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GNOME GUI Media Music

Rhythmbox Gets iPod Support 249

Posted by simoniker from the plug-it-in dept.
Bhondai writes "The latest release of the popular GNOME based iTunes clone, Rhythmbox has, amongst new features, initial support for the iPod. Things are still a little unpolished at this moment (requiring manual mounting of the iPod to /mnt/ipod), but this does look promising. A list of changes and new features in Rhythmbox 0.7.1 is available at Footnotes."
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Rhythmbox Gets iPod Support More

Rhythmbox Gets iPod Support

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  • does it play ogg ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mirko ( 198274 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @03:44AM (#8596693) Journal
    Well I guess it does but despite the trollish title, I wonder if it on-the-fly convert OGG to MP3 when it transfer tunes to the ipod ?

    • Re:does it play ogg ? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by perly-king-69 ( 580000 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @06:11AM (#8597110)
      You really don't want to do that. Encoding from one lossy format to another will really degrade the quality.

      • Re:does it play ogg ? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by GauteL ( 29207 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @09:14AM (#8597946)
        While this is certainly true, I can think of myself and lots of other people willing to take that loss in quality in order to not have to reencode their entire music collection.

        Since Rhythmbox as an app don't really show the user the difference between an MP3 and an OGG you would assume that you could drag and drop ANY music file onto the iPod. While a small notice saying that this will lead to loss in quality might be reasonable, it certainly SHOULD do what the user asks it to do.

        While I might want to reencode my entire music collection at some point, simple conversion from OGG->mp3 might be what I want if I just want to listen to a certain album on the road.
      • ...but to a generation who gets their music from earbuds, quality would seem to be a non-factor in most listenign today.

  • They changed their mind? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OmniVector ( 569062 ) <se e m y h o mepage> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @03:44AM (#8596698) Homepage
    I remember speaking to one of the developers in the IRC channel specifically about this. Their response was "write a gnome-vfs module for it."

    Granted they had a point, but that isn't as seamless as a solution if you ask me. It's about time gnome had a good ipod solution.

  • May this project actually get finished... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iamacat ( 583406 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @03:45AM (#8596701)
    As in automatic mounting and unmounting, syncing with multiple devices and so on, rather than remain unpolished like so many Linux projects. I remember trying to sync a USB Clie with Linux and, although programs like kpilot were out for a while, they still required manual commands in a terminal window to work.

  • I don't see... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pdbaby ( 609052 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @03:50AM (#8596715)
    what's so impressive about this? If you have to manually mount the ipod, then the only new feature is a front-end for "cp" and "ls". Anyone care to enlighten me?

  • Well supported? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by forcery ( 714944 )
    Have anybody tried this yet and know how well supported it is?

    Does it work just like a usual mp3 player (have to copy manually) or can you sync your entire library to it (like you do with iTunes)? What about syncing playlists?

    And I couldn't find the README.iPod file in the 0.7.1 source.. anyone know where I can find it?

  • iTunes XML (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Animaniac ( 719374 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @03:57AM (#8596737)
    This was the one of two things holding me back from moving to Linux, as I use my iPod and iTunes a great deal on Windows. The second thing is the ability to import iTunes library data (which is conveniently stored in a nice XML file) into Rhythmbox. That way I can migrate from iTunes to Rythmbox with little trouble. That last feature would make the deal for me. I'd like to move my x86 machines to Linux and save up to get a nice Mac too. =)
    • Apple loves XML. Almost everything in OS X is XML (dig through a .app folder in the console if you're curious.) Most OS X apps store stuff as XML as well, so it's all very portable. Open standards fucking rule. :)

  • What Rhythmbox still does not have (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18, 2004 @03:59AM (#8596743)
    VVC4 XML metadata support, common for years in WinAmp, Windows Media Player and other mainstream media software, still cannot be found in Rhythmbox. It is used by most or all DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies commonly used by internet content resellers. Without this users just cannot pay for content online and all Linux users will be classified as pirates.

