From: Luke Kanies Date: 15:03 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: XMMS Okay, so I decided to stop using my crappy headphones at work (where I listen to them just about all day) and get a decent pair of 'phones and an external amp. Well, headroom.com has this great external amp available that's USB, which is great because I get to use their great DAC instead of whoever the hell's crappy DAC comes in my PC. I got the box last night, tried it out on my Mac, and everything worked fine. It didn't "just work", in that I had to muck with my audio settings, but it did work pretty easily, and even though I'd get annoyed at doing that very often, it was acceptable. Well, then comes the morning and I try it with my linux box, for which I bought the thing (my linux box has an especially bad sound card at the moment -- what do you want? it's built into a dual opteron box; not exactly optimized for consumer audio). Unfortunately, I'm running Gentoo, which means that everything has to be not just configured correctly, but compiled correctly, and I've already had my tribulations with that fact. Even worse, I'm using XMMS, the only mp3 player I've consistently gotten to work on linux. I probably shouldn't blame Gentoo, but it _is_ very annoying to install a complete system and not have everything "just work". Hell, even my debian box at home does that. I had to set all of my USE flags a couple different ways and then recompile a significant portion of everything to get to the point where I could both play music and get audio notifications from Gaim. The default was to only receive the notifications between songs on XMMS, which was really retarded. I partially blame XMMS for that. So, I got esound working, and after changing the settings in XMMS, Gaim, Esound, and Gnome itself, (in addition, of course, to whatever system-wide mixer settings were necessary in the first place), I finally got music in XMMS and could receive Gaim notifications while the music was playing. Of course, if the music were paused, they would queue up and I'd get them all the next time I hit play. It must be noted that I'm using one of the latest 2.6 kernels (2.6.9-r6), and ALSA, which if you've forgotten stands for 'Advanced Linux Sound Architecture'. That's right folks, it used to be worse than this. But I digress. I came here to talk about what a piece of crap XMMS is. To start with, one must despise the interface. I really don't care how good of an interface designer you think you are, the fact is that I have an interface, it already has windows, and your windows don't freaking match them at all. Yes, XMMS is skinnable, but there's no way I can just make it look like it actually belongs on my computer, which is retarded. And in addition to the interface being totally unique (and that's _always_ bad in an interface), it also basically sucks. It's got the gimp-style right-click to get a menu crap, except the clicking has to happen in certain places in the window. It's got its own weird snap to edge behaviour that's not configurable as part of the general interface. It's got a stinkload of preferences available in a menu, and then another list in a Preferences pane. Why? No idea. And then you get to using it. Well, you might, assuming everything is set up correctly. Mine is currently dying whenever I hit 'Play', because I mucked with my settings to get my amp working. Oh, they're all back to the way they were, but XMMS still dies. Why? Well, see, that's why I'm writing this email: I've no idea. It worked for a while, after I got it to the point where it and Gaim could mostly work together. Crap. Yeah, I've tried other mp3 players. Someone on IRC even told me to write my own when I bitched about XMMS. They all crash even more than XMMS does, and usually the interface is even worse. Yay. It's sad when Linux and its apps can't even get something as simple as audio right. I mean, this shit has been done for a decade. Really.
From: Aaron Crane
Date: 15:09 on 21 Dec 2004
Subject: Re: XMMS
Luke Kanies writes:
> Yes, XMMS is skinnable, but there's no way I can just make it look
> like it actually belongs on my computer, which is retarded.
"Also, whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a cool idea",
their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped
soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls"
-- http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/123070.html?thread=521918
From: John Sinteur Date: 16:22 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS On Dec 21, 2004, at 16:09, Aaron Crane wrote: > "Also, whenever a programmer thinks, "Hey, skins, what a cool idea", > their computer's speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped > soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls" > Skins are very useful. Whenever you see an advertisement or readme or whatever claiming "Now with Skins!" (or the more pathetic version "skins finally work" in the release notes) it's the perfect sign the program in question has jumped the shark and should from that point in time onwards be avoided. No, I take that back. It should be avoided from two versions earlier than the first mention of skins. -John
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 15:33 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 10:03:14AM -0500, Luke Kanies wrote: > It's sad when Linux and its apps can't even get something as simple as > audio right. I mean, this shit has been done for a decade. Really. I hate Gentoo. Its the "micro-optimizations uber alles" mentality of system configuration. What's worth more: running 4% faster or everything actually working without having to tweak a million compilation settings? There's a reason to use pre-configured and tested packages such as Debian provides: people have figured this shit out for you. This shit has been done for a decade and Gentoo decides to throw it all out so users can spend days reconfiguring and recompiling their software in a desperate attempt to wring just a bit more speed out of their hardware when they could be spending that time whoring on the street to scrape together the $200 to buy a faster CPU. That said my mp3 player of choice on Linux is mpg123.
