Layman Linux

Last.fm provides a good platform to share with the world your music liking & also to befriend people who share similar music taste like yours. Most Last.fm users scrobb(post) their tracks on their profile via the media player. The media player updates the tracks played by the user onto their profile in real-time. This is done by a plugin which pings the Last.fm server. On Linux if you’re using XMMS media player, you can update your track list by using the XMMS-Scrobbler plugin. I’ll tell you how to install XMMS media player, the XMMS scrobbler plugin & then configure the plugin so it can update your profile on Last.fm.

I assume that you don’t have XMMS media player installed on your system. Before you install it, you’ll need to enable the RPMFusion repositories. Simply follow the instructions on this page to enable them as per your operating system.

To install XMMS media player on a Fedora or its derivative system, issue the following command with root privileges into the terminal.

yum install xmms xmms-scrobbler

The above command will install XMMS media player and the XMMS Scrobbler Plugin.

Once you’re done with the above, launch XMMS & then right click & go to Option > Preferences. Here click on the ‘General Plugins’ tab. You should see ‘XMMS-Scrobbler’ plugin. Highlight the plugin by clicking on it and then click on configure. It will prompt you for your Last.fm username & password. Enter them & click ok. Now in the General Plugin tab with XMMS-Scrobble plugin highlighted check the Enable plugin chechbox.

That’s it. The XMMS-Scrobbler plugin is enabled. Now play a track in XMMS media player & check whether it gets scrobbed on your Last.fm profile. If it does then all is good. If it doesn’t then you will have to recheck whether you entered the correct credentials in the plugin configuration page.

Happy Scrobbing!

Everytime one installs a new operating system there are some tasks needed to be performed before one can start using the system. There are many task which one should do after a fresh install like disabling unwanted services, customizing settings etc but here we would talk about the most important task – Installing essentials. Essentials are those software which are required to make a crude system usable. These includes flash player, add-on plugins, media players, codecs & small utility software’s.

Generally, most of the users would hit various sites to download & install the essentials. Some users tend to do the same but via graphical package managers. Though there is nothing wrong in the above methods but these methods tend to consume a lot of time. Even I used to follow the same until I got to know about Easy Life.

(more…)

Everybody wants their Operating System to not only perform better but also look beautiful at the same time. Changing themes, wallpapers, cursor, sounds etc are primary methods of beautifying an OS. Almost every OS has transformation packs which give the default GUI of the OS a facelift. But now-a-days users demand much more shiny GUI. They demand 3D Effects, Widgets, Touch Intuitive Interface etc in their OS. While Windows 7 & Mac Leopard X offer shiny desktop effects but Compiz Fusion in Linux is big daddy of them all.

(more…)

Fedora 11 bought an excellent feature to its package manager YUM. If you have been religiously following the discussions on mailing list then you might know it. If you are clueless then let me tell you. It is known as ‘Presto’.

Presto is designed to save bandwidth incurred when the user upgrades the current software to a new release (version). Presto relies on Delta RPM’s which are smaller in size than regular RPM’s. The good thing about Delta RPM’s is that they only contain the incremental data which is added in the new release of the software. This means the download size will be significant lesser. Presto promises to reduce the download size by about 60% – 80%.

To use Presto you will need to first install the presto plugin for YUM. To install it, simply enter the following command in a terminal,

Yum install yum-presto

I upgraded Pidgin 2.5.5 to 2.5.7 on my Fedora 11 system using Presto & saved 90% of my bandwidth due to presto being enabled. Impossible? See the screenshots below to believe for yourself(Click on the screenshots to enlarge).

Those with limited bandwidth internet plans will thank developers for coming up with such a simple yet wonderful piece of software. Presto will also off course save time which is often too long for downloading software updates in addition to system updates. All in all a must have if you’re on an distro which uses Redhat Package Manager(RPM) as its package manager. What are you waiting for? Install Presto & let your mind free of the bandwidth worries.