    Before we get this important feature Linux cannot make serious inroads in the corporate desktop market. It's not even a complex feature, just requires linking to libxml and some 500 lines of code. I made a patch for this myself but the RhythmBox developers rejected it claiming they don't want any more dependencies (libxml), but I believe the real reason is that they don't want to touch DRM. But the fact is musicians can't work for free and at some point we need to start paying or the whole industry will die.

    • Re:What Rhythmbox still does not have (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sn0wman3030 ( 618319 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @04:14AM (#8596780) Homepage Journal
      There is seriously no reason to buy music online IMHO. Just buy the CD at the store, and rip it onto your hard drive. You get a disk with all the music, uncompressed. Plus, you get the case and all the artwork/essays that the artists include with each album. The artists still get paid, and everyone wins.

      Rhythmbox integrates the wonderful Sound Juicer as a ripper. It is the most simple, straight-forward ripper available for the linux desktop. Rhythmbox may not be itunes yet, but it's making improvements constantly.
      • There is seriously no reason to buy music online IMHO. Just buy the CD at the store, and rip it onto your hard drive. You get a disk with all the music, uncompressed. Plus, you get the case and all the artwork/essays that the artists include with each album. The artists still get paid, and everyone wins.

        Yeah, especially the oil companies. For many of us, "just buy the CD at the store" translates to "just drive to the store", while "just buy the song online" translates to "just double-click on that icon w

      • Re:What Rhythmbox still does not have (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "You get a disk with all the music, uncompressed"

        You're aware that the iTunes Music Store encodes their files from the original master, right? Meaning AAC files from the iTMS are potentially closer in fidelity to the original than the compact disc equivalents.

      • Re:What Rhythmbox still does not have (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        There is seriously no reason to buy music online IMHO.

        Oh yes there is.

        a. Many new CDs are deliberately broken (or "copy protected" as some prefer to say) and for example my laptop's CD drive isn't very good at handling those. Equals "no ripping".

        b. The music stores around here SUCK. Seriously.

        c. I dislike the idea of buying unnecessary shit (CDs in this case) that I have really no use for per se.

        I would have no problems paying for music, but there are no potential online stores with anything I'm inter

      • There is seriously no reason to buy music online IMHO.

        Well, IMHO there is a reason:

        Singles.

        While I agree with you that if you want an album, purchasing it in its physical form and getting the uncompressed audio is the best way to go.
        However, if you don't want an entire album of filler to get one or two good songs, buying individual tracks online is really the only option. I've purhased over 130 songs from iTunes so far and absolutely 0 complete albums.

        Of course, you could have meant piracy is a good s
      • >There is seriously no reason to buy music online IMHO.

        Except for the fact that a) I rarely *want* a whole CD--usually I just want a couple songs, b) I can have the one song I want in seconds, rather than a half hour, plus getting dressed, wear and tear on the car, that much more pollution, etc., c) I mainly listen to music with my iPod while driving and thus have no need for a shiny 5" disc, d) I could give two shits about album art, liner notes, etc.; all I might want are lyrics, but they usually aren
    • As a music management software, it really needs to incorporate the tag editing functions like cantus [debain.org]

      and also looking forward the regular expression search function.

    • But the fact is musicians can't work for free and at some point we need to start paying or the whole industry will die.

      Pay musicians to create music instead of paying people that "own" music.

      -metric
      • Or to perform music. Seriously though, at least here in Pittsburgh, small venues for people to perform at are going quickly. Supporting local music translates directly into given support to the "real" music industry people: the musicians. So get out there and go to some indy shows. Musicians still should get compensated for music they sell, but at a much smaller rate, think $5 a CD (direct to artist)
    • Before we get this important feature Linux cannot make serious inroads in the corporate desktop market.

      I can't remember how many times random assholes have said this sentence (and have been modded +5 Insightful). Please understand this: Linux is currently making it to the corparate desktop, wether or not it supports your pet feature.

    • >I made a patch for this myself but the RhythmBox developers rejected it claiming they don't want any more dependencies (libxml).

