libcddb breaks aqualung - Debian Lenny
 

Today I find myself in need of a good gapless cd player for linux, again. I've recently made the switch from gentoo to debian and I really like it. I used aqualung as my cd player while using gentoo , but the version of aqualung in Debian is currently broken. I've tried compiling and installing a newer version, but that one couldn't play audio cd's at all, probably due to older dependancies. I can't install packages from squeeze or sid without having to upgrade a lot of things (like libc6) and that's not something I want to do.

Are there any other gapless audio cd players out there for linux? All of the major audio players I've tried so far (rhythmbox, mplayer, totem, etc.) insert gaps inbetween the tracks - which to me is really annoying, but from the look of things it must not bother other people that much.

Here is what is available on my lenny box:
So it may be worth try potamus, although the description does not say if it will play cds.

Regarding installing a aqualung from testing or unstable: have you tried simply backporting from the source package in testing or unstable?

Evo2.

Audacious has a rather flexible crossfader output plugin which can be used to remove gaps between tracks in playback, among other effects.

I would backport a newer version of aqualung from testing or sid, but besides having to upgrade many of its dependancies, the version referenced in the bug I linked to is the current sid version, and it's experiencing the same problem I have.
Potamus takes lightweight to a whole new level - It makes openbox look like KDE 4. It can't play audio cd's as far as I can tell, and doesn't even have an open file dialog - you have to drag and drop files from your file manager into it.

I might be missing something, but I can't seem to find any crossfade plugin in audacious. Both audacious plugin packages did get installed...
I remember toying with audacious in my Gentoo days and seeing that the crossfading plugin worked for audio files but not cd's, but I can't remember for sure if that was the case.

Okay, so this thread might turn into something else - a "let's figure out how to compile aqualung the debian way" thread.

I've narrowed down the problem to libcddb. The current version breaks aqualung, and only 1.3.* (not even available in sid) works, supposedly.

So, all I have to do is figure out how to compile and install aqualung the debian way (I don't want to just do configure/make/make install), while passing the --with-cddb=no option to the configure script.

Any debian experts know how to do this with apt-build or dpkg-buildpackage or anything like that?

It's a long time since I did this, but basically you can start by downloading the aqualung-xxx.dsc and aqualung-xxx.diff.gz from the debian source package. Then you use the use upstream aqualung source tarball instead of the debian aqualung-xxx-orig.tar.gz. After that... well at that point I'd have to have another look and the debian new maintainers guide.

Evo2.

The crossfade plugin in audacious is offered as one of the output plugins, in the "audio" settings tab (as opposed to the "plugins" tab). I suppose it depends on if your version has been compiled with support for it though; in debian it's provided by the audacious-plugins package.

The crossfader sits between the program and the real output plugin, monitoring and buffering the output so it can modify the way song transitions occur, so I don't see why it wouldn't work for CDs also.

To modify build options in debian, first download the source using apt, then cd into the "debian" directory and edit the "rules" file that should be found there. Assuming the package uses the standard build process, somewhere in that file will be a section for configuration flags.

Then just save the file and run:

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

It will create a debian package in the parent directory that you can install.

David the H.: Thanks. I forgot about the rules file. I got the package built and it runs great, aside from having "Unknown Artist" and "Unknown Track" when playing cd's - but I'll take that over not being able to play cd's any time!

Also, as a side note, it looks like audacious might have had its crossfade plugin removed a little bit before the lenny freeze: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=471576

That bug is two years old now, and the last posts say it got fixed. I don't see why they wouldn't have returned it to the package once it was working again, assuming they even needed to remove it. I don't know about lenny, but the plugin definitely still exists in the sid version of the package. I'm using it right now, in fact.

I do remember having problems with audacious at about that time, and I suppose it could've been the cause of some of them, but the big problem I remember having was that the debian package had been built with sse2 support enabled and Athlon systems choked on it. Which come to think of it is the reason I learned how to change the compile flags :).