Tech
Songbird 1.4.3 Fedora 12 RPM's Released
Submitted by digitalruin on Wed, 01/27/2010 - 23:17I'm happy to say as promised, 1.4.3-1 has been finished.
A couple of notes before you download and install:
1) i686 and x86_64 were fully tested on clean F12 installs and worked without
any issues, so I am satisfied. However, I spent hours trying to debug an
"audiosink" issue on my x86_64 install and it turned out to be a leftover
config from when I was running F11 and my X-Fi sound card, which was not
supported properly and not using autoaudiosink. The point is, songbird is very
sensitive to which audio engine you are using. If you have playback issues on a
system that has been upgraded F10->F11->F12, etc, most likely that is your
problem and you're not running the same way as a fresh F12 install
Example: Something along these lines...
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rhythmbox/+bug/442157
2) I do not have a PPC/PPC64 system any more, so the builds are untested. They
completed successfully, but I can't verify functionality.
3) I recommend using the absolute latest gstreamer and gstreamer-plugins
available in the repo, Songbird constantly upstreams patches. Old gstreamer
versions can lead to playback issues. As always, mp3 support is through the
full suite of gstreamer-plugins not available or licensed from Fedora.
4) To take the load off the devs, when reporting bugs back to Songbird please
Songbird 1.1.2 Update
Submitted by digitalruin on Tue, 04/14/2009 - 22:09Just a small update, the Songbird 1.1.2 Fedora RPMs are now available in the usual place. Fedora adoption is moving along and hopefully will happen in the near future. The main push behind the 1.1.2 release was a couple of bugs, including a top crasher that was identified after the 1.1.1 release. Updating is recommended, although you shouldn't see too much of a difference.
More Songbird RPMs... and some ranting
Submitted by digitalruin on Thu, 04/09/2009 - 00:02The last couple of weeks have seen some interesting bugs creep up in the Songbird 1.1.1 release. First we had the annoying gconf popup with bug 15432, and then everyone quickly noticed that songs would hang after a plays, which was noted in bug 15401. Well I'm happy to say that these bugs have now been squashed and you can go back to happily listening to your ridiculously huge library of mp3s... except that's only half true, and so begins my rant...
As we soon found out, the bugs actually were never present in Songbird. They are, in fact, a bi-product of the package (rpm) building. I collaborated with a few different package builders from Gentoo and SUSE when we quickly realized that the bugs weren't in official Songbird builds, but were in every Linux package build.
What's the problem you say? Sadly, it's the way Songbird is developed. You see, unlike many other open source project in the Linux world, Songbird is built much like a Windows app. Now, that could be because it started out as a Windows app to begin with, or just because that's the particular model that the developers choose to go with, but the fundamental issue is that Songbird acts as it's own universe instead of fitting into the various popular Linux models out there. Much like Windows apps, it is all inclusive and provides everything it needs.
Songbird 1.1.1 Fedora RPM's Released
Submitted by digitalruin on Fri, 03/13/2009 - 14:08Songbird 1.1.1 dropped a few days ago and I'm happy to report that the Fedora RPM's are also now finished and available. A lot of work went into this release and Songbird now boasts a much reduced cpu and memory footprint, embedded album art fetching, and watch folders!
Now that Fedora 10 has also been out for quite some time, I'm dropping Fedora 9 builds to save space and bandwidth. If anyone would like an F9 RPM feel free to grab the SRPM provided and respin it. As far as I know the two should build the same, however, Songbird is beginning the rely on newer and newer gstreamer code, so it's possible you might be missing already upstreamed patches if you do decided to go F9.
Also, one thing to note about the current 1.1.1 under Linux. Myself and others have been seeing two bugs in particular that are quite annoying. The first is a javascript error that show up soon after a first run:
SBAppInitialize:SBRegisterSongbirdProtocol() TypeError: Components.classes['@mozilla.org/gnome-gconf-service;1'] is undefined
The relevant bugzilla ticket can be found over at bug 15432.
PlayOn: Turn your Playstation 3 into an awesome streaming media box
Submitted by digitalruin on Sun, 01/04/2009 - 19:43| Recently I gave in and shelled out for a long awaited Playstation 3. Not only was I pleasantly surprised at what an amazing piece of hardware the PS3 is, but I had no idea the operating system was so versatile. With a web browser and full screen Flash 9, the Internet on a 48" HDTV never looked so good. So what makes the complete package even better? Streaming video of course! Enter MediaMall's PlayOn. |


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