From: Anton Berezin Date: 15:40 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 10:33:00AM -0500, Michael G Schwern wrote: > On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 10:03:14AM -0500, Luke Kanies wrote: > > It's sad when Linux and its apps can't even get something as simple as > > audio right. I mean, this shit has been done for a decade. Really. > > I hate Gentoo. > > Its the "micro-optimizations uber alles" mentality of system configuration. > What's worth more: running 4% faster or everything actually working without > having to tweak a million compilation settings? There's a reason to use > pre-configured and tested packages such as Debian provides: people have > figured this shit out for you. > > This shit has been done for a decade and Gentoo decides to throw it all out > so users can spend days reconfiguring and recompiling their software in a > desperate attempt to wring just a bit more speed out of their hardware when > they could be spending that time whoring on the street to scrape together > the $200 to buy a faster CPU. Yeah. Gentoo's portage tried to make a better FreeBSD ports collection, missing the whole point of the latter entirely.
From: Chris Winters Date: 15:49 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS > Yeah. Gentoo's portage tried to make a better FreeBSD ports > collection, missing the whole point of the latter entirely. I'm unfamiliar with FreeBSD ports. How are they so different from Gentoo's portage? Chris
From: Peter Pentchev Date: 16:13 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS --qcHopEYAB45HaUaB Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 10:49:11AM -0500, Chris Winters wrote: > > Yeah. Gentoo's portage tried to make a better FreeBSD ports > > collection, missing the whole point of the latter entirely. >=20 > I'm unfamiliar with FreeBSD ports. How are they so different from Gentoo's > portage? Well, the FreeBSD ports collection basically gives you the means to rebuild the programs you want to *if* you want to, and then it gives the FreeBSD release engineers the means to fill the installation CD's with lots of - and here's a novel idea, at least to some aforementioned Linux distro maintainers, it would seem - *binary packages* built from those self-same ports :) It's a bit more than that, of course, but that's the basic idea - the CD's have binary packages, the FTP sites have binary packages (which are also updated between releases, of course), but if you want to, you can sync the ports tree daily and build and rebuild from source to your heart's desire. G'luck, Peter --=20 Peter Pentchev roam@xxxxxxx.xxx roam@xxxxx.xx roam@xxxxxxx.xxx PGP key: http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc Key fingerprint FDBA FD79 C26F 3C51 C95E DF9E ED18 B68D 1619 4553 This sentence no verb. --qcHopEYAB45HaUaB Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQFByEut7Ri2jRYZRVMRAvfwAJ98q8fTW1FgvdK5YiDKNIOqnpJUYACcCADI xCkKepy82/q1UtKBJ6Jow9c= =0TWr -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --qcHopEYAB45HaUaB--
From: Michael G Schwern Date: 16:19 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 06:13:33PM +0200, Peter Pentchev wrote: > Well, the FreeBSD ports collection basically gives you the means to > rebuild the programs you want to *if* you want to, and then it gives the > FreeBSD release engineers the means to fill the installation CD's with > lots of - and here's a novel idea, at least to some aforementioned Linux > distro maintainers, it would seem - *binary packages* built from those > self-same ports :) This is the thing the Gentoo users seem to miss. All binary Linux distributions also offer source packages! Some make it easier to use them than others, but you can easily set up Debian to download, config, compile and install completely from source packages just like you would binaries. And then you get your precious 686 optimized binaries.
