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Do you hear a bird, a sweet little bird? A Songbird?
It's finally time. And I've graduated. I've moved from
the mystique to the easy. See, I do believe that's what it's
all about. Generally speaking, everyone wants their computer to be a tool
they use efficiently. They don't need a headache, and strange,
unexplained actions or sequences that we must perform but don't
understand don't enchant us with computers. So for that part of
computers, most of us are "windowcized". We expect point and shoot,
or very few clicks to happiness. We might as well have it done for us.
So, then, here it comes. How I run Songbird under my Debian desktop.
What I have learned lately from machiner and others is there is likely a
standard format and location and methodology to installs. More importantly to
me, and most of you other newbies out there, is this means there is likely
someone already saving you effort.
First off, one of the packages will require Firefox. Personally, I have no
issue with great software being branded by it's owners. I don't
even mind paying for stuff, if it's worth it. Since Songbird is
branded by Mozilla, also, I have no issue with running full fledged Firefox.
So I go to my Synaptics Package Manager and uninstall Iceweasel.
I then use Evolution (fairly decent browser) and download a fresh Firefox tar
http://www.mozilla.com/products/download.html?product=firefox-
3.0.9&os=linux&lang=en-US
This is a tar bz2 file, so to install it to a "standard" location,
assuming I didn't change anything, and it's stored on my Desktop,
I do the following:
First, I open my Home folder. Then I drag and drop the bz2 file into my home
folder, to make pointing to it easier.
Then in the root terminal (I'm running Lenny, you may need to sudo if
not)
cd /etc/lib/ puts me into the right directory where I want
Firefox to extract the tarball. Final destination will be /etc/lib/firefox
Untar the firefox tarball:
tar -jxvf /home/yourusername/firefox-3.0.8.tar.bz2
##make sure this matches your bz2 file name
Now you need a launcher for this. I build mine on my desktop. Right button
desktop, select create a launcher, call it Firefox, for the command line,
it's /etc/lib/firefox/firefox
I also click the icon, browse over to the icon folder under the /etc/lib/
firefox/ area, and select the 50 size icon. That should be all you need to
OK it and start firefox.
I reopen synaptic package manager, and I load Sun Java on my machine, and made
sure the java test page reported success.
The real reason I wanted to make sure there was no issue there was due to my
iPod support under Songbird. I'm not going to bother looking it up
right now, but if I correctly recall, Songbird needs java working to properly
support an iPod.
Now, I need a "better" (IMHO "" likely, just different) package
manager. So I picked gdeb. I opened up that admin tab, selected the
synaptics package manager, and installed gdeb. (If I knew the right
repository, I could just add it and install songbird from that).
Now all I need is a great deb package, and Songbird will be up and running,
right? So I find two, one at getdeb.net and one at unter-hund.com
Based on my success with recent Songbird updates for my Mint desktop, I first
chose to go with the getdeb.net Songbird deb file. After downloading it, I
get a Firefox dependency not satisfied, I'm going nowhere with this
one. So before learning how to satisfy a dependency that is for some reason
missing, I go to www.unter-hund.com (underdog. com in German) and download
their deb file.
I then find and save the Songbird.deb file they have. After getting it saved
on my PC, I right button click it, select "Open With" and choose
gdeb. It reports it is installable, and I install it.
Songbird is up and running. (the screen shot is from my Linux Mint install,
as I can't sync my iPod but to 1 library"But I did listen to the
Debian install, works just as perfectly)
What I love is an application that to me, anyway, looks as slick and polished
as iTunes, and has all the same functionality (Except the iTunes Store ""
but it does have a store relationship). Browser and music player and mash-up
all in one. So far, I love it.
I take all the add-ons they suggest, and add media Flow (great look at top of
player) and Lyrics (Lyric Master??? "" on the right side panel) also.
Great application, and for me, excellent due to the very good iPod support
interface (sync, eject, and library support) which is very similar to what my
"windowcized" mind expects.
Since I'm doing this from memory, please comment if you run into any
issues.
ezsurfer
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