8.2:     Multimedia

Music

Playing music

Three music players are provided with MEPIS Linux 7.0. They can all be found under KMenu --> Multimedia

• Amarok:  Music player with many advanced features that is also iPod-compatible.
  Amarok home page:  http://amarok.kde.org/
  
• KsCD:  KsCD is a fast, CDDB (Compact Disk Database)-enabled CD player (see Section 5.8 for configuration).
  KsCD Homepage:  http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdemultimedia/kscd
  Wikipedia: CDDB  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cddb
• Realplayer10:  RealPlayer10 plays .rm and other audio and video media, and is available under the KMenu --> Multimedia --> More Applications submenu
  RealPlayer10 home page:  http://www.real.com/linux
  

Other common choices:  http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Linux_software#Music_Player

Ripping music

There are various ways to rip music in under KDE using KIO Slaves from the K3B project, as well as using K3B directly.

• K3B:  Open up K3B. On the left hand side there will be a list of the drives available. Simply click on the Audio CD and wait until the files are listed. Highlight the ones you want to rip, right-click, and select Start Ripping. Choose the Destination Base Directory, and click Start Ripping.
  K3b handbook:  http://docs.kde.org/stable/en/extragear-multimedia/k3b/index.html
  Wikipedia: KIO: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIO
  
• Konqueror:  Insert your Audio CD-Rom into the drive. Click on CD/DVD Device on the Desktop and look for a few folders in the window that opens called MP3, OGG etc. Now just Drag and Drop the folder to where you would like to save it and wait for it rip. (This method is quite slow)
  Konqueror handbook: http://docs.kde.org/development/en/kdebase/konqueror/

Other common choices:  http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Linux_software#Music_Ripper

Composing/editing music

• Audacity is an excellent cross-platform open-source program for recording and editing sounds. It does not come pre-installed with MEPIS Linux 7.0, but can be installed through Synaptic (see Section 7.2). It is easy to use and comes with excellent instructions.
  Audacity home page:  http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
• aRts simulates a complete modular analog synthesizer on your PC. Mepis Linux 7.0 includes two tools to work with this program found by clicking KMenu --> Multimedia --> More Applications:
  • Audio Filter Designer (aRts Builder) -- this program permits building custom layouts and configurations for audio mixers and similar applications.
  • Sound Server Control (aRts Control Tool) -- brings together a number of utilitites for controlling and configuring aRts behavior.

aRts home page: http://www.arts-project.org/>http://www.arts-project.org/
aRts handbook: http://www.arts-project.org/doc/handbook/index.html

Other common choices: 
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Linux_software#Music_composer.2Feditors

Organizing music

See Section 8.4

Video

Playing videos

MEPIS Linux 7.0 comes with 3 video players: Kmplayer can be found under KMenu --> Multimedia while Mplayer and RealPlayer10 are under the More Applications submenu.

• Mplayer: MPlayer is a movie player which runs on many systems and plays many popular media file types including DVD's and VCD's.
  Mplayer home page:  http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html
  
  
• KMplayer  The KMPlayer is a video player plugin for Konqueror and basic frontend for KDE.
  KMplayer home page:  http://kmplayer.kde.org/
  
  
• RealPlayer10: See Realplayer under audio players, above.
  Realplayer10 home page:  http://www.real.com/linux
  
  

Other common choices:
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Linux_software#Video_Player

NOTE: To achieve a higher level of operability with video playback and control, install the following additional packages:

libdvdnav4, libdvdplay, libdvdread libvcdinfo

Ripping videos

MEPIS Linux 7.0 doesn't come with any video ripping software by default, but there are plenty of choices available for download. Acidrip and DVD::Rip are all you need to rip non-copyrighted DVDs to your hard disk. None of these programs will operate on DVDs that have encryption. You will need a package called libdvdcss2 to work with encrypted media, see Section 5.8.

• Acidrip:  AcidRip is a Gtk2::Perl application for ripping and encoding DVD's to DivX4 .avi files with a simple Graphical Interface. Acidrip runs on top of the excellent MEncoder
  Acidrip home page:  http://untrepid.com/acidrip/
  
  
• dvd::rip:  dvd::rip is a full featured DVD copy program written in Perl. It provides an easy to use but feature-rich Gtk+ GUI to control almost all aspects of the ripping and transcoding process.
  DVD::Rip home page:  http://www.exit1.org/dvdrip/
  
  

Other common choices: 
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Linux_software#Video_Recording.2FRipping

Editing videos

Video editing can be very harddisk intensive and is best done with a reasonably powerful machine with lots of storage space.

Kino is provided with MEPIS Linux 7.0 and can be found by clicking KMenu --> Multimedia --> More Applications --> Kino. Kino features excellent integration with IEEE-1394 for capture, VTR control, and recording back to the camera.
Kino home page:  http://www.kinodv.org/

Other common choices:
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Linux_software#Video_Editor

NOTE: To achieve a higher level of operability with video editing, install the following additional packages:

dvdrtools, dvd+rw-tools, dvd-slideshow, submix-dvd

Graphics

Viewing images

There are three means of viewing images in MEPIS Linux 7.0.

• ShowFoto is a simple image viewer that is the default application for MEPIS Linux 7.0. You can find it by clicking KMenu --> Graphics --> Image Viewer (showFoto). Showfoto is set as the default viewer for images on MEPIS Linux 7.0.
  ShowFoto handbook: http://docs.kde.org/development/en/extragear-graphics/showfoto/index.html
  
  
• Konqueror has a built in previewer for images with adjustble thumbnail sizes. Click View --> Icon View to show files as thumbnails, and View --> Icon Size to select the size you want. When you open a folder that contains photos and images with the konqueror file browser, the images are displayed as thumbnails if they are within the allowed file size, which by default is less than 2Mb, good for most 3.2 Megapixel images.
  To increase the file size limit, click on the Settings --> Configure Konqueror and select the Previews & Meta-Data in the left panel and type in a value or adjust the slider on the right for the Maximum file size. A good value for 5 MegaPixel photos is ~2.6MB
  
  
• Digikam can be found by clicking KMenu --> Graphics --> Photo Management (digiKam). It is a photo management tool similar to Google Picasa that comes with a stand-alone photo viewer.
  Digikam home page: http://www.digikam.org/
  

Other common choices:
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title=Linux_software#Image_Viewers

Editing images

• MEPIS Linux 7.0 includes a very powerful image editor called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). Similar in function to Adobe Photoshop, the GIMP can be found under KMenu --> Graphics --> Image Editor (GIMP Image Editor)
  GIMP home page: http://www.gimp.org/
  GIMP tutorials: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/
  
  

Other common choices:
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php?title= Linux_software#Image_Editors

Organizing images

See Section 8.4

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