From: Chris Winters Date: 16:33 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS > Well, the FreeBSD ports collection basically gives you the means to > rebuild the programs you want to *if* you want to, and then it gives the > FreeBSD release engineers the means to fill the installation CD's with > lots of - and here's a novel idea, at least to some aforementioned Linux > distro maintainers, it would seem - *binary packages* built from those > self-same ports :) > ... I think the Gentoo folks have gotten the hint about that and provide for binary packages if you want them: From: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml At around the time Gentoo was born, the thing that got in the way was the lack of an easy way to build packages from source, to a user's specifications. Currently, we've done that very well, but what we haven't done very well is support pre-built packages, even though Portage has supported building binary packages almost since its inception. So we are doing that now. I haven't found the compiling much of an irritation and use Gentoo not because of the micro-optimizations (which get lost in the noise, IMO) but because it's got a fairly sane upgrade mechanism and customizing it only rarely makes me feel like stabbing myself in the eyes -- unlike the previous distribution I used up until a few years ago, Red Hat. But I think that all packaging systems suck in their own way. We just get used to them. Chris
From: Luke Kanies Date: 16:35 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS Chris Winters wrote: > > > I think the Gentoo folks have gotten the hint about that and provide for > binary packages if you want them: > > From: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/philosophy.xml > > At around the time Gentoo was born, the thing that got in > the way was the lack of an easy way to build packages from > source, to a user's specifications. Currently, we've done > that very well, but what we haven't done very well is support > pre-built packages, even though Portage has supported building > binary packages almost since its inception. So we are doing > that now. No, there _might_ be binary packages if you want them. The truth is, there very rarely are. Like, there are about 5. > I haven't found the compiling much of an irritation and use Gentoo not > because of the micro-optimizations (which get lost in the noise, IMO) but > because it's got a fairly sane upgrade mechanism and customizing it only > rarely makes me feel like stabbing myself in the eyes -- unlike the > previous distribution I used up until a few years ago, Red Hat. I wouldn't find the micro-compiling as annoying if the make.conf had a bunch of simple examples. "If you want a workstation, use this make.conf". As it is, you periodically realize you left some crucial USE flag out and have to recompile everything. Apparently, because I didn't have X (or is it x11?) in my USE flags, sudo decides to disable DISPLAY when I run it. Ah, right, ok. > But I think that all packaging systems suck in their own way. We just get > used to them. I've got too much hate to get used to them, but at least debian usually stays out of my way. I believe that the vast majority of the software hate I suffer through while using Debian is unrelated to Debian itself, and is instead either endemic to linux (which maybe Debian could mitigate, and often does, but isn't necessarily Debian's fault) or is the crappy software I'm using. (I'm now installing debian with Gentoo; fortunately debootstrap is available in Gentoo's package dirs. :)
From: Chris Winters Date: 16:51 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Hating Gentoo (was: XMMS) > No, there _might_ be binary packages if you want them. The truth is, > there very rarely are. Like, there are about 5. Glad to be corrected. > I wouldn't find the micro-compiling as annoying if the make.conf had a > bunch of simple examples. "If you want a workstation, use this > make.conf". As it is, you periodically realize you left some crucial > USE flag out and have to recompile everything. Apparently, because I > didn't have X (or is it x11?) in my USE flags, sudo decides to disable > DISPLAY when I run it. Ah, right, ok. But when you realize this, it's quite easily fixed. As in either: USE=X emerge sudo or modifying your make.conf and running 'emerge sudo'. Assuming it's not one of the five binary packages you should probably be good to go in about a minute, and then you never have to deal with it again. That seems pretty reasonable to me. Again, I've only got RedHat to go by comparison where it's much more all-or-nothing. > ... > (I'm now installing debian with Gentoo; fortunately debootstrap is > available in Gentoo's package dirs. :) Nice! Chris
