllayout()

Block Ads in MSN Live Messenger

To block the ads in the buddy list window of MSN Live Messenger go to the Control Panel and double-click on Internet Options. Select the Security tab and click on Restricted sites. Now click on the Sites button below and add rad.msn.com to the zone. Click on Close and the ads should disappear.





Alternatively, you can completely remove the ad elements.

Remove Digsby Watermark from Buddy List

If you are using Digsby and find the Quicksilver skin watermark in the buddy list background annoying, there is a quick way to remove it:

Go to res\skins\silverblue\ in the Digsby install directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Digsby in Windows) and open the file skin.yaml with a text editor. Find and delete the line
- watermark.png v_center h_center

Then, simply press F5 to reload the skin without the watermark.

Alternatively, you can create a Quicksilver theme variant, as was discussed in the Digsby forum.

Covert eps files to jpg in Linux

To convert from eps to jpg using ghostscript:

gs -sDEVICE=jpeg -dJPEGQ=100 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -r300 -sOutputFile=myfile.jpg myfile.eps

This produces huge files. You can trim and resize them in image magick:

mogrify -trim -resize 800x600 myfile.jpg

Add line numbers using lineno.sty in RevTex 4

1. Download the lineno Latex package.
   


2. Unpack it (unzip lineno.zip) and copy all lineno/*.sty files into the directory that contains your Latex document.
   


3. In the Latex preamble include the line
   \RequirePackage{lineno}
   before the \documentclass{...} command.
   
   Note: this is necessary due to incompatibilities between the lineno package and RevTex. If you are not using RevTex to prepare your document you can also use the standard way: \usepackage{lineno}
   


4. Line numbers can be activated by adding the line
   \linenumbers
   after \begin{document}
   

Firefox Adblock Extensions

Extensions are small add-ons that add new functionality to the Firefox web browser. They allow you to customize Firefox to fit your own needs and preferences. Here's a list of the most popular and useful extensions for blocking ads:

• Adblock Plus
  Install Adblock Plus and get rid of ads and banners on the internet. You can create your own filters and also block flash and java elements. Or choose a filter subscription and most advertisements will be blocked fully automatically.
  
  Element Hiding Helper is a companion extension for Adblock Plus meant to make creating element hiding rules easier.
  
  
• Greasemonkey
  Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. Hundreds of scripts, for a wide variety of popular sites, are already available at userscripts.org.
  
  
• Stylish
  Stylish allows easy management of user styles. It is to CSS what Greasemonkey is to JavaScript. After you install it, it can be used to tweak the appearance of specific web sites as well as of sites globally. It is useful to reconfigure websites after the ads have been removed.
  
  
• Blocksite
  BlockSite is an extension, which automagically blocks websites of your choice. Additionally, it will disable all hyperlinks to these websites, by just displaying the link text without the clicking functionality. This extension adds the site blocking functionality that was removed from Adblock Plus.
  
  
• NoScript
  Allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice and guards the "trust boundaries" against cross-site scripting attacks.