Kubuntu: Two problems with amaroK
 

Hello,

I recently installed kubuntu 6.06 dapper on a machine that I built from parts with an 833 MHz (or so) AMD Athlon, a 20GB hard drive and 384MB RAM. The machine will go into the guest room downstairs, and it is intended to allow my daughter and her friends to surf the web, chat, exchange messages on ICQ and listen to the family MP3 collection when they have a sleep-over party. I have amaroK installed on my main machine which runs slackware-current, and I really like amarok's set up with the collection and covers and all. So, I would like to have it running on the basement machine too. The music collection is on a server, and I plan to mount the archive on a local mount point, /pub/music, on the kubuntu box using nfs, like it is mounted on my main desktop machine.

The first problem I have is that amaroK 1.3.9 will not build the collection database. I have tried it logged in from several accounts on the machine, but it doesn't work for any of them. It gets to about 49% of the collection, according to the progress bar, and then hangs. I have it set to use SQLite, because I was not successful in getting MySQL to run under the guest account my daughter and her friends would use. I have also deleted the collection.db file a couple of times and started over, but that hasn't worked either. Is there some trick to this I should know about? BTW, amarok works fine from my desktop machine, so I am ruling out a network problem. I have also checked the permissions on the directories and links, and they are all 777.

The second problem is that I can't figure out why I am still using 1.3.9. The Kubuntu home page says that 1.4.1 is now available, but I can't get adept to pick up on the update. I removed the installation cd from adept's update sources, and I added deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/amarok-141 dapper main to the list of sites adept checks. I also installed jriddell's digital signature key. I have tried several times now to update amarok, but have not been successful. Again, is there a trick I've missed?

Try using Rythmbox.

Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop, and amaroK is a KDE-based application. Rythmbox is a GNOME application. How much GNOME stuff would I have to install in order to get rythmbox to work?

I think the way to move ahead on this is to download the package for amarok-141 from a kubuntu repository and install it from my hard drive. Once I have 1.4.1 installed, it may help to solve my first problem with generating the collection database.

Just had a look at my amarok upgrade line in sources.list.
deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/amarok-14 dapper main universe
It differs /amarok-14 dapper main universe
maybe

check your sources.list to make sure adept hasen't disabled the reopsitory (it's strange like that)
I have "deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/amarok-latest dapper main" in may sources list and that works (amarok-latest is just a symlink on the server to whatever the latest version is 1.4.1)

Okay, it looks like it had disabled the repository. Actually, it wasn't even in the list, so it now looks very likely that I neglected to hit the Apply button to make the change permanent. Still, I am not all that clear on why I would have to set up a repository listing specifically for amarok. Is it handled differently somehow? Not an official package?

As to problem No. 1, amarok 1.4.1 seems to be building a database, but I've been fooled before. :) I'll wait a little while to see what progress it makes.

Thanks for the help!