 July Linux Freeware A selection of the best multimedia tools for Linux.
By James Morris |
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| X11Amp | |||||
| MPEG is a system
which enables sound streams to be compressed and transmitted or stored digitally, then
reproduced in high quality. A number of encoding and decoding tools are readily available,
which, combined with the high compression ratios that can be achieved, has led to the
extensive use of MPEG files on the Internet. X11Amp, a player for MPEG-1 audio layer-3 (MPG3) files, is modelled closely on the popular WinAmp application available for Microsoft and Apple platforms. Current features include volume and balance controls, the ability to move to any point within the sound file, and a number of playing modes such as shuffle and repeat. An inbuilt spectrum analyser provides a continuous view of the intensity of various frequencies present in the sound stream, which looks very cool. An equaliser, which allows the characteristics of the sound stream to be modified, is under development and should be available in an upcoming release. A handy playlist editor is also provided, allowing sound files to be managed in collections, then played back programmatically. Not all of the features of WinAmp have been implemented as yet (X11Amp is still a beta product), however it is still very usable, and the development effort is continuing. X11Amp is currently available as pre-compiled packages in RPM, Debian and TGZ formats for i386 Linux. Future releases are expected to involve ports to other platforms and source code availability. Planned features also include an applet version for integration with the AfterStep Wharf and support for receiving streamed sound via the Web or FTP. |
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Download the version for your operating system here:
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| Publisher: | 'Psychotron', 'Fatal' and 'Crocodile' | ||||
| Requirements: | Free. | ||||
 Links online: |
http://www.x11amp.bz.nu/ | ||||
| eMusic | ||||||
| eMusic is a
general-purpose sound player, developed with the Enlightenment window manager's philosophy
of allowing the user to determine the look and feel of the system in mind. eMusic is able to read a variety of sound file formats, as well as acting as a CD player. Its appearance is highly configurable, with a number of themes or 'skins' available. These tend to integrate well with Enlightenment themes; however, eMusic seems to work fine with other window managers. Being a highly developmental application, the best way to get eMusic up and running is to grab the latest development release and build it. eMusic requires recent versions of Imlib (available from http://www.enlightenment.org) and Fnlib (available from the eMusic site). Check that these are installed and that older versions of the libraries are not lying around the system (this is a very common cause of problems with building the application). We also recommend installing the EsounD package (available from http://pw1.netcom.com/~ericmit/EsounD.html) to enable multiple sound streams to be mixed into a single sound device, although eMusic will still work without it. |
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Download the version for your operating system
here:
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| Publisher: | Isaac Richards and team | |||||
| Requirements: | Freeware | |||||
| Links online: |
http://www.icom.net/~smelecat/emp3/ | |||||
| XAnim | |||||
| XAnim is a versatile
image, video and sound player for X. Supported video formats include AVI, QuickTime (MOV) and SGI Movie, while supported animated image types include FLI, DL, FLC and GIF. XAnim can also display a wide range of static image formats, and play WAV and AU sound files. A full listing of all supported file types and variations is available at the Web site. XAnim is essentially a command line tool with a graphical display, although a number of controls for manipulating the program are available in a separate window when appropriate. Some aspects of the application may also be controlled via keystrokes and mouse clicks. XAnim has many command line options, and the supplied manual page is essential reading to get the most out of the application. Most of the recent Linux distributions should come with an XAnim package, however the source is available from the Web site for compilation if required. Once installed, the easiest way to get started is probably to find an AVI or MOV file and just run XAnim with the filename as the command line argument. XAnim may also be set up as the default movie viewer for Web browsers such as Netscape, particularly where plug-ins are not available for Linux systems. |
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Download the version for your operating system
here:
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| Publishers: | Mark Podlipec | ||||
| Requirements: | Free for non-commercial use | ||||
| Links online: |
http://smurfland.cit.buffalo.edu/xanim/ | ||||
| TCD | ||||||
| TCD is a simple CD
player for Linux, with both terminal-based curses and GUI versions available. The GUI
version utilises the Gtk+ toolkit developed for the Gimp project, and is being developed
as a Gnome application (see http://www.gnome.org). TCD provides standard CD playing controls, such as stop, pause, eject and track selection. The skip forward/back control seems at this stage to only move in four-second increments with each keypress, making it difficult to navigate within sound tracks. Apart from that, TCD is really great to use, with both the terminal and GUI versions being well conceived. The GUI version features 'tooltips', small pop-up windows which describe the function of components that the mouse pointer is resting on. TCD also supports the distributed CDDB (CD Database) system, where information about CDs is retrieved over the Internet and displayed by the CD player. Standard CDs do not contain accessible information about their tracks, and the inclusion of CDDB functionality is a nice touch. Installation under RedHat 5.0 is straightforward, although the latest version of the Gtk+ library may need to be installed (ftp://ftp.gimp.org). The application is friendly enough to have up and running without the need for much documentation. |
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Download the version for your operating system
here:
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| Publisher: | Tim Gerla | |||||
| Requirements: | Freeware | |||||
| Links online: |
http://flow.ml.org/tcd/ | |||||
| WMRack | ||||||
| WMRack is a clever little CD player designed for integration with window managers such as AfterStep, WindowMaker and FVWM. Measuring 48 by 48 pixels, the applet may operate in a number of modes, providing standard CD-playing functions, volume controls and a playlist editor. If you are running one of these window managers, WMRack is probably the best choice for a CD player applet. | ||||||
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Download the version for your
operating system here:
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| Publisher: | Oliver Graf | |||||
| Requirements: | Free | |||||
| Links online: |
http://www.fga.de/~ograf/WMRack.shtml | |||||
⌐ Australian Consolidated Press 1998. All rights reserved.
