Hey... what's this... no mp3 capabilities to start with?

[slvadcjelli42]

I thought there was something wrong with my computer, as I was trying to play some mp3's.... No matter what program I used it either didn't do anything or gave me an error. Then I downloaded and installed mpg321 and in about 30 seconds I could play them. This seems fishy to me. Why would there not be a functioning mp3 player included with my distribution? IS it actually a system problem or is there more to this? There is something rolling around in the back of my head about this but I can't seem to bring it to the front   :confused:

[TheQuirk]

Are you using Red-Hat?

RH removed mp3 capability due to patent issues.

[slvadcjelli42]

Haha! That must be it, I'm using Redhat 8. I thought there was something funny about the situation. Wasn't very hard to fix, but they could have given me some notice! So, other distro's don't have that problem?

[sime]

In the words of Homer D'oh... It's 04:00 here and you already sussed it, So just ignore this ... I'm half asleep .... and a twit!

Later

Sime

[ July 28, 2003: Message edited by: sime ]

[mobrien_12]

RH is trying to be very careful with IP issues. I think maybe it's because they may think they are the biggest OSS target if someone decides to sue.  
I think they realize that the user can go to http://www.xmms.org and get mp3 support easily enough, and it's better to cover their tails.

Ogg vorbis is better than mp3 anyway.  If you are (like me) ripping tracks from your own CD's to listen to on your pc, you will like the ogg vorbis format.

You can find out about it at http://www.vorbis.com and I think RH 9 has it built in.

[solo]

They do give you notification. I assume you were using XMMS? Or.. at least in Redhat 9 they do. It pops up a little message saying 'MP3 support is not available in Redhat Linux due to patent issues' etc

[Faust]

quote:
Ogg vorbis is better than mp3 anyway.  If you are (like me) ripping tracks from your own CD's to listen to on your pc, you will like the ogg vorbis format.

Yep, great quality, and much lower sizes.  Plus your certain to stay free of any copying "issues" unlike with wma.

[slvadcjelli42]

quote:Originally posted by Fury: Freedom Fighter:
It pops up a little message saying 'MP3 support is not available in Redhat Linux due to patent issues' etc

Nope, I got nothing like that in xmms or any other program. that one just acts like I haven't selected anything if I try to play an mp3. Oh, well, doesn't really matter now.