If you are into music, and like to explore stuff you perhaps have not heard before then there is a little gem hidden in the webbook. Go to Applications-Sound & Video-Rhythmbox Music Player. This is a music manager, somewhat similar in concept to Apple iTunes. It can rip CDs, manage music on MP3 players and contains not one but two music stores. I will followup later with more detail on ripping CDs and messing about with MP3 (you need to install a few extra odds and sods from Synaptic to get the most from it) but today lets concentrate on the music stores. The first is Magnatune, click on this and it will download the catalog, you can then browse and play lots and lots of music. 8068 tracks that would take 22 days, 4 hours and 40 minutes to play back to back. You can buy the music too for a reasonable cost. None of it has any evil DRM, these are all MP3 files (the first time you use it you might have to let it install some plugins to let it decode the MP3 files) you can move about and put on different devices. I quite liked Lizzi and Myles Cochran, but your tastes may vary.
Next up is Jamendo, now this is a very big music store, 62428 tracks which would last 180 days, 7 hours and 49 minutes to play back to back. Now to be fair there is an awful lot of awful music in there, but if you are prepared to sit and listen for six months solid I am sure you will find something that appeals to you!
Hi,
Is it possible to get an iTunes version compatible with Ubuntu (couldn’t see one on their website) or is there other software available that will allow you to sync an iPod with the Webbook?
Thanks
Rhythmbox will let you sync with an iPod. You might have to put the iPod in disk mode or something like that. Works fine with my antique iPod mini. What iPod do you have?
The first generation of video iPod. I plug it in and it doesn’t seem to recognise it. I think file mode is enabled as I used to use it as a backup HDD at work by copying files from my Windows workstation to my iPod. Obviously since I used it with Windows it has a windows based file system and not Apple based.
hi,
my webbook seems very quite for music/video playback, is that normal? can it be tweaked?
thanks,
rich
If you double click on the volume control at the top and set everything to maximum it gets a bit louder. It isn’t going to fill a concert hall whatever you do though! Headphones seem OK, and I have plugged in external amplified speakers which work fine.
Sound in rhythmbox.
I was having problems playing mp3 and online radio through my rhythmbox player, kept getting errors saying “failed to create output image buffer” but found this link ( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rhythmbox/+bug/236201) which recommended disabling the visualisations. This worked a treat and now I am able to play mp3 and stream music radio.
Is this a known problem or will it be fixed in the longterm so that the visualisation and music can be used simultaneously?
Still loving the webbook though
After reboot video iPod works by the way! In fact in one way it certainly is better than iTunes… you don’t have to delete everything and resync your iPod when you connect to a new computer!!! You can just add tracks to the iPod.
You can have your iPod attached and play the tunes through the webbook (though quietly!), or you can pull the tracks off the iPod and copy them onto the Webbook. Though when you try and play some of them with Rythymbox it says “this file is encrypted and cannot be played” I suspect that these tracks are ones I bought through iTunes. Though if anyone knows a way of overriding this please let me know, as far as I am concerned I have purchased these songs and have proof of this fact so should be able to play them on my webbook!!!!
One last comment. When I plug my iPod in a program called F-spot automatically opens as well as Rythymbox. It instantly starts grabbing memory and if I don’t force close it immediately it takes all of the memory of the system in about a minute and freezes the Webbook! Leaves me wondering what is F-spot and what is wrong with it!?!?
According to Synaptic F-Spot is a “personal photo manager”. I just removed it as I don’t fancy crashing my webbook every time I plug my ipod in…
I have been playing with Rhythmbox – the Magnatune Store is a revelation!
I have also added BBC Radio Stations to the internet radio list on Rhythmbox. The URLs can be found at;
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/gaming-games-multimedia-entertainment/79340-howto-use-amarok-play-bbc-radio-stations-over-internet.html
(Read the replies as well as the webpage – there is a useful list of URLs for BBC Radio stations 1-7.)
There is no need to install RealPlayer to stream BBC radio programmes if you use Rhythmbox with the URLs added.