so, uh... i wanna go back to linux

[johnny]

thunar v0.4 is in the latest xfce 4.4 release candidate, now that i check. so whenever they serve that up, i'll be checking it out. xubuntu will get 'er done for now.

[johnny]

we should rename the computers forum to "linux" and there is only allowed to be this thread

also we're both mods

[raublekick]

sounds good to me!

[johnny]

here's something you might find interesting.. a few months ago i wrote a simple little perl script to rip cds and encode them as *.ogg files. (i'm never happy with the other programs out there...)
you need to have the cdparanoia and oggenc commands available to you in order for this to work correctly [sudo apt-get install cdparanoia vorbis-tools]. what it does is gets information about the album from a text file i've created. here's an example:

album=Green Cosmos
artist=Deerhoof
Come See the Duck
Green Cosmos
Malalauma
Spiral Golden Town
Hot Mint Air Balloon
Koneko Kitten
Byun

so the script reads that, prompts you whether or not you want to go ahead with ripping the cd, then uses cdparanoia to make *.wav files, and then uses oggenc to encode *.ogg files.

the script:

#!/usr/bin/perl

my $album, $artist, $numtracks;
my @songs;

open ALBUMDATA, "<album.data"
  or die "album.data file is missing!?";

# read the album name, artist name, and track
# names from the album.data text file
$album = (split /=/, <ALBUMDATA>)[1];
chomp $album;
$artist = (split /=/, <ALBUMDATA>)[1];
chomp $artist;
while (<ALBUMDATA>) {
	chomp $_;
	push @songs, $_;
}
$numtracks = scalar @songs;
close ALBUMDATA;

# give the option to cancel ripping if
# the album.data information isn't good
print "\nalbum to rip: $album by $artist\n";
print "$numtracks songs\n";
for (my $i = 0; $i < $numtracks; ++$i) {
	print $i + 1 . ". " . $songs[$i] . "\n";
}
print "\nrip it? (y/n) ";
$line = <STDIN>;
chomp $line;

# if they say 'y', do it; if they say ANYTHING
# else, then don't do nothin'
if ($line eq "y") {
	# rip the *.wav files
	print "ripping tracks with cdparanoia...\n\n";
	# system "cdparanoia -d /dev/hdc -B";
	system "cdparanoia -B";

	# encode the *.ogg[/*.mp3] files
	print "encoding ogg files...";
	for (my $i = 1; $i < ($numtracks + 1); $i++) {
		$tnum = ($i < 10) ? "0$i" : "$i";
		$title = $songs[$i - 1];
		$cmd = "oggenc -N $i " .
		  " -t \"$title\" " .
		  " -l \"$album\" " .
		  " -a \"$artist\" " .
		  "--output=\"$tnum - $title.ogg\" -q 5 track$tnum.cdda.wav";
		print "\n\nripping track $tnum...\n";
		#print $cmd
		system $cmd;
	}
	
	# all done; tidy up and delete the *.wav files
	# and end the program
	print "done encoding .ogg files!\n\n";
	print "erasing .wav files\n\n";
	unlink glob "*.wav";
	print "ripping/encoding completed\n\n";
}

on some machines, the cdparanoia command would need a bit of extra information, if you have more than one cd drive (and example is commented out just above the command that it actually runs). if you can run "cdparanoia -vsQ" and cdparanoia finds the drive with the cd in it and displays a track listing to you, then "cdparanoia -B" ought to work for ripping the *.wav files. but sometimes you might need to do "cdparanoia -d [device] -B" in order for ripping to work from the correct device.. (i'm sure i'm not explaining this very well :/)

and if you wanted to make mp3s, you can just swap out oggenc for lame.. i should also mention that the oggenc command generates the ogg tag information for each file. it would be kinda silly to skip over that..

once you've put the right information in the data file (album.data) all you need to do is perl ripper.pl and it will go to work.


some things i should add:
- regular expression to remove characters that aren't allowed in file names, so it doesn't try to create a file with a bad name and die.
- make it use the Audio::CD perl module to do a cddb lookup so i don't have to type out the track names every time i rip a cd (but i'm too lazy to install this module and learn how to use it..)


who knows, somebody here just might find this useful.

note!!: i tacked on a .txt extension to each file so i could upload them, so if yer gonna download them just remove it. (or copy the text in the code boxes into brand new files called album.data and ripper.pl..)