From: sungo Date: 16:56 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: Hating Gentoo (was: XMMS) --TKDEsImF70pdVIl+ Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On (12/21 11:51), Chris Winters wrote: > > No, there _might_ be binary packages if you want them. The truth is, > > there very rarely are. Like, there are about 5. >=20 > Glad to be corrected. actually, no. 2004.3 and 2004.4 have package cds for alpha, x86, amd, and ppc. as in full binary packages for most things you'd want them for. like xorg, gnome, perl, python, etc etc >> But when you realize this, it's quite easily fixed. As in either: >=20 > USE=3DX emerge sudo >=20 > or modifying your make.conf and running 'emerge sudo'.=20 bzzt. /etc/portage/package.* package.use contains use flags for individual packages if you dont like the defaults. man emerge and man portage will help here. -- sungo http://eekeek.org "Try everything once except incest and folk dancing." --Sir Thomas Beecham --TKDEsImF70pdVIl+ Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFByFWx5xrCYZCVAioRAigKAKDC8jRu2O9H+bUkYZ+aqRunljDysACdGRYx 9sEjTKQCe4QerIntWCgYVXQ= =B4bx -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --TKDEsImF70pdVIl+--
From: Earle Martin Date: 16:10 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: mpg123 (was: XMMS) On Tue, Dec 21, 2004 at 10:33:00AM -0500, Michael G Schwern wrote: > That said my mp3 player of choice on Linux is mpg123. Generally speaking, I like mpg123. But I have two major gripes with it. First: you have to invoke it with -C to enable control keys. Hello? I WANT TO CONTROL MY MUSIC. It should have been the reverse, with a flag to /disable/ control keys. Second - when I hit 'p' to pause, it doesn't actually pause. It just loops the same half-a-second over and over and over. Audibly! If you're going to do some kind of cheesy hack like that, at least for God's sake mute the sound. Ugh.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 16:31 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: mpg123 (was: XMMS) > Generally speaking, I like mpg123. But I have two major gripes with it. > First: you have to invoke it with -C to enable control keys. There's a good reason for that: mpg123 is a batch program, it's used from other programs, and has been for a long time before it got control keys. The behaviour for "pause" has no excuse, though.
From: sungo Date: 17:05 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS --tAmVnWIZ6lqEAvSf Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On (12/21 10:33), Michael G Schwern wrote: > I hate Gentoo. >=20 > Its the "micro-optimizations uber alles" mentality of system configuratio= n. =20 > What's worth more: running 4% faster or everything actually working witho= ut=20 > having to tweak a million compilation settings?=20 this is a bit like saying that i hate debian because of the crazy licensing fucks. yeah, they're a part of the community. yeah, they're a VOCAL part of the community. but we hates them. yes we do. i've been running gentoo for a while now (ex-slackware and ex-debian junkie). i have a 5 line make.conf that is mostly my preferences for which mirrors to use. and i have about 5 things in package.use (which is the compilation flag override file). and it just works. debian stopped being an option for me when i realised that i needed to recompile firefox to burn gtk2 out of it. through a whole batallion of yaks and it was looking like i was going to have recompile gnome and a bunch of other shit. so i bailed and went to a source based distro that let me do what i wanted to do easily. also, on a seperate debian hate, most package maintainers need to have their legs broken. after zsh and then perl and then a few other apps i cant live without broke in different ways on a daily basis in testing, it was time to either change distros or buy a gun and go on a rampage. -- sungo http://eekeek.org "Try everything once except incest and folk dancing." --Sir Thomas Beecham --tAmVnWIZ6lqEAvSf Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFByFfd5xrCYZCVAioRAsinAJwLv862ZUQ0h0CFKRL+0u0PJsY2ggCeKPxN U6cKHkv8fppXbxF40UsaJ0A= =6IrO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --tAmVnWIZ6lqEAvSf--
From: Aaron J. Grier Date: 16:24 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS I've never understood XMMS. or the urge to make GUI programs look "unique." more and more I find myself writing shell scripts to do things like play mp3 files in reverse last-accessed order, do on-the-fly playlists, etc. madplay --tty-control gets the most use around here. if you have controlling tty, why NOT enable those keyboard controls? I just wish ogg123, flac, and sidplay had 'em too. guess there's the source...
From: Foofy Date: 16:37 on 21 Dec 2004 Subject: Re: XMMS On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 10:03:14 -0500, Luke Kanies <luke@xxxxxxx.xxx> wrote: > It's sad when Linux and its apps can't even get something as simple as > audio right. I mean, this shit has been done for a decade. Really. And Linux lovers wonder why some of us *like* using Windows?
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