If you can not live without your MP3, this section is for you :-) Here we explore the wonderful world of multimedia, especially XMMS and the various multimedia tools available under your Mandrake Linux distribution.
First off, XMMS stands for "X Multimedia System" With it, you can play a variety of audio sources, such as regular music CDs and MP3s. And one of the sexiest features of XMMS is you can change its "skin", that is the way it looks. Let us start with the basics.
![]() | We assume that you have used a CD-ROM player before so we will not describe the play, rewind, etc. keys. |
First, to launch XMMS, go in your KDE or GNOME menu and choose Multimedia+Sound->Xmms. You can also create a desktop link as previously described. For command-line aficionados, simply type xmms &.
The main menu you will certainly use is the Options one. To access it, right-click on the main window. On the same main window, you can select the EQ button which pops up a little equalizer you can adjust to your liking. The PL button stands for "play list", that is the songs you wish to listen to.
![]() | As you can see in the latter figure, we chose the Chaos skin (look at the title bar), but you may choose one of several skins by right-clicking on the main XMMS window and choosing Options+Skins and a pop-up window will appear (you can also access it with Alt-S). It includes all available skins (usually, the skins path is /home/your_user_name/.xmms/Skins). If you wish to download other skins, check out Xmms Site. |
Now, to listen to music, you must add the files in your playlist. You can do this with several means: right-clicking on the play button pops up your files' tree where you select the ones you crave to ear, either as files, directories or URLs. You can also access your files through the playlist by clicking on the add button and choosing dir (directory) or URL. To delete files, same principle, except you click on the sub button.
If you select the misc button, you can sort your playlist as you like: random, precise choice of songs, etc. Speaking about playlists, you may want to save a series of songs you particularly prefer. To do so, select the list button on the playlist and choose save or new if you want to listen to an already fixed playlist.
As stated earlier, the Options menu is the most interesting one for daily use. In it, try a couple of features such as Sticky (Ctrl-S), which sticks your XMMS player in every desktop. Therefore, you can access it anywhere. If you feel the player is too small, you can double its size (Ctrl-D), you may choose Remaining or Elapsed Time, etc. Feel free to personalize it the way you want, there are far too many possibilities for us to go into detail.
The preferences sub-menu of the Options menu is, however, the most important. In fact, if your preferences are not correctly chosen, it will be impossible to listen to your music. First, check out that you selected the right.
Finally, two keyboard shortcuts you will surely like: for a song or a selection of songs to repeat, simply click the r character while your mouse is on the main Xmms window. For song shuffling, simply click on s.
First of all, if you never heard about GIMP, you probably wonder what it stands for: GNU Image Manipulation Program. There you go. Now, this is probably the most complex of the basic tools. A note of advice: many tutorials exist on the web (on the GIMP's site at www.gimp.org) and the excellent Grokking The Gimp book written by Carey Bunk and published at New Riders. However, here are a few simple features.
To start it up, go in your KDE or GNOME menu and select Multimedia->Graphics->The GIMP. You can also create a desktop link as previously described (StarOffice). In a Terminal, just type gimp &.
As you can see, the window is rather small, but do not be fooled by its size: you will be surprised of its powers! First, check out the main window. If you put your mouse cursor on each picture, a pop-up menu will tell you what you are pointing at. All your main options are contained in this window.
Now you might wonder how to do simple operations such as Save or open the Layout window. Most of GIMP's options are obtained by right-clicking on a dialog (or window).
![]() | If you use the GIF format for your images, you must first convert your images to indexed colors (see the Image->Mode menu). |
Let us check out the layers window. GIMP essentially works with numerous image layers which are superimposed. So take any image you have and create a new layer. You can then change the colors and shapes as well as the overall look of the image.
Well, that's all we are squeezing in for the moment. Be sure to check out those GIMP tutorials :-)