iTunes For Linux, Thanks To CodeWeavers 352
pizen writes "The folks over at CNet have the scoop that a new version of CrossOver Office (3.1) now supports Apple's iTunes. The preview version of the software is being tested and is currently only available to current CodeWeavers customers. They expect a final version to be available later this year." Reader snowtigger contributes a link to this screenshot. White demonstrated iTunes on a Linux machine at OSCON as well; a rendering glitch marred that demo, but he was still able to demonstrate playing back a song which he'd purchased from iTMS using iTunes on Linux.
Re:Linux is about open standards (Score:5, Informative)
It's running whatever software Apple offer. No DRM is being tampered with.
I think they will worry far more about RealNetworks than this.
Re:Finally!!! (Score:4, Informative)
on Linux? (Score:4, Informative)
You mean that he purchased from iTMS using iTunes on Windows on Linux?
gtkpod? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well, it saves Apple some work! (Score:5, Informative)
Oh and the parent is moderated interesting! No it's not it's rubbish. Repeat after me Aqua is not X! CoreAudio is not ALSA (or OSS)!!!
Yes Mac OS X has got BSD kernel, but 95% of things above that level (exlcluding OpenGL) are proprietary Apple stuff and so a nearly full blown port is requeried from Mac OS X to Linux! Nowadays programs like iTunes use more then fopen(...); and printf(...).
What's so good about iTunes? Not a troll. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:It's still all unix (Score:5, Informative)
No, they aren't. X11 is completely separate from Aqua/Quartz. One of the many reasons why you need either Xfree86 or Apple's modified X11 to run X applications. Additionally, like the grandparent said, iTunes is based on Carbon, which is separate from the BSD subsystem. For the most part, OS X uses BSD for its kernel and services only: all Mac OS X native programs are written in Cocoa, Carbon, or Java.
Re:What's so good about iTunes? Not a troll. (Score:5, Informative)
Things that you can do anywhere but are particularly easy, pleasant, or automatic in iTunes:
o Searching for songs
o Manipulating playlists
o Consistent sound quality/volume
o Smart playlists
Other nice things that some people use:
o AppleScriptable (OK, only applies to Macs but extremely useful nonetheless)
o Album art
o Rate your songs
Just a few thoughts...
-Rob
Re:Hmmm (Score:3, Informative)
Talk about your erroneous, false conclusions. I wasn't referring to iTunes as an alternative to Kazaa, but I was pointing out that it's funny that so many people are excited about the opportunity to buy low-quality DRM'd music on Linux (like their Windows counterparts).
Re:Linux is about open standards (Score:5, Informative)
Contrary to popular belief, you don't have an inherent right to music, just like the RIAA has no right to sales. Listen to non RIAA bands, or go out and make your own music.....
I should have a right to the music I have paid for though. That's what anti-DRM people are usually complaining about.
Re:Hidden Significance (Score:5, Informative)
Don't tell anybody, but this happens under Mac OS and Windows also.
Just because you can re-route audio that doesn't mean you are breaking the DRM. Apple knows about all of these methods and has only done a pro forma job at closing them off. Basically, Apple needs to be able to tell the RIAA "We're making sure the music is uncopyable." so that the RIAA will continue to sign distribution contracts with Apple.
Don't make a big deal that you can create DRM-less copies of iTunes Music Store Music and its most likely that Apple won't bother you. Remember that Steve Jobs was the one who said [macobserver.com], "Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails."
Also, AAC and transcoding (Score:3, Informative)
Re:slightly off topic, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is a good thing (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Informative)
All is not lost however, you can turn off ID3v2 support in XMMS under the MP3 decoder options. XMMS will then read the song information from the ID3v1 tags and your problem will be fixed in a snap.
Re:It's still all unix (Score:3, Informative)
Cocoa apps are, in theory, not hard to port over to GNU Step unless they use a lot of the new features. GNU Step apps can usually just be tweaked a bit and recompiled as Cocoa apps.
That's all well and good, but like the parent said, iTunes is written in Carbon, which is like the old OS 9 api's, so it doesn't use ANY of the bsd like api's for anything.
Re:on Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What's so good about iTunes? Not a troll. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:really (Score:3, Informative)
iTunes is free (like Juke)
iTunes is on v4.6 with the accompanying stability and polish
iTunes has sound normalization
iTunes has song ratings
iTunes plays CDs, internet radio, and streaming music from other computers
iTunes rips songs
Unless there's a version of Juk I don't know of... Juk doesn't rip songs or play CDs?
Re:slightly off topic, but... (Score:2, Informative)
it worked out the correct id3 tags perfectly
Re:Good clone (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"The Hard-Bodied Sounds of the Gay Circuit..."? (Score:3, Informative)
1. There's two title bars. The windows one with the "_ [ ] X" buttons and then the (X)(-)(+) one from the Linux.
2. How do I know the second title bar is Linux? The controls are on the right side.
Re:What's so good about iTunes? Not a troll. (Score:3, Informative)
GtkPod is not a music store (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It's still all unix (Score:3, Informative)
<pedantic>Actually, Cocoa, Carbon and Swing are the frameworks you can use. Java, Objective-C, AppleScript, Python and Perl (and more every day) are languages you may choose from in order to target those frameworks.</pedantic>
Cocoa and Carbon are both considered 'native', though. For a new project, the only real choice is wether you want to go procedural and target Carbon or OO and target Cocoa. Legacy code bases will naturally choose Carbon to leverage existing code, but there are virtually no differences in capabilities (now - there were) between the two frameworks now.