      Ummm... no. First, Rhythmbox already uses libxml and has for a long time if not since its inception. The library data, etc. is stored in an XML format. Second, I've been on the rhythmbox-devel list since well back before the net-rhythmbox fork/remerger and I can personally say that I have never seen mention of said patch or proposition (and I would have noticed this). I re

  • Syncing - Read only for now (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18, 2004 @04:09AM (#8596769)
    I've been using this from CVS for about a month, and it only reads from the ipod. Write support is planned for the future.

    In response to the comment about cp/ls - the iPod uses a proprietary database (iTunesDB) to store meta-information, so cp *mp3 /mnt/ipod/ will do nothing but store it on the iPod hd. You won't be able to play it

  • Meh. Innovation, please? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18, 2004 @04:26AM (#8596821)
    This is not innovation. Instead of looking at proprietary software and saying "let's do that!", developers with free time for GUI software should innovate. You heard me. Apple has developer mindshare not because of iTunes, but because it comes up with things like iTunes before anyone else does.

    For all the talk of GPL != theft, there sure are a lot of clones of non-free software out there. Sometimes that's convenient for interoperability, but it's always a bad idea as a strategy -- it's just playing catchup. If Gnome, say, had said "let's make a really really good music player, with integration for everything useful and a nice interface" in 1999, it would be a lot more credible on the desktop. But no, the open-source world as a community waited and then imitated.

    There are only a few GPL GUI apps that took a reasonably original idea (or reasonably original selection of ideas, to be fair, because most "original" software is made up of well-documented ideas) and did it well. In fact, I said "a few" to cover my ass -- I can't think of any at all.

    Sigh. This is sounding more like a troll than I wanted. I guess it is one. I'm just disappointed. One reason I switched to Linux way back when is that it seemed fresh -- it might suck a bit, but it was justifiable and tolerable suck. It would get better fact, I assumed, and it would get better in strange, unheard-of ways. It sort of did. Mostly it didn't. Now it's just trying to look more like Microsoft and Apple's stuff.

    How many Aqua GTK themes, now? And they *all* missed the point. It's not about pinstripes. Even Apple started backtracking on the pinstripes a bit. Pinstripes are the chrome, guys. Sticking them on GTK just gives you a ricecar*. What RealPlayer is to marketing, the Linux desktop today is to nerdery. In both cases, atypical users are making bizarre assumptions about what more ordinary users might like. RealPlayer had the advantage of early adoption. Linux has no advantage. It's judged on its merits, and its desktop merits for non-developers are slim to nil. Huge friendly transparent PNG icons don't matter. You gotta make it feel friendly yet solid. Solid yet friendly. Meditate on that for a while.

    You don't get that pleasant-yet-stable feeling from clones. You just don't. It's like translated poetry, or the book of a movie. It misses the important parts and makes a big deal out of the boring stuff.

    The GIMP is a clone (and if you don't believe it, compare things like the order of the layer transparency menu to Photoshop's). Sodipodi is suck. The only good video editing software isn't GPL. Blender couples the simplicity of emacs with the interface of vim. XMMS is a clone. OGG Vorbis is a conceptual clone -- it may not share any code with MP3, but you can't tell me it isn't essentially an "oh, yeah, we can do it too" situation, even if it's for all the best reasons. OpenOffice is complete garbage: it's ugly and unstable compared to the ten-year-old wopro my Mac Classic runs.

    Okay, so there's Nautilus. That's the only thing that's really pushing any part of the envelope as a desktop app. And maybe Kudzu. Other than that, it's just a little chrome on Xerox PARC, Microsoft, and Apple.

    This saddens me. I don't like it. Sometimes I try to do something about it, but ... meh. I run OS X on my desktop these days. I'd rather use the original iTunes. I can't recompile it, but I don't need to. I'm not saying OS X is the pinnacle of anything, just that in the end the GPL isn't as important to me as the feeling of a coherent, not-totally-derivative interface. (And yes, I know Apple's interface is derivative. It just isn't *as* derivative.)

