Linux / Ubuntu — No comments
28
Jun 10

Mimms: Handy tool to rip MMS MP3 streams to file in Ubuntu

Today, I came across a handy command line tool called mimms that allows you to rip mms:// MP3 streams to an MP3 file on your computer for later listening. It is very easy to install and use.

Install mimms:

sudo apt-get install mimms

Sample usage:

mimms mms://iss-video.leeds.ac.uk/smlc/audio/eas/east3031/03Chopsticks.mp3
mimms mms://iss-video.leeds.ac.uk/smlc/audio/eas/east3031/03Chopsticks.mp3 filename-here.mp3

Of course you can find out more command line options by simply typing mimms –help

Happy ripping!

Linux / Ubuntu — No comments
28
Jun 10

Enable Multimedia and DVD Playback in Ubuntu Lucid

Whilst Ubuntu comes with some basic multimedia support out of the box, there are a few simple steps that must be carried out in order for you to get the most out of your MP3, DVD and video collection.

First we need to add the Medibuntu repository for your version of Ubuntu:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list  --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

Next we add the Medibuntu keyring and refresh apt:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

Next we need to install some multimedia packages and codecs:

sudo apt-get install non-free-codecs libdvdcss4 w32codecs vlc mplayer

Finally, run this script to enable encrypted DVD playback:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

There we go, now sit back and relax!

Linux / Ubuntu — No comments
23
Jun 10

Type Chinese Pinyin Accents in Ubuntu

Chinese learners or speakers may sometimes want to write out the romanisation for certain chinese characters complete with accents indicating the different tones. For example:

你好 [nǐhǎo]

This is possible using the Ibus input framework that comes with Ubuntu. The support for pinyin romanisation is provided in the ibus-m17n package. This must first be installed.

sudo apt-get install ibus-m17n

Once installed, restart Ibus and add the input method in the menu as in the screenshot below.
ibus-pinyin

You should now be able to activate the input method. Simply type the pinyin for a character preceded by the tone number (ranging from 1 to 4).

Linux / Ubuntu — 3 comments
06
Jun 10

Install Java on Ubuntu Lucid 10.04

I recently ran into some problems trying to use Facebook’s photo uploader tool in Firefox. It turns out that in Lucid, the Ubuntu developers have opted for OpenJDK instead of standard Java – and this is what is causing the problem with the uploader.

The below steps should allow you to get standard Java setup on your Ubuntu box:

Add the repository
First create a new .list file for the repository

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/java.list

Paste in the following

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ lucid partner

Now update all repositories and install Java

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-plugin

Now you need to make sure that the version of Java you just installed is selected as the default Java installation on your system:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

Choose the version of Java you just installed.

Finally, we need to install the Java plugin in Firefox:

mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/plugins

Make a symlink to the Java plugin:

ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/i386/libnpjp2.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/libnpjp2.so

Finally, you may want to implement the following fix which resolves the problem of Chinese characters displaying as 口口 boxes in Java applications:

cd /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/fonts
sudo mkdir fallback
cd fallback
sudo ln -s /usr/share/fonts/truetype/arphic/uming.ttc .
sudo ln -s /usr/share/fonts/truetype/arphic/uming.ttc uming.ttf

Now restart Firefox and everything should be working OK! If you do run into any problems, you may want to consider uninstalling OpenJDK completely as well as the Icedtea Java plugin using Synaptic package manager.

Thanks to Felix Yan’s and Buckynasty’s original posts.

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