Linux Mint 13

[ScabHunter]

Re: Linux Mint 13

I had a partial success with trying to get a Windows program to work in Wine.

I downloaded the .exe file for foobar2000 (audio player). I then navigated to the “Downloads” folder, right-clicked on the icon, and selected “Open with...Wine Windows Program Launcher”. This allowed me to set up the program as if it had been installed on Windows.

Foobar2000 was, however, only partly usable. I could play a radio station (WCPE, by pasting the Ogg Vorbis stream URL into “Add Location”), and I could play a music file if I copied it to the desktop, or somewhere on the C drive. What I couldn't do is navigate to any of the external drives connected through the USB sockets, and play music off those. Foobar just couldn't find them.

I've never had this problem with foobar2000 on Windows, and there is no problem with any of the native Linux players (Clementine, Movie Player, Audacious etc), so it is obviously not a Linux issue.

As I've got all of my music files stored on 2TB external drives, that makes it pretty much useless. I can't copy files over to the desktop every time I want to listen to something.

It is not a serious problem, as the players already on Linux are good enough, but it is a shame. Ironically, if Izotope RX2 behaved in the same way, it wouldn't matter, because I always work with files on the desktop.

Strange.

I've got to hand it to Rizzle, though. I found quite a few Wine tutorials through my own research, but it was the one which Rizzle linked to which was by far the easiest to use. Hats off, again.

SH

[Riz]

Re: Linux Mint 13

External drives should be mounted under /media or /mnt in your linux root file-system.

When trying to find that under a program running in wine, you should be able to browse to those folders and select them. i.e. under the "/" icon/path rather than the "My Computer" section.

Like.......

[Riz]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Or depending on how you set up Wine, the root linux file system may show up as a drive under "My computer" in wine.




Again, you expand that to browse to where your removable drive has been mounted.

[ScabHunter]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Would you Adam and Eve it?

I've just made myself look like a moron on a public forum thread. I guess it is time to fake my suicide and then come back under a new user name. How about deleting this thread to free up space on the server?

I thought I'd tested every file path there was, but obviously not. Problem solved.

It is still not absolutely perfect, because music playback breaks up while you carry out other operations. Even browsing the forum caused short breaks, but when I installed “Cheese” (webcam tool) the player crashed completely. I suspect the Wine system uses a lot more system resources than using foobar in Windows, or using a native Linux player. Of course, I'm only testing this out on a lowly-specified old netbook.

I'll probably see if I can get RX2 to work in Wine. The program support page doesn't list any minimum requirements other than a fairly modern Windows, so it will probably work on a netbook, albeit extremely slowly.

That would be the last frontier. If I can do it successfully, I'll have proved that Windows is not essential. That would be like having insurance against the potentially disastrous direction in which Microsoft appears to be heading.

SH

[Riz]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Another possible alternative is to run a Windows virtual machine in Virtualbox.

For example, testing under XP in Virtualbox.......



Saying that, if you are on a low spec netbook for this, then you may not have enough RAM to run a whole other OS within Linux.

[evilcartman]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Out of interest, you do know that Linux Mint 14 is the latest stable version?

[Riz]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Out of interest, you do know that Linux Mint 14 is the latest stable version?

From the OP.....

Having read copious articles and web pages about it, I decided that Linux Mint 13 was the right operating system to experiment with. There is a Linux Mint 14, but it is not a long-term supported stable release, unlike 13 which will be supported until April 2017.[

[evilcartman]

Re: Linux Mint 13

From the OP.....

Yeah, I know what the OP said. Doesn't mean he's right.

Linux 13 is a historic release, the "supported until April 2017" just means that is the date they will last update it.

Linux 14 is not a beta, it's the current active version.

[Riz]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Well, I took that to mean that they know 14 is a stable release, but want the LTS stable release.

Personally, as I said earlier in the thread, unless I had a very specific reason I would always go with the latest version. LTS or not.

[ScabHunter]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Yeah, I know what the OP said. Doesn't mean he's right.

He is. And so, for once, is Wackypedia -

Linux Mint - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

13 is a long term support release, supported until April 2017. 14 is a standard release supported until April 2014. 15 hasn't been released yet.

Whether that means I was right to install 13 is another matter. Rizzle obviously would have made a different choice, and he knows a lot more about it than I do.

I'm only experimenting in any case. You're not going to become a Linux guru in four days, but I know a lot more about it now than I did a week ago. It is time extremely well spent from my point of view. I've obviously been lucky in that I've had no hardware issues, but I rate this OS to be much better in many ways than XP or 7, and I was always satisfied with those.

SH

[evilcartman]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Personally, as I said earlier in the thread, unless I had a very specific reason I would always go with the latest version. LTS or not.

Me too but each to their own.

I'll be tinkering around with Mint 14 this weekend.

[evilcartman]

Re: Linux Mint 13

Well, I've just tried installing Mint 14 and I'm getting the exact same problem with the screen that I've mentioned before.

However, I'll start my own thread on this rather than keep hijacking ScabHunter's...