    Come on, guys. Let's see some GUI innovation already. Or is it already there and I'm just not noticing? Name some software that's:

    0. GPL.
    1. Useful.
    2. Pleasant to use.
    3. Not an instantly recognizable clone of something non-GPL.
    4. Stable.

    * Spelling intentional. Google it. In short, a lousy car decked out to look fast. Equivalent to "polished turd".
    • Firefox and its extensions?

    • Re:Meh. Innovation, please? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ickoonite ( 639305 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @05:19AM (#8596958) Homepage
      I have had a similar experience, I suppose, starting out on DOS/Win 3.11, moving through Windows 9x and then finding Linux as a hope-inspiring alternative back in, oooh, about 1998. And hell, it did suck then - when I first started using it, KDE1 was in alpha/beta, but hey, it was different, so that was enough.

      But like you say, there is always the lingering hope that it will get better. One is content with what one has when one is running Linux because, well, it's not Microsoft and some stuff (e.g. GNOME 2.6) is really rather beautiful. But, as I have pointed out before [slashdot.org] and as you rightly say here, there's very little innovation - GNOME 2.6's much-needed replacement for the file dialogue boxes are straight from Apple and the spatial file browser is another old Apple trick. And of course the Start button (you can write whatever you like on it; it's always gonna be a Start button) is hardly an open source original.

      I suppose the root of the problem is that most open source development is done by nerds, whose C or asm prowess is indubitable but whose understanding of the average user is minimal to non-existent. I am not wishing to berate these types, because the work they do is often superb, but I think we can easily conclude that:
      • Nerds cannot think like users and expect that every user should either work hard to understand the system or quite simply fuck off and not use their software;
      • Users' expectations are far too high from a bunch of tech-types who have no understanding of users' needs.
      We keep talking about Linux on the desktop. GNOME is now ready for the desktop, but what does that actually mean? OK, so now Linux is as usable as Windows, but somebody whit here the other day, Windows is not exactly good enough for most users. Why else would it need such a big tech support team in every organisation?

      Aside from the feuding and pettiness that detracts from the quality of some projects (I cite xMule [xmule.org] vs. aMule [sf.net] and mplayer [mplayerhq.hu] as current or past examples), there is some great work being done. Why do we keep settling for good enough?

      iqu :?
      • I have had a similar experience, I suppose, starting out on DOS/Win 3.11, moving through Windows 9x and then finding Linux as a hope-inspiring alternative back in, oooh, about 1998.

        Oh please, Win95 was a cheap look-alike of RiscOS 2 [houseofmabel.com], task bar and all, though vastly inferior in every way. The Start button isn't M$ original (RISCOS2 was around '89, half a decade before Win95). Very little M$ have done has been original, it's been either copied (Apple, Xerox, etc) or assimilated. And even though they are a

        • Re:Meh. Innovation, please? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ickoonite ( 639305 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @07:10AM (#8597286) Homepage
          Your first paragraph entirely misses the point of my post. And at no point did I suggest that Microsoft didn't copy their whole UI from, well, whoever (anyway, it is irrelevant). And in response to...

          "As a competative company you should be looking at what your rivals are doing and then providing them for your customers."

          ...I would first offer...

          "Aside from the feuding and pettiness that detracts from the quality of some projects ... there is some great work being done. Why do we keep settling for good enough?"

          A truly competitive company innovates - the only reason Apple [apple.com] are still extant in these days of Microsoft hegemony is because they innovate like fuck. If OSS was similarly innovative, it would enjoy wider usage already. What is the point of moving to a lookalike that cannot run your applications? (Linux, of course, has other real, geniune strengths, but the UI side is not one of them).

          And nor was I arguing with the actual content of the Slashdot story - more hardware support for Linux is great - but rather seconding the parent thread, which in my view correctly opines the frustrating state of current OSS software development - neatly summed up as copy rather than create.

          iqu :s
          • Using Linux I've been able to:
            * literally use my home desktop at work using VNC
            * log into a choice of window managers depending on my whim (kde, gnome, xfce)
            * customise the behaviour of my window manager in a couple of clicks (eg I like to have the close window icon on the left so I won't accidentally close when I want to minimise)
            * switch between multiple virtual desktops (and that Powertools copy M$ provide is not an equivalent, it's so slow its unusable)
            * use the Filer I want to (currently ROX) and still
            • I'm still maintaining my line that a lot of Linux is catchup, certainly in the GUI arena, but your latest post has given me at the very least pause for thought and made me think why I love open source/UNIX so much.

