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Kubuntu audio problems

post #1 of 18
6/19/05 at 6:35am
Thread Starter 
i just made the switch from windows to linux (kubuntu), and i have 2 problems. first, i have juK, Kaffeine, and amaroK. i have about 7 gigs of music on an external drive, and copied them to my computer. when i did the automatic media searches to put media files in the library for each of them, none of them recognize my .wma files. if i open them with konquerer, it will open up Kaffeine and play them, but they still don't show up in the media list (the list showing all of your music). how do i get them to recognize .wma files?

also, i have all of the volumes and whatnot turned up, but the volume is still pretty quiet, about half what i could hear in windows. any help
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post #2 of 18
6/19/05 at 2:47pm
Make sure you check alsamixer to make sure THAT volume is turned up. Also wma is just not a good format for linux and while xine based software(kaffine) can play it, they dont always do so the best unfortunatly. I cant tell you how to get it to show up though not having used kaffine sorry.

Seablade
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post #3 of 18
6/19/05 at 4:18pm
Thread Starter 
what's a good program to comvert wma to mp3?
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post #4 of 18
6/19/05 at 4:30pm
Unfortunatly I am not sure if there is one, sorry. I try to stay away from wma or wmv when I can, but when I have to I just play them as is in xine(Kaffine should also be able to do this as it is based on xine).

Seablade
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post #5 of 18
6/19/05 at 10:33pm
If you have a Windows PC somewhere you can try to convert them with dBpowerAMP. Also stay away from WMA, it is really bad compared to MP3 with Lame or Ogg and with the Linux support it even is worst.
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post #6 of 18
6/20/05 at 12:13am
first, make sure your sources.list (found in /etc/apt) looks like this:

Code:
## Uncomment the following two lines to fetch updated software from the network
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted

## Uncomment the following two lines to fetch major bug fix updates produced
## after the final release of the distribution.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-updates main restricted

## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from the 'universe'
## repository.
## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu
## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to
## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in
## universe WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu security
## team.
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary multiverse

## Backports
deb http://ubuntu-backports.mirrormax.net/ hoary-backports main universe multiverse restricted
deb http://ubuntu-backports.mirrormax.net/ hoary-extras main universe multiverse restricted

then, in terminal do this:
Code:
#: sudo su
Password: (root pass here)
#: apt-get update
#: apt-get install w32codecs

....just my 2 cents on how to get 'er done!



also i think mplayer should run most wma and wmv files
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post #7 of 18
6/20/05 at 1:01am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
root@TLo:/home/tristan # apt-get install w32codecs
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package w32codecs
root@TLo:/home/tristan #
i keep getting that, apt-get never finds the things people tell me to apt-get
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post #8 of 18
6/20/05 at 1:22am
did you do what i first tell you to do....edit your sources.list to look like what i gave you above?

to do that you can do:
#: sudo su
Password:
#:kate /etc/apt/sources.list

(if kate doesn't work, any other text editor will do just fine, worst case scenario use nano).

then do apt-get update
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post #9 of 18
6/20/05 at 1:41am
Thread Starter 
how do i look at that first thing you told me? sorry im a complete linux newb and im still learning my way around the console

EDIT: nevermind, just got it
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post #10 of 18
6/20/05 at 1:46am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tlo
how do i look at that first thing you told me? sorry im a complete linux newb and im still learning my way around the console

EDIT: nevermind, just got it

So out of curiosity, and completly off topic, are you enjoying learning your way around? This is a serious question, not meant to be condesending or anything, I am just insanely curious how others feel when they are first learning Linux compared to how I did.

Seablade

PS Continue to post questions, lots of people here are more than willing to help
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post #11 of 18
6/20/05 at 1:52am
Thread Starter 
ok, it wont let me save because i dont have root access for that file, how do i get into root user mode outside of the console?

i love learning this stuff. im a computer software major (geek) and figuring this stuff out is fun for me (masochistic)
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post #12 of 18
6/20/05 at 3:58am
Heh Thanks for the response... I should start a thread for it I suppose.

Theater Major, Sound Guy, ex-Computer Person.

Loved figuring it out myself.

In as far as getting root access, you should just be able to run your editing program as sudo, for example if emacs is your program...

sudo emacs /etc/apt/sources.list

That should work in the console, and even in X if you have emacs installed(Most distros install it, cant remember with ubuntu)

Or you could try nedit if you dont have emacs.

Or pretty much any X text editor in a console window


Another NOT reccomended option is to sudo chown the file to a regular user. I do NOT reccomend doing this if you can avoid it, as some of those root files are that way for security purposes, and this is one of them.

Although to be honest your default apt.sources should be fine, try running the

apt-get update

without editing that file first and see if it makes a difference, of course do so with sudo preceeding the command.

Seablade
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post #13 of 18
6/20/05 at 5:49am
Thread Starter 
yeah, i had to edit the file to get it to work. the second pair (the pair at the end of that large comment block) was commented, and i didnt have the backports, or the 2 pairs above it. i got the w32codecs, but i still cant get xine or mplayer. where do i find those, and how do i install them?
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post #14 of 18
6/20/05 at 6:00am
Thread Starter 
what kind of packages should be on my "you need to get them now" list. like the linux equivelants of ad-aware, spybot, a firewall, those kind of things?
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post #15 of 18
6/20/05 at 11:47am
dude....go to www.ubuntuguide.org that site will litterally save your ass when it comes to settting up ubuntu for the first time and installing all the good stuff
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post #16 of 18
6/20/05 at 2:27pm
tlo-

In all honesty I have never worried about many peices of software that you mentioned.

A AV program probably isnt a bad idea, however in 5+ years of using linux I have gotten a total of 0 viruses.

Spyware? Um not very likely due to the amount of open source out there, it would be just as easy to remove the spyware portion for most people

Firewall is built into linux however there are other alternatives out there, and that one is definitly a decent idea to get up and running, particularly if the machine is the first on your network after your cable modem or dsl modem, and even after your router(I dont trust built in router software) So that I would look at, I am currently using a linux box as a server in my house and have all ports but 21 and 80 locked down using the linux firewall, never had a problem. Unfortunatly I cant remember the name of the frontend I am using for it though or I would post it up for you because that I know can be gotten through apt

In as far as xine and mplayer...

Can you post up the results of your apt-cache search on those two? It is very odd you cant find either using...

apt-cache search xine

apt-cache search mplayer

If your repositories are set up well(Which that post with the apt.sources file should take care of that) I also use a few external respotories myself, but those should be in the ubuntu repositories.

Also another option to look at for a video player is vlc as it does a decent job as well. I am currently using that on a mac with little to no complaints. Wont play wma or wmv though that I am aware of.

Have fun.

Seablade
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post #17 of 18
6/22/05 at 9:52am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by from my console
tristan@TLo:~$ apt-cache search mplayer
mga-vid-source - Kernel driver for the back-end scaler on Matrox cards (source)
w32codecs - win32 binary codecs
tristan@TLo:~$
i got xine to work. there was a step that i missed on ubuntuguide.org (multimedia codecs). i got all of the codecs except gstreamer0.8-lame, lame, and mjpegtools. but the two above are the only mplayer things i can find are listed above. my repositories look just like the ones you posted
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post #18 of 18
6/22/05 at 10:34am
Yea Lame unfortunatly you may have to download yourself, I remember something weird about that when I had to get it. Mjpeg tools I am not to familiar with so I cant help you but so much.

MPlayer I dont usually use, so again only so much I can help you with their. Sorry, but someone else more familiar with it will probably jump in here

Seablade
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