Created Sunday 11/09/2005
As of Fedora Core 4, the Fedora distribution doesn't ship with mp3 nor mp4 (mpeg) support. This is due to licensing and copyright restrictions. Enabling mp3 read support is quite simple and requires the compilation and installation of a few 3rd party (opensource) libraries. This document describes how to get mp3 going under Fedora Core.
As an aside, even though it's possible to work around the licensing and copyright restrictions, it is worth supporting opensource formats such as ogg, which provide high quality audio codecs that are better than mp3.
Sox (Sound Exchange) will automatically enable mp3 support (via it's configure script) if the devel modules of libmad and liblame are installed. These can be installed via yum:
bash # sudo yum install libmad.x86_64 libmad-devel.x86_64 lame.x86_64 lame-devel.x86_64
Download, configure, build and install sox via cvs with:
bash $ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sox login bash $ cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/sox co sox bash $ cd sox bash $ ./configure bash $ make bash # sudo make install
If the sox rpm is installed, then it can be rebuilt using the source rpm. For example if sox-12.17.7-3 is installed then download sox-12.17.7-3.src.rpm and install:
bash # sudo rpm -Uvh sox-12.17.7-3.src.rpm bash # cd /usr/src/redhat/SPECS bash # sudo rpmbuild -bb sox.spec bash # cd /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/ bash # rpm --nodeps -e sox-12.17.7-3.i386.rpm <<-- remove orignal bash # rpm -Uvh sox-12.17.7-3.i386.rpm <<-- the newly built rpm
Download the sox tarball, extract, configure, build and install as per #1.A. The sox home page is at http://sox.sourceforge.net/
For xmms playback of mp3's, the package xmms-mp3 must be installed. This can be done via yum:
bash # yum install xmms-mp3
http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f7.html
The audio plugins mp3 and mp4 (mpeg) playback are provided by a segregated partition of GStreamer codes. Due to licensing and copyright restrictions, Gstreamer is packaged into 3 separate modules. These are the gstreamer-plugin packages:
At any rate, to enable mp3 and mp4 (mpeg) playback, install the 3 gstreamer plugins, using (e.g.,) yum. To install the gstreamer mp3 supprt, be sure that the Livna libaries are enabled in yum and install with:
bash # yum install gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly
Amarok is a KDE media player that has heaps of features and good playlist support. Amarok provides features such as automatic album art retrieval, iPod/External Device recognitition, CDDB Media Database connectivity and a bunch of other stuff.
For mp3 and mp4 playback in Amarok, be sure to install the gstreamer plugins (see #3). There are many additional Amarok modules that provide integration and visualizations. As a starting point, install the following:
bash # yum install amarok.x86_64 amarokFS.x86_64 amarok-extras-nonfree.x86_64 amarok-visualisation.x86_64
Starting Amarok will launch the KDE sub-systems, which can be quite memory intensive, especially if KDE is not being used as the window manager. There are Amarok-like applications that are GTK+ specific, see for example Exaile: bash # yum install exaile.x86_64
Due to licensing restrictions, the mp3 libraries are not delivered with the base Fedora Core installation. In general, this is a good thing as the mp3 libary is not opensource and as such there should be a movement away from encodings that use mp3 and mp4 (mpeg). The ogg format is such as standard.
Anyway, there are a heap of mp4 and mp3 files out there and so installing suitable codecs, plugins and other software is pretty much essential. For simple mp3 playback, use xmms (requires xmms-mp3) or amarok (with the gstreamer bad and ugly plugins).
The mjwired site has good doco on installing plugins for mp3 and mp4 playback. See http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f7.html
Stuart Moorfoot \copy 11 September 2005 foo@bund.com.au