              I suppose the place where the real innovation is is in these little "intellectual challenges," as you put it. Linux's out-of-the-box hardware support is unrivalled (Windows XP can't begin to match it), and for me, the best thing about the open source UNIXes (and in this I include Mac OS X) is th
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The open source community has always been very capable of technical innovation and development. When something has become standardised in some way, open souce can come along and replicate it in a less crash-prone, etc way.

      Open source does not employee strategists and user groups and marketing departments. Hence why it is better at copying (and improving and refining) what has gone before.

      It is the old process of innovation, adoption, standardisation, commoditisation that - in all probability - is older ev

    • Re:Meh. Innovation, please? (Score:5, Informative)

      by slux ( 632202 ) on Thursday March 18, 2004 @06:38AM (#8597185)

      Apple has developer mindshare not because of iTunes, but because it comes up with things like iTunes before anyone else does.

      Apple didn't come up with the idea behind iTunes any more than the Rhythmbox developers, this [wikipedia.org] Wikipedia article explains how it is based on SoundJam MP from another company and Apple just hired the people and bought the app. I would not be terribly surprised if there was something comparable even before that.

      For all the talk of GPL != theft, there sure are a lot of clones of non-free software out there.

      The "GPL != theft" part makes you sound a lot like a troll. Where did you get the idea that writing a similar app to an existing one is anything even remotely comparable to theft? It happens all the time even in the non-free software industry. More on that a little later.

      How many Aqua GTK themes, now? And they *all* missed the point. It's not about pinstripes. Even Apple started backtracking on the pinstripes a bit. Pinstripes are the chrome, guys

      People made Aqua GTK themes because they wanted them. It hasn't much to do with what direction GNOME, KDE or the free software desktop is taking. Why not rant about Windows XP which also has this Aqua theming craze [aquaxp.com] and how Microsoft just doesn't get it?

      The GIMP is a clone (and if you don't believe it, compare things like the order of the layer transparency menu to Photoshop's).

      Again, even Adobe didn't originally come up with Photoshop. Just like Apple, they bought it after they saw what it was. (Wikipedia link [wikipedia.org]. Drawing/image editing programs certainly have a long history before it as well. GIMP isn't the only clone either, there's other proprietary software such as Paint Shop Pro that is even closer to Photoshop as far as the look and feel go.

      Blender couples the simplicity of emacs with the interface of vim.

      Well, that's something original, isn't it? Some people think Blender's UI's just great.

      XMMS is a clone. OGG Vorbis is a conceptual clone -- it may not share any code with MP3, but you can't tell me it isn't essentially an "oh, yeah, we can do it too" situation, even if it's for all the best reasons. OpenOffice is complete garbage: it's ugly and unstable compared to the ten-year-old wopro my Mac Classic runs.

      And for every app you've mentioned there's also a lot of non-free clones and in many cases the dominant ones aren't the original appearances of the application type. Ogg Vorbis? It actually tries to improve (succesfully?) on the idea, providing better audio quality and/or smaller file size. There's AAC, mp3pro, WMA and a bunch of others too, you know. Why not whine about them too? What you said about Ooo.org pretty much applies to any modern Office suite.

      Okay, so there's Nautilus. That's the only thing that's really pushing any part of the envelope as a desktop app. And maybe Kudzu. Other than that, it's just a little chrome on Xerox PARC, Microsoft, and Apple.

