Friday, 3 April 2009

How-To: Compile and Install XMMS in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

XMMS (X Multimedia System) was a very popular audio player for many years, but it was dumped from Debian Lenny and Ubuntu since it uses older GTK+ libraries and it is not maintained any more. It was replaced with the newer Audacious player on both distributions, which you can install by typing sudo apt-get install audacious in a terminal.


However, if you want to compile it from source in Ubuntu 9.04 and 8.10, you can follow the steps below:

1. Install the tools needed for compilation and XMMS dependencies
Open up a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

build-essential is a meta package which depends on tools needed for compilation, like gcc (GNU Compiler Collection). Next, install the development libraries:

sudo apt-get install libgtk1.2-dev libglib1.2-dev

It's recommended to also install libvorbis-dev, for the Ogg Vorbis plugin:

sudo apt-get install libvorbis-dev

2. Download the XMMS source
Get the source from the official website, here, and save it to a location of your choice. Next, make sure the current working directory is the one where you saved the source, then uncompress it using one of the following commands (depending on which file you downloaded, the .tar.gz or the .tar.bz2):

tar -xzf xmms-1.2.11.tar.gz

Or:

tar -xjf xmms-1.2.11.tar.bz2

3. Compile and install XMMS
Change the working directory to xmms-1.2.11 and issue the following commands to configure, compile and install it:

./configure
make
sudo make install

Next, run ldconfig as root:

sudo ldconfig

This should be all. Run XMMS by typing ALT+F2 and entering xmms in the Run dialogue that appears. Notice that XMMS will not be able to play sound if there is another audio or video player running.

To uninstall it, issue the command sudo make uninstall in the same directory from which you installed it.

An alternate way of installing XMMS in Intrepid Ibex, without compiling it, is to follow this short guide. Basically, you will have to add the following two lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~knuta/xmms/intrepid ./
deb-src http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~knuta/xmms/intrepid ./

Update the package lists and install XMMS using:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xmms
at

10 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 28, 2009 6:28 am

    thanks, work fine only I have a little problem the xmms volume don't work... I'll try to fix...

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 17, 2009 10:10 pm

    Awesome HOWTO, thank you so much! I was missing xmms from distros past.. so happy now :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 23, 2009 11:18 am

    Thank you very much! It was very helpful!

    ReplyDelete
  4. RabidWeezleJuly 15, 2009 4:22 am

    Thanks alot man, it's funny how a distro would like to tell you what player you have to use, it's nice to know at least you can still compile it yourself. XMMS has to be the cleanest/fastest/most stable player out there.

    ReplyDelete
  5. MarkSeptember 10, 2009 1:47 am

    Thanks man. So clean and fast.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Admin RSGIS IndonesiaOctober 07, 2009 12:10 pm

    Thanks man. Long time I find out how to install xmms. You rock man.

    ReplyDelete
  7. nanoOctober 11, 2009 9:40 pm

    I'm new to Ubuntu and I was following your steps. I downloaded the sources to a folfder I named "xmms-1.2.11". Then when I entered
    tar -xjf xmms-1.2.11.tar.bz2
    on the terminal, because that's the version I downloaded, but the terminal replies:
    tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors

    What should I do?
    I appreciate any help you may provide. Many thanks

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousNovember 12, 2009 9:46 pm

    this guide is useless you dont have to do it like that you can download a debian package from this site
    https://help.ubuntu.com/community/XMMS

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousDecember 17, 2009 2:13 am

    To get menu icon:

    1. wget http://tombott.com/images/xmms/xmms_logo.png

    2. sudo cp xmms_logo.png /usr/share/pixmaps

    3. sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/xmms.desktop

    4. copy, paste
    [Desktop Entry]
    Name=XMMS
    Comment=X Multimedia System
    Exec=/usr/local/bin/xmms
    Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/xmms_logo.png
    Terminal=false
    Type=Application
    Categories=Application;AudioVideo;

    5. save
    enjoy menu icon

    ReplyDelete
  10. AnonymousMarch 25, 2010 6:50 pm

    Thanks a lot!!! Finally a very good and working tutorial! =)

    ReplyDelete