In fact, most of the Cocoa objects use the same low level data structures and functions under the hood as the Carbon framework - so much so that Apple offers 'Toll Free Bridging' between the types. An NSString object can be swapped with a CFString reference without having to convert it at all. The idea here is to encourage 'hybrid' Cocoa/Carbon applications - but the the fact that this works proves that there isn't much difference under the hood between the frameworks.
The advantage of using the Cocoa framework is simply being able to use Objective C (very funky at first, but very cool language) and an extremely elegant framework that does most everything you might need with minimal work. If you're starting a new project, you should be using Cocoa. It's fast, powerful and is Apple's Wave Of The Future. I don't expect Carbon to go away any time soon (you try telling Adobe that they have to rewrite Photoshop from scratch), but I do expect lack of effort at some point. This doesn't mean that Carbon is somehow non-native.
iTunes is a legacy application (released initially for OS 9), therefore it was started on the Carbon framework. However, a LOT of the refinements Apple developed using iTunes (alternating row colors on lists, split views, controls in table cells, etc) has made it down into the frameworks and are now available to both Cocoa and Carbon.
PS - Interesting tidbit: The Finder was initially a (badly) modified Carbon application when OS X was first released. It was re-written in Cocoa for 10.2, and I believe it is the ONLY Apple application that has made that transition. It's either a testament to the simplicity of the Finder (right) or the power of Cocoa (likely) that they were able to change so easily. Not that I don't have my gripes...
Re:It's still all unix (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it's still in carbon. Very easy test: attempt to execute an operation that would normally hang Finder (emptying the trash, etc.). Notice the wait cursor you get (hint: it'll alternate between the pinwheel and the stopwatch). Unless the developer has added the stop watch resource into the program (which Apple hasn't), the stopwatch is a legacy wait indicator from OS 9 and Carbon.
Re:This is a good thing (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Futurama Quote applicable (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's still all unix (Score:3, Informative)
Wow - you're right. I could have sworn I heard Apple trumpeting about that change, but I seem to have mixed one of those silly rumors with real life. Damned pre-coffee posts.
That only strengthens my original point, though - with the only difference being that Apple hasn't moved any of their applications from one framework to the other. Apple themselves treat Carbon and Cocoa as equals and the proof is in the Applications they develop.
Re:Finally!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Finally!!! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:on Linux? (Score:3, Informative)
VMWare is in a totally different class. VMWare _is_ an emulator/virtual machine and will _emulate_ hardware in software.
Um, how is it _not_ running on Linux? Linux has many different API's (just like Windows and Mac OS X do), Wine is just another set of API's you can use to program under Linux. It is a special API because the goal of Wine is to be a 100% clone of the Win32 API that MS wrote.You need to understand what an API is to understand that Wine is not an emulator. An API is just a set of functions, etc that a program can use to do things. For example, in MS Windows, there is a function in the Win32 API called CreateWindowEx [microsoft.com]. Your program can call this function to create a new window. Under GTK+ for Linux, there is a similar function called gtk_window_new [gnome.org] that your program can call to create a new window. Wine is just another API under Linux and Wine has the same CreateWindowEx function that you would find under Win32.
Re:Also don't forget (Score:2, Informative)
http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
I use it all the time to view movie trailers and the like.
No iPod support yet (Score:4, Informative)
http://crossover.codeweavers.com/pipermail/announ
Hopefully it will be added soon so I can rid myself of Windows once and for all.
Just tried it. Doesn't quite work yet... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hidden Significance (Score:2, Informative)
You can even use public QuickTime API functions to decompress encrypted songs.
Re:Finally!!! (Score:3, Informative)
I understand that you may want to keep your own organization for your music files, but it so happens that your set up is identical to the one used by iTunes!
Yes, in the iTunes folder you will find a subfolder called iTunes Music. In it, every artist has one folder, with a subfolder for each album. Additionally, there is a folder for albums that are compilations of songs from different artists, and some artists have an "Unknown Album" subfolder for the files with empty Album tags.
Now, if you insist on doing it the hard way, I believe that you can simply drop your whole collection into iTunes every time. I haven't tested it (as I let iTunes organize my music), but I believe that it won't even try to re-link what has already been linked.
Well, as you are an AC I believe that I Have Been Trolled.
Re:Finally!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Finally!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Same as burning then ripping! (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is the signal is already decompressed by the time it gets to the sound card driver. "Breaking iTunes' DRM" means getting access to the unencrypted compressed sound data. There is no known way to recover the AAC compressed source from the decompressed version--to preserve the same sound quality as the original iTMS file you have to recompress lossless (which creates a much larger file)--if you just recompress as AAC or MP3 you will lose quality from the roundtrip, although presumably this is fine for some. Basically, iTMS DRM is supposed to guarantee that you cannot create a unencumbered small file of the same quality from your downloaded songs, plus put a convenience barrier to discourage casual file swapping.
compilations (Score:2, Informative)
if you tick "compilation" in the info/id3 pane in itunes, it creates a artist directory called "compilations" and puts the album, then the tracks in there (the file names do not have the artist tho... iirc)
"compilations" also comes up as an artist in the browse section
*however* (and this annoys me muchly) this is not replicated on the ipod - the ipod ignores "compilations" altogether and u get a billion artists in the artist browse list
to get around this i give compilations "compilation" as the artist and name the song "artist - song name" and soundtracks have "soundtrack" as the artist
its a bit crap but u only have to do this for the ipod, not if all u use is itunes