      The desktop metaphor is still going strong after around 30 years (so's UNIX, by the way). The problem with lack of innovation in UI design is not just a GNOME or a KDE problem if you want to view it as one. If you want to see UI innovation you really shouldn't bee looking at the desktop environments that as their very goal are trying to provide the dominant user experience based on the 30-year-old metaphor. How about checking out something like Ion, Fluxbox and others from the plethora of available window managers? You could still also look at some of the more original stuff brewing for the big traditional environments, such as the kicker replacement called Slicker [sf.net]. In my opinion, GNOME has managed to stand u

    • I agree with you too, I had to think a while until I came up with a program that fits your requirements.

      - gaim (ok, it does what other IMs do, but its different enough)
      - grip
      - sane (instead of n*m TWAIN crap)
      - gphoto (instead of n*m crap camera tools)
      - spamassassin (maybe not quite as pleasent to use)
    • > The only good video editing software isn't
      > GPL.

      Have you ever used Cinerella? In conjunction with transcode and the like? I think it's rather good -- with Firewire support for your DV-camera and everything.

      > Blender couples the simplicity of emacs with
      > the interface of vim.

      That, my good sir, is plain trolling. Look at other 3D-suites like Lightwave or some in-house tools (which Blender has been for years) and you will also find "strange" UIs. Those UIs do not follow ordinary guidelines tha
    • Would everyone please just STOP whining about the goddamn "innovation".

      It's not like copying good features from somewhere else and combining them is not just as good for your desktop as trying to waste your time thinking about some never-ever seen stupid feature just to be "innovative".

      Or if you're feeling so fucking innovative today, do it yourself instead of insulting works of others. If you can't do that, go ahead and give some of those uber-bright ideas to programmers, let's see if it's feasible for t

    • Hastings's Law (Score:3, Insightful)

      by steveha ( 103154 )
      Don't forget Hastings's Law:

      Before you can advance the state of the art, you have to reach the state of the art.

      Rhythmbox is shaping up nicely, but don't forget that it really hasn't been aroud all that long. The Rhythmbox developers might do amazing, crazy things with it, but that will have to wait until they lay the foundation by adding the features people need, first. iPod owners need iPod support.

      Consider the GNOME desktop itself. At the time it was started, KDE was already working and useful, and

  • Nervousness about RythmBox (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The idea of an iTunes clone makes me sort of nervous. If Apple made such a blatant clone of a flagship OSS project, and made it closed-source, wouldn't they be torn to shreds by angry Slashdotters? I thought were were supposed to be innovating here, not copying. And yes, I'm aware that in a sense Apple has done exactly that with BSD, but that's allowed under the license, and they've been goo about giving back (so far). (Same with KHTML.) Just imagine that RhythmBox came -first-, and -then- Steve Jobs announ
    • They do that all the time with even proprietary software - see the Sherlock fiasco. Hell the visualisation in iTunes isn't just a clone of G-Force, it practically is G-Force.
    • The difference is, would it have been the other way, people could wonder whether Apple has copied code from Rhythmbox. But Rhythmbox came after, and we're quite sure they didn't get some code from iTunes.
      Also, clones are very common in the software world, not only from open-source developers. Every good idea has been copied over and over.
    • It's all about the right to use what you bought in a way that you want. Why should I have to use an iPod with a Mac or Windows? Why should I be forced to use only a subset of it's abilities if I don't use an Mac or Windows? I don't have to use bread made by General Electric in my toaster made by General Electric. I bought the bread, I bought the iPod. ...wouldn't they be torn to shreds by angry Slashdotters?

      some, yes, probably. why live by mob rule though? fair use is fair use, no matter who's using it.
      • Nobody's saying you can't use it. They're just saying, "you want to use it, you have to make it work yourself." By your argument, everyone using OS/2, DOS, Next, Windows 1.0, VMS, etc. should be able to complain simply because Apple won't let them use the iPod on their computer. Sometimes certain OSes get left behind. That's where the community has to come in and fill in the gaps, and perhaps even innovate in the field a little bit.

  • Can't wait (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ike6116 ( 602143 ) *
    For Apple Legal to smack this project down. Apple Legal doesn't seem to striking fear into the hearts of many like it used to. Personally I think Apple could benefit from porting iTunes to Linux (Does it work under WINE?) Also what's the chance of this project implementing FairPlay?
    • I don't see why Apple would care. They haven't taken any action about the numerous song extracting tools like PodWorks [scifihifi.com], which might have caused problems. Adding songs to and iPod seems pretty useful for Apple.

