Linux Support

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Linux Support

History

Linux is becoming a very widespread alternative to Microsoft Windows,
The two main Linux distributions that are considered the most user friendly are Ubuntu and Mepis.
There are a few good reasons to switch to Ubuntu or Mepis. First of all, these distributions are free. Secondly, Linux is offering a stronger file system security. With Ubuntu and Mepis, you can download a bootable CD image of the Linux distribution, burn it to a CD, and use the CD to test your system to make sure that your hardware would support Linux, without affecting your current Windows installation.
If you have an older PC, like an 800MHz with a minimum of 256MB of memory and a 10GB hard drive, this would be a good setup to start playing with Linux and keep your main PC running Windows until you are ready to make the switch.
You can also reduce the size of your Windows partition on your main PC and install Linux in a second partition. Linux will install GRUB, which allows multi-boot of your system. You have to be very careful and have a good backup of your system before you drive into that direction. A good and free Linux utility called qtparted is available on the net. It allows to shrink a single Windows partition without loosing any data. Once you have freed up about 10GB or more at the end of your hard drive, you can use this free space to install Linux.
Ubuntu and Mepis come with lots of free applications, including Open Office suite, which is equivalent to Microsoft Office. Open Office understands Microsoft Office format and allows to save your files in Microsoft Office format as well. You can also save your files in PDF format.
These distributions come with a free Microsoft Windows Emulator called WINE. It's not perfect, but you can run a good range of Windows applications in WINE. This is where we come in. We have modified CleanMP3 to function with WINE. See Ubuntu Linux below for more details.

Mepis Linux

CleanMP3 has not been tested yet with Mepis Linux, but from what we have seen so far, SimplyMepis is very similar to Ubuntu Linux.

Ubuntu Linux 8.04

We have made a few modifications to CleanMP3 so that it would run properly in Linux Windows emulator called WINE.
One problem that we currently see is with Ctrl-s to stop a long process, like Global Scan of all the files in a folder. But there is a way around this problem. You just have to cancel the CleanMP3 process with System Administration System Monitor from Ubuntu top menu.
Other than that, all other functions of CleanMP3 seem to be working.
Please report other problems found.
CleanMP3 needs a Windows Player in order to listen to MP3 files and adjust the parameters. From WINE, there is no facility to call a Linux player like XMMS. So far, the only reliable Windows MP3 player that we found to run in WINE is Winamp version 2.91. The latest version of Winamp is way too demanding on WINE and it freezes Linux. We have tried with older versions of Windows Media Player and again, it just don't work in WINE. A simple google search will give you this information. Since Winamp don't seem to provide older versions of their product, we have found a site where most of older programs are kept. Please click on LINK to browse this archive site and download Winamp 291.
Note that CleanMP3 could be running in other distributions of Linux and under other Windows Emulators, as well as with other Windows MP3 players. We just don't have the resources to test it all. It doesn't hurt to experiment with other products. Please let us know about your findings.

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