Mp3 player ?
 

After making my mp3 collection available, I've noticed none of the audio programs that were installed with FC3 support mp3s. Downloading and installing things in FC3 has given me some trouble, probably just because I am unfamiliar with the new proccess. Anyway, I used to use iTunes while using windows. I loved the interface, and how it listed all of my songs. Is there a similiar mp3 player for FC3 ? How can I download it ? Thanks.

mreinecker: Look at Music Player (Rhythmbox 0.8.8) in the sound/video list. If you look in the Help Intro, the first item on the supported music format list is MP3.

When trying to play mp3 files in music player, I get an error message saying there is no plugin installed to handle playing an mp3. :(

Maybe it would be good idea to read up on the problem :study: and how to fix it:

http://www.rhythmbox.org/faq.html

Q: I'm using Fedora, and Rhythmbox can't import nor play mp3 files. What's wrong?

A: Red Hat can't ship mp3 players as part of Fedora because of legal issues. Follow these instructions to get GStreamer packages with mp3 support.

How-To:

http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/download/fedora.html

If you search LQ for relevant terms, someone has probably already explained this in detail.

You could also try xmms, but again, Fedora doesn't come with mp3 support... unless you install it yourself. Google for xmms-mp3 and you'll have it working in no time. (If you're using yum, I believe it's in the Dag repository)

Thanks for the help, and having patience with me. I did do a search on LQ but didn't find anything. I appreciate it.

Go to http://rpm.livna.org and read the Configuration section. You can get the gstreamer-plugins-mp3 package there, which makes Rhythmbox and Sound-Juicer support mp3 files. Other mp3 packages are available there, too.

mreinecker: This is a followup on misc’s post.

Using Firefox, go to http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/3/i386/yum/stable/RPMS/ and select the package gstreamer-plugins-mp3-0.8.5-0.lvn.2.3.i386.rpm .

When the dialogue opens, select “Install package” (or something to that effect), as opposed to “Save to disk”. The rpm will be automatically downloaded and installed. You may need to be logged in as root.

If for some reason that does not install the package, repeat the process, but instead save the rpm to /var/spool/up2date. Open a terminal (right click) and enter:

cd /var/spool/up2date
rpm -i gstreamer-plugins-mp3-0.8.5-0.lvn.2.3.i386.rpm

Let us know if your mp3's play.

misc: Maybe you can explain something to me, but first, let me thank you for making me aware of rpm.livna.org. I was aware of repositories like freshrpms.net, but not one so closely associated with Fedora. I feel like it is the proverbial elephant standing in the middle of the room that no one is talking about.

Now for the question. It looks like you have to proactively install packages to support things like mp3's, but I see in the Configuration section, the need to include a link to the repository in up2date (sources.conf). Obviously, this functions for updating to newer versions of whatever you might install from rpm.livna.org, but is there a way to initiate a systemwide update/enhancement of installed Fedora packages which are missing something that is present in the repository?

I did some tests with up2date using the suggested links and could not find an obvious way to initiate a systemwide update/enhancement.

If you provide yum witht the repos you can do:

# yum update -y *

That will download and install all the available updated packages from the repo's you have configured.

You could also use the gui tool for yum: yum-extender. You'll find some useful links about this app (and also some good threads on configuring repos) at www.fedoraforum.org

Please rephrase your question. I don't understand it, I'm afraid.
I could guess, but I doubt you want all packages available at rpm.livna.org

fedora core 3 rpms' collection
 

http://heidelberg.freshrpms.net/

not exhaustive but worth using on demand -- I hot-bookmarked it and use it on the fly! like immediate post-installation time I needed mp3 support in FC3 ;)

It doesn't give you mp3 support for k3b or KDE, though.

I finally found xmms-mp3 and downloaded and installed it. It's up and running now, and I'm very pleased. I'm learning so much more about linux now, and completing tasks like this are becoming easier for me, as I am so used to windows. Also, (I don't know if I should make a new thread about this...) I noticed the quality of sound I get when playing music on Linux (as opposed to when I was using XP) is much worse. I attempted to find an updated driver for my soundcard, thinking that would solve my problem. I found this website ALSA
and I figured it was perfect, and it would solve my problems. However, I am SO confused as to what to do. If someone is kind enough to point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. Thanks for all the help.

As a newbie, don't attempt at installing [kernel level] driver updates which don't come from your Linux distribution vendor.