[raublekick]

awesome script, johnny! i've actually been thinking about doing something similar, although i would have used python instead of perl.

i want to do something similar to retag files, though. i have yet to find a really good tag editor / file renamer.

[johnny]

the plan is to rewrite it in python with a pygtk front-end. but perl on the command line works just fine for now--i never seem to get around to fixing this up.


i've also been planning on writing a quick address book/contacts app. with python (pygtk gui again..). i really like orage for a calendar program, and i haven't been able to find something equally simple and small for an address book. i have to do everything myself, it seems like!

[raublekick]

dude i completely agree with that. i had a fling with Evolution and that just was too much after I discovered Orage.

perhaps we can team up to make some XFCE apps? XFCE really needs to more apps that don't rely on gnome libs.

<edit> i am looking through your script, trying to brainstorm how to port it to python... the logic all makes sense, but perl syntax doesn't! chomp $album? WTFBBQ!?

[johnny]

i'll be happy to answer any questions you have. chomp is a handy function that removes the newline ('\n') character from the end of a string. it's necessary 'cause i'm reading this stuff from a text file that has each song name separated by a newline.

and i'm not sure if you're familiar with perl's file i/o, but if you're not then i can explain that each time you see "<ALBUMDATA>" that just reads a line from the file i have open. and in the loop ("while (<ALBUMDATA>") the line from the file is read into a default variable ($_).

Originally Posted by raublekick

perhaps we can team up to make some XFCE apps? XFCE really needs to more apps that don't rely on gnome libs.

that doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. all i've ever needed is some more motivation--my big problem is coding guis. i'm able to, that's not the problem. i know how to work with pygtk and wxpython.. it's just such a chore.

[raublekick]

i've never done any perl programming, and never really had any desire to thanks to its nasty syntax.

xfce apps, here we come!

[johnny]

perl isn't that nasty. the problem is that it allows people to make it nasty.. you can do some really weird one-liners. i think my perl code is pretty readable. chomp is just a built-in function :P

[raublekick]

Originally Posted by johnny

perl isn't that nasty. the problem is that it allows people to make it nasty.. you can do some really weird one-liners. i think my perl code is pretty readable. chomp is just a built-in function :P

yeah but... chomp just doesn't make sense! how does chomp == remove \n from end of line? my first inclination was that MAYBE chomp "chomped" a line from a text file, but the newline thing just comes out of nowhere.

[johnny]

i think it's because chomp is, more or less, an extension of the chop function, which simply removes the last character from a string and returns it (whether or not that character is '\n'). chop -> chomp. chomp is just like a smarter version of chop, for a specific situation.

[johnny]

so i'm downloadin' the dreamlinux 2.2 live cd, because i got curious the other day. i don't think i'll actually install it, but i guess it's worth investigating. engage looks very nice (i think it's from enlightenment..?).

[johnny]

so i've been on the hunt for a browser lately.. firefox is sort of the standard, i guess, but i've been wanting something a bit better lately. so now i will run through a list of options:

• swiftfox: does it really seem faster?? i don't think so
• iceweasel: doesn't seem special to me (i'm using it right now). even though it doesn't come packed with any non-free software, like firefox apparently does (??), most people end up installing plugins (flash!!) and/or extensions that are probably non-free anyways. so what's the point again..?
• opera: too... opera-y.
• mozilla suite or seamonkey: too much extra junk.
• konqueror: okay, i actually really like konqueror. but do i want to install qt and shit?

i don't think i could handle using dillo or links2 ("links2 -g" fer gui). sure, they'd be quick and show me all the content.. but everything would be so ugly.

so i guess i just stick it out with firefox, or maybe.. go ahead and install konqueror?

got any ideas?

