How do you play CDs in Sabayon? - [Solved]

[jduffy]

How do you play CDs in Sabayon?

I don't see a CD player. I tried to see if Audacious plays CD but apparently not, I guess it's just an MP3 player.

So what CD player are you guys using here?

[Marius]

Audacious2 should play CDs: on my laptop it apparantly does but produces no sound (Oh, damn! -- Linux can be irritating; why the hell audacious2 does not produce sound when playing CDs??)

Well, alsamixer plays CDs, even though I do not like its substandard audio quality (why that's so??). I have VLC installed. Its audio quality is infinitely better than alsaplayer's.

[micia]

If you have Amarok installed (on KDE4 version of Sabayon) it can play them too...
That player is awesome

[Fitzcarraldo]

Audacious2 should play CDs: on my laptop it apparantly does but produces no sound (Oh, damn! -- Linux can be irritating; why the hell audacious2 does not produce sound when playing CDs??).

Is it just CDs, or also MP3s? Could it be a PulseAudio issue? According to the PulseAudio Web site page The Perfect Setup:

As of version 1.2.0, Audacious supports PulseAudio natively. Simply Select "Preferences -> Audio -> Audio System -> PulseAudio Output Plugin". Also, for avoiding stuttering while playing mp3 files, the "Buffer Size" should be lowered to 300 ms.

Regarding playing CDs, as micia wrote, Amarok is great. I also use KsCD which has a very straightforward user interface, which is often all I want when I play an audio CD.

Haven't tried an audio CD recently so I can't remember if auto detection is working, but if the CD is not recognised when inserted then see KDE 4.2.4: No option in Device Notifier to play Audio CD, although I wouldn't be surprised if the SL developers have added this on the SL 5.0 release.

EDIT: Back on my main laptop now and popped in an audio CD to see if auto detection is working under KDE 4.3.3 on SL 5.0. It is. Device Notifier on the Panel told me there were 4 actions for the device (CD): Extract Digital Audio with K3b; Play Audio CD with KsCD; Copy with K3b; Play Audio CD with Amarok; Do Nothing (which is 5, not 4, items, although I suppose "Do Nothing" is not an action!). Selecting the relevant action from the pop-up window launches the application. KsCD has been given a little face lift and now looks in keeping with KDE 4. The earlier version was so ugly and old-fashioned looking.

[Marius]

Audacious2 should play CDs: on my laptop it apparantly does but produces no sound (Oh, damn! -- Linux can be irritating; why the hell audacious2 does not produce sound when playing CDs??).

Is it just CDs, or also MP3s? Could it be a PulseAudio issue? According to the PulseAudio Web site page The Perfect Setup:

As of version 1.2.0, Audacious supports PulseAudio natively. Simply Select "Preferences -> Audio -> Audio System -> PulseAudio Output Plugin". Also, for avoiding stuttering while playing mp3 files, the "Buffer Size" should be lowered to 300 ms.

These are the exact settings that I have in audacious2. And as I said in my original post, audacious2 plays the tracks but no sound. VLC and alsaplayer play the same CD with sound.

[Fitzcarraldo]

^Strange. I don't like inconsistencies, they make me curious! Have you had a chance to do any investigations?

[Marius]

This is what led me to utter that sigh of exasperation in my original post. I rarely give in to the temptation of getting frustrated with Linux but what seems to be perpetual immaturity of some programs can be really unnerving.

I haven't had a chance to do a thorough investigation. I discovered this behavior of audacious2 while composing my response to the original question of this thread and, of course, I went on checking sound settings with alsamixer, PulseAudio Volume Control, etc.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Marius, did you eventually get audio working for Audacious2?

A couple of days ago I downloaded the ISO for SL 5.1-r1 GNOME x86_64 edition and installed it to a pen drive so that I could take a look at some GNOME-specific issues reported in the SL forums. I booted the pen drive on one of my PCs this evening and, on a whim, decided to check if Audacious2 sound is working. I had to configure PulseAudio using PulseAudio Volume Control (Getting PulseAudio to cooperate), and then both Audacious and Audacious2 worked. I don't have Audacious2 installed on my laptop running KDE 4 (originally an SL 5.0 installation but upgraded using Portage rather than Entropy) but, for the sake of curiosity, I'll install Audacious2 on that and see if it works too.

EDIT (Sun Dec 20, 2009 23:30): Yep, just installed Audacious2 under KDE 4 and it plays a CD fine. The version of Audacious and Audacious Plugins I installed are shown below:

Code: Select all

# eix -I audacious
[I] media-plugins/audacious-plugins
     Available versions:  2.1-r1 (~)2.2_beta2 (~)2.2-r1 (~)2.2-r2 {aac adplug alsa bs2b cdda cue esd ffmpeg flac fluidsynth gnome icecast ipv6 jack lame lirc midi mp3 mtp musepack nls oss projectm pulseaudio scrobbler sdl sid sndfile sse2 timidity tta vorbis wavpack wma}
     Installed versions:  2.2-r2(23:21:58 20/12/09)(aac alsa cdda ffmpeg flac icecast ipv6 jack lame mp3 nls pulseaudio sdl sse2 vorbis -adplug -bs2b -cue -esd -fluidsynth -gnome -lirc -midi -mtp -oss -projectm -scrobbler -sid -sndfile -wavpack)
     Homepage:            http://audacious-media-player.org/
     Description:         Audacious Player - Your music, your way, no exceptions

[I] media-sound/audacious
     Available versions:  2.1 (~)2.2_beta2 (~)2.2 {altivec chardet libsamplerate nls session sse2}
     Installed versions:  2.2(23:19:03 20/12/09)(chardet nls session sse2 -altivec -libsamplerate)
     Homepage:            http://audacious-media-player.org/
     Description:         Audacious Player - Your music, your way, no exceptions

Found 2 matches.

[Marius]

I am touched, Fitzcarraldo, for your caring attitude.

The reported problems with audacious2 resolved on their own soon after I posted my report with the new version of audacious and audacious-plugins.

Before replying to your message, I ran today several tests on the current version of audacious. It opens & plays fine CDs as well as .wv (WAVPACK) files (previous version of audacious couldn't).

I discovered however new problems: the application hangs and becomes completely unresponsive when I ask it to open a .cue file or an .m4a file even though an MP4 AAC decoder is supposedly installed . I filed two new bug reports.

My experience with audio support under Linux continues to be totally frustrating (I like to listen to high quality lossless audio) compared to what is available in free players under Windows like AIMP2.

[jduffy]

Hey thanks for the help you guys.

I have got Audacious playing CDs now. Very sweet.

I'm liking Sabayon more and more these days.