And yes, it would be better to open a new topic for sound quality issues with ALSA. You may need to describe your "problems" in much more detail.

misc: Let me rephrase.

Is there a way to automatically select and install rpm.livna.org rpms that enhance packages that are already installed on a FC3 box?

I assume that the answer is No.

The example of Music Player needing an mp3 plugin (i.e., the plugin “enhances” Music Player) in the current thread is an example of something desirable to “fix” by installing a rpm from rpm.livna.org. There must be plenty of other FC3 packages that are “missing something” for legal or other reasons, based on how many rpm.livna.org packages are available. You could install everything in rpm.livna.org and be covered, but that would probably not be desirable.

I’m looking at this from a systems administrator’s point of view, because I would like to do this on 8 FC3 boxes. I install updates from a local mirror and see the inclusion of the rpm.livna.org packages as a logical step, but I don’t see how to selectively do the initial installations in an automated manner.

.........

linmix: The problem is that the packages in rpm.livna.org have not been installed, so this is not a simple update. Actually, what I want to do isn’t an update or an upgrade, it’s more of an automated enhancement. Think of it as selectively merging FC3 and rpm.livna.org. And I’ll bet a lot of people would like to do this.

If I set rpm.livna.org as the only yum repository, I could presumably run “yum install -y”, but like I said above, that seems like an overkill.

You'd have to do:

yum list available

That would give you a list of available packages from which to choose the ones you'd like to install.
Unfortunaltely there are some 'enhancements' that are difficult to pinpoint, like the mp3 libraries for Rhythmbox (gstreamer ?!) which bear no resemblance to the package they are somehow associated with. I agre with you that it would be great to have some tool to be able to see whch packages would improve / enhance a system

The question is still ambigous. Only in the bottom of your message you expand on it, fortunately. Thanks for that.

There are two types of packages hosted at rpm.livna.org: 1) add-ons, i.e. plugin packages and extra packages, and 2) replacement update packages.

Type 1 packages are either named like xmms-mp3, k3b-mp3, gstreamer-plugins-mp3, kdemultimedia-extras, which are not provided in Fedora Core or Fedora Extras and where the first part of the package name is the base package name in Fedora Core or Fedora Extras. They only add plugins or extra files which cannot be included in Fedora. Similarly to Fedora Extras, these packages don't upgrade or replace packages from Fedora Core. Also of type 1 are extra packages for software which cannot be included in Fedora Extras due to patenting or licencing issues, e.g. a game called Tetris or closely resembling Tetris could not be included in Fedora Extras.

Type 2 packages have the same name of a package in Fedora Core or Fedora Extras, but an increase package release version. Where no plugin technology is implemented, this is the only way to enhance Fedora Core/Extras packages with missing features. It is generally tried to avoid replacing Fedora Core packages, and if a package is included, it is not a major version upgrade, but attempts at staying in sync with Fedora Core except for the extra features like mp3.

Fedora Extras on the contrary consists of pure add-ons and extra packages. None of the packages in Fedora Extras replace or upgrade Fedora Core.

Right. You install only those packages you really want and stay up-to-date with yum in case rpm.livna.org releases updates for these packages. E.g. the plugin packages require their core packages to be installed, so if you installed all of rpm.livna.org, that would pull in a lot of packages from Core and Extras as dependencies. Example: if your favourite music player is XMMS, you would get just xmms-mp3 and don't care much about kdemultimedia-extras and gstreamer-plugins-mp3 and the bmp-mp3 package which will appear as an add-on for bmp in Extras. You would not like any extra package from rpm.livna.org to be installed either, e.g. games or tools.

When you find something complicated, you must be prepared to propose a solution. The easiest way is to collect wanted package names in a shell script which calls yum to install these packages all at once.

Creation of meta packages, let's say a package called "mp3-support", would not make sense, since it's too generic.

Which is not possible anyway, since most packages in rpm.livna.org require packages from Fedora Core and Fedora Extras, so you need to enable those two in your repository configuration, too. Otherwise it would break dependencies and make yum fail.

Right. This is another crucial point. Preferrably, an FAQ document would explain this, so the user need not know that GStreamer is the multimedia backend for Rhythmbox and other media players.

linmix and misc: Thanks for the excellent feedback.

I’m sure lots of other readers of this thread will benefit from your remarks. They would make a great addition to the rpm.livna.org FAQs.