Aug. 23, 2007, 7:05 a.m.
posted by oval
Rock Out with Knoppix Multimedia
Knoppix comes with a full suite of tools to perform common multimedia tasks, such as listening to CDs or MP3s, editing audio, and burning CDs.
More people seem to be using
their computers for multimedia applications, whether for listening to
CDs, MP3s, or streaming radio and video. Combine
Knoppix's excellent sound card support with its
complete set of audio and video applications, and you get a platform
for your multimedia needs that you can take anywhere. All of
Knoppix's multimedia applications can be found under
K Menu
Multimedia. This hack gives an overview of all the
different programs you can use for your audio and video needs.
Before using any of the multimedia tools, make sure that Knoppix has identified your sound card. The first clue that Knoppix has detected your sound card is the "Initiating startup sequence" sound played by Knoppix as it loads your desktop. Another clue is the presence of a blue speaker icon near the bottom righthand corner of the screen near the clock. This icon belongs to KMixer and lets you adjust the volume just by clicking on the speaker. If the icon has a red slash through it, then Knoppix was not able to detect your sound card.
Use the
sndconfig
program to configure your sound card. Sndconfig
is a fairly straightforward configuration tool that scans your system
for any available sound cards and prompts you with any it detects. To
load the sndconfig application, click K
MenuKNOPPIXConfigureSound card
configuration. Other than selecting OK, the only interactive part of
this tool is to listen for a sample sound once
sndconfig configures your card and to answer
"Yes" or
"No," depending on whether you hear
the sound. If your sound card still isn't working,
there is a chance that there is no OSS sound module for your
hardware. If this happens to you, try booting with the alsa cheat
code [Hack #7]
to use the ALSA drivers instead. Once your sound card is working, you
are ready to try the multimedia applications.
1 Listening to Audio
The primary
application used to play sound under Knoppix is
XMMS (Figure). Click K
MenuMultimediaAudioXMMS to launch the
program, or click on any .mp3 or other sound
file in your file manager. XMMS has an interface similar to Winamp
under Windows, and can play most popular audio formats, including
MP3, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, and audio CDs. To open the playlist editor,
click the button labeled PL on the interface, right-click on XMMS and
select Playlist Editor, or type Ctrl-E. Within the playlist editor,
you can add, delete, arrange, and sort tracks. The audio settings are
adjusted with the equalizer. Display the equalizer by clicking the EQ
button next to the PL button on the interface, by right-clicking and
selecting Graphical EQ, or by the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-G.
XMMS
Right-click XMMS and select OptionsPreferences to access
many additional XMMS plug-ins Knoppix includes. The shortcut is
Ctrl-P. The preferences window has tabs organizing different XMMS
plug-ins and options, and includes plug-ins for audio and visual
effects that add extra stereo, makes the volume levels of all your
tracks the same, or displays your music in interesting and colorful
ways.
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2 Editing Sounds
Knoppix
also provides the capability to record and edit audio with the
Audacity program
(Figure). Audacity can record from microphone
input or from a variety of audio formats, including WAV, MP3, and Ogg
Vorbis. Once sound is loaded into Audacity, you can make basic edits,
such as cropping and moving, to more advanced edits, such as noise
removal and other effects. Once you are done with editing the sound,
you can save it into any number of audio formats. When you save your
sound as an Audacity project, it keeps track of any changes that you
have made along with other aspects of the project. Audacity can be
found under K MenuMultimediaSound menu . . . .
Audacity
3 Burn CDs and DVDs
Of course, Knoppix comes with a
CD-burning application. If it didn't, how could you
be expected to burn new Knoppix CDs, and distribute them to your
friends, family, and fellow passengers on the subway? Knoppix
includes the excellent K3b
application, accessible by clicking K
MenuMultimediaK3b. With K3b, you can create data
and audio CDs and DVDs through an easy-to-use interface reminiscent
of popular Windows alternatives like Nero. Of course, you
can't burn to a CD if Knoppix is in your only CD
drive; so use of this application does require that you either run
Knoppix from a second optical drive, or if you have only a single
CD-ROM drive, that you use one of the cheat codes that free up the
CD-ROM drive [Hack #5].
After launching K3b, you can choose to create an audio CD, a data CD, a DVD, or copy an existing CD. K3b has a simple interface that lets you drag-and-drop files into the project that you would like to use. If you are creating audio CDs, you can drag-and-drop MP3s or other supported audio files onto a project, and K3b converts them to the proper format. Once you have selected all of the files you want to burn, click the Burn . . . button in the bottom righthand corner of the window to write the files to CD.
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4 Watch Videos
Knoppix also allows you to view many different video files that you might have on your system. Unfortunately, DVDs and certain other proprietary video files like Quicktime .mov files cannot be fully played by default under Knoppix. This is because of legal issues surrounding distribution of the DeCSS program and the Windows media codecs, which decode these formats for playback. Despite these setbacks, you can still use xine, the default media player, to view MPEG1 and MPEG2 files, including VCDs and SVCDs, as well as other video formats, such as DivX 3, 4, and 5.
To start xine, click K
MenuMultimediaVideoxine.
Xine's interface resembles many common DVD-playing
applications under Windows. To play a video file in xine, right-click
and select OpenFile . . . and browse to the file you wish
to add to the play list. To play a VCD, insert the VCD into your
CD-ROM drive, and click the VCD button on the interface. Xine allows
you to control playback either through the GUI or through a complete
set of key bindings. For instance, hit Enter to start playback, Space
to pause, the arrow keys to move forward and backward within the
video, and G to toggle the visibility of the GUI.
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5 Watching TV
If your computer has a working TV tuner card, you can watch TV under
Knoppix using xawtv.
To run xawtv, select K
MenuMultimediaVideoxawtv.
The first time it is launched, xawtv presents you with a configuration program so you can set up NTSC versus PAL mode for your tuner (United States residents should choose NTSC) and whether you receive TV through broadcast or cable, so that xawtv can correctly scan for all of your channels. Once the configuration process is completed, xawtv will load, and you will be able to watch television. If you want to turn a computer with a TV tuner card into your own personal TiVo, check out [Hack #92] .
Whether you want to listen to or edit music, watch movies or TV, or create CDs, Knoppix comes with the multimedia tools you need along with the hardware detection to get you started. Remember that if you only want to listen to music files on your computer, you don't need to change to write mode on your hard drive; simply browse to the file you want to play and click it. Keeping your drives in read-only mode under Knoppix unless you must write to them adds an extra layer of protection in case you turn off your computer or lose power without properly shutting down. If you are really interested in multimedia under Knoppix, read [Hack #82] to find out more about a multimedia-focused Knoppix-based CD.
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