      As for FairPlay, well this looks pretty good - although this stands a much higher chance of catching the lawyers' attention. VLC has an interesting module [videolan.org] which implements FairPlay. (You might recognise one of the authors ;-) If you have an iPod you should be able to play FairPlay protected files on L
    • There is really nothing Apple can do about it. The only thing this project and other iPod-projects have done is to deduce how the interface to the iPod works and implement something that supports it. This is certainly not illegal.

      Besides, while Apple are known for litigation, I seriously doubt they would try to go for this given the miniscule chance of them getting anything positive out of it.
    • What the fuck are you talking about? What could Apple possibly use to "smack this project down?"

      They haven't used any Apple code, they aren't infringing any patents(far as I know), and they aren't breaking the DMCA with any DRM circumvention or anything of the sort.

      So I ask you again, what the fuck are you talking about?

  • GNOME Logo (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 18, 2004 @05:04AM (#8596915)
    Please, please, please can you change the slashdot GNOME logo? The one currently being used on Slashdot was phased out years ago.
  • I've had some minor issues with RhythmBox over time. For starters, I'm pushing a general gnome question across here... does every app automatically work with ESD? It seems like there should be a direct OSS or Alsa option, particularly for those of us with good cards and hardware mixing. RhythmBox I find to be slow at startup when playing mp3s, that is, every time I start to play an mp3 it not only slows and pauses for a second, but slows my entire system. I'm not sure what the issue with this is, but it
  • There are much more Linux applications for portable MP3 players [tuxmobil.org], not only for the Apple iPod but for the Creative Nomad Jukebox, Diamond Rio 500 and more.

  • Stability (Score:4, Insightful)

    by trans_err ( 606306 ) <.ebenoist. .at. .gmail.com.> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @06:27AM (#8597161) Homepage
    What rhythmbox really needs is a standard set of features (ID3 editting comes to mind) and stability. Rhythmbox has always been plagued with lock ups, freezes, and every other horrid use of the word. Ryhthmbox simply can not handle a large library of MP3s (10,000+). Most often rhythmbox simply will not even load that large a number of songs and simply die before it finishes.

    Rhythmbox has a lot of promise, but they need to slow down for a second and fix the bugs which are preventing people to use what could be a really killer app.

    • Re:Stability (Score:3, Informative)

      by jimmy_dean ( 463322 )
      Actually, most stability problem that you see in Rhythmbox are due to the GStreamer media backend. GStreamer is still very much a new technology that at times is a little rough around the edges. It's sorta how Mozilla was for so long - very experimental before 1.0 and very unpredictable. I would expect to see GStreamer and Rhythmbox both stabalize rapidly in the near future.
    • Have you tried the latest versions!? It used to do that in it's very early stages, but since the release that was dubbed "The Universe is Finite", it has been much more stable and can handle fairly large libraries.

      I have a library of several thousand songs(MP3 and OGG), and it handles it just fine, over a 100Mb network.

  • /mnt/ipod? AFAIR my standards, /mnt is for ad hoc temporary mounting directly, without any subdirectories. It should be /media/ipod.

  • Ironic Homepage Banner (Score:5, Funny)

    by cyranoVR ( 518628 ) <cyranoVR.gmail@com> on Thursday March 18, 2004 @09:16AM (#8597962) Homepage Journal
    It's kind of ironic that their homepage banner [rhythmbox.org] shows rhythmbox playing "Bring Me to Life" by Evanesence.

    Seeing as their server is on its way to being Slashdotted, maybe a better choice of Evanesence song would have been "Going Under?"
  • iRiver machines use a database to store metadata too. It would be nice to have this integrated into Rhythmbox as well. I have talked to the developers and it may be possible. Unfortunately I'm not much of a C programmer.

    (Check out iripdb for relevant code.)

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