[raublekick]

fuck dude... i have the same problem, and i have not reached a suitable conclusion... basically firefox is a bit to sluggish for me sometimes and i want something lighter.

swiftfox really isn't all that much faster, and any firefox based browser is gonna be just as bad as firefox. epiphany is ok, but it's not nearly as packed with features. opera isn't free software and the suites are just too much.

konquerer is pretty good, but it renders some pages strangely, mostly with fonts being too small. there really isn't much plug-in support that i know of, and nothing like down-them-all. being able to use it for pretty much everything KDE related is nice, but like you said, it is a QT app and sticks out.

the reasoning behind iceweasel is a little tricky to understand. according to the FSF, firefox isn't free software, because not only does the windows and official linux version contain non-free elements, but they also host and give access to non-free plugins. add on top of that the whole artwork fiasco that happened. the FSF is a little zany sometimes, and so are those debian dudes, so i guess they figured they would stick it to the firefox dudes, because really they are doing some anti-free software practices. firefox has become the standard for the most part, so i think it is a fairly big deal that something that has become the champion of open-source is really not so free.

so i just stick with firefox and hope that something else comes along eventually...

[johnny]

i just got enlightenment (dr17) up and running, and it's pretty sweet. http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=319336

i think the one in ubuntu's repositories is dr16.. kinda old. e17 is really nice.

[raublekick]

johnny, do you post on ubuntuforums, or just browse? i should post on there more, but it's kinda overwhelming to actually help people sometimes.

post a screenshot in the screenshots thread!

i've never really been too interested in installing e17. despite the fact that i've been using xfce for the past few months, it doesn't feel natively complete for me, like ubuntu's gnome is. now, don't get me wrong i love stuff like openbox that is just completely nothing more than what it is, because there you gotta tackle everything from the beginning. but e17 looks like it would be like xfce where it has a lot of cool stuff, but there are gaps here and there and fixing them can be a pain.

[johnny]

Originally Posted by raublekick

johnny, do you post on ubuntuforums, or just browse? i should post on there more, but it's kinda overwhelming to actually help people sometimes.

i post on occassion. not much though, 'cause it can be hard to follow. but i decided to try using vb's thread subscriptions, and they make it alot easier to find the threads i'm following again.

i didn't find too many gaps in e17 though. everything seemed to work pretty smoothly.. (unfortunately though, the version of engage which is in the edevelop.org repositories doesn't seem to work out-of-the-box. i think i'll try to make it work some other time..)

[johnny]

i guess i got bored with *buntu, so i decided to give arch linux a try.. i've installed the base system (and updated it, which caused a kernel panic which i then had to fix :x), xorg, and openbox. i looked at the font preferences dialog in leafpad, and there are about.. 9 different fonts installed right now. everything looks pretty ugly.
but it works!:


as you can see in the screen.. the locale settings are buggered up. (who knew cowsay accessed them anyways..? i learned something new tonight, i guess)

[raublekick]

haha wow that IS ugly!

i graped creeper's bandwidth yesterday and installed arch as well. i have gnome up and running pretty basically. there's some things here and there that i need to fix up but i haven't had the time. i like arch, but it's kinda weird to get some things working. i don't mind doing things the long way, but ever since they switched to the mkinitcpio stuff, the old wiki's seem out of date or just confusing weather that is the way it should be done now. the hooks are really cool, but i have no idea what the hooks actually pick up and when.

do you know where i can find this sort of info?


i also want to install opensuse sometime soon. it seems like it has some really cool stuff, but i've heard nothing but bad things about using the opensuse repos.

i see i'm not the only one that names computers after videogame characters. my old desktop was named mario, my laptop luigi, my sister's computer is peach, and my new testing box will be bowser.