Increase Your Technogeek Appeal: Text-Only Commands

Increase Your Technogeek Appeal: Text-Only Commands!

You've got to admit that using just XMMS isn't as whiz-bang cool as it could be. Ideally, wouldn't it be nice to have a machine that didn't need a monitor attached to it? Yes, if you want to be technical, XMMS can be run over the network, so your MP3 player doesn't need a monitor. But wouldn't it be nice to save the space required for X for more MP3s? If you want to do that, you'll need a console-based MP3 player. There is a wide variety of choices: mpg123, mpg321, freeamp, madplay, and so many more.

I prefer to use freeamp, because it has a command line mode that lets you play, pause, and skip files from a text terminal. It's fantastic to use over SSH. I've got an old Pentium 90 I'm turning into an MP3 jukebox (and it's short enough on space that I can't afford to install X ”I intend to run CD-Rs burned with MP3s in it for parties), so I just follow the standard process for an autoconf-style package. I intend to upgrade the PCs around the house. My wife's K6-200 will become the MP3 player and CD burner .

So now I've got freeamp installed. What can I do with it? Well, I can very, very, very easily build a list of songs to listen to. To test out the format of the list file, I just changed into the directory where I keep the soundtrack from 1998's version of Godzilla and did this:

$ ls > zilla.m3u

$ freeamp -ui freeampcmd zilla.m3u

and bang! it's a text player console:

Command Line Interface

 * q Quit

 * +/= Next Song

 * - Prev Song

 * p Pause / UnPause

 * s Shuffle

 * f Fast forward 10 seconds

 * b Skip backwards 10 seconds

Playing:

Self-explanatory, isn't it. You can press s to tell freeamp to go bounce through your list, selecting songs willy-nilly.

To get a listing of all the MP3s in your MP3 hierarchy and then to play them, you can try this:

$ find /mp3dir -name '*.mp3' -print > songs.m3u

$ freeamp -ui freeampcmd songs.m3u

Away goes the player!