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Linux: 8 Console Music players / Listening mp3 music in text mode

Monday, June 17th, 2013

As most of computer geeks, music is very important to make up my day and bring me up from bad mood or boredom. I like doing things from console, so even though nowadays Linux Desktop is so convenient, I still often prefer playing my mp3s from command line. In that spirit its worthy share with newer Linux users about existence of few mp3 players I used over the years to play my MODs / XM / Wavs / Mp3 etc.in pure console:

1. First and maybe most used over the years is mpg123 and its clone mpg321

mpg321 debian gnu linux playing mp3 in console screenshot
mpg123 is first mp3 player I ever used in Linux with no graphical environment and even to this day I install it on every Linux Desktop I have to configure. Its small its handy and it plays well most of mp3 music. Historically there was some issues with licensing of mpg321 making it not 100% (GPL-ed free software). Therefore a clone of it was made mpg321.
mpg321 is also a good mp3 player, but in some encoded mp3s my experience shows mpg123 plays music better (with less glitches).

 Install both mpg321 and mpg123 on Debian and Ubuntu and rest of deb based Linuces is with trivial:

debian:~# apt-get install --yes mpg321 mpg123
...
2. MP3Blaster (More interactiveNcurses mp3 and ogg vorbis player)

mp3blaster console music mp3 player Debian linux wheezy gnome terminal screenshot

debian:~#  apt-cache show mp3blaster|grep -i -A 1 description

Description-en: Full-screen console mp3 and Ogg Vorbis player
 mp3blaster is an interactive text-based mp3 and Ogg Vorbis player with
–
Description-md5: 0f28b31112e54bf3e946048856a7b6ce
Tag: interface::text-mode, role::program, sound::mixer, sound::player,

root@noah:/home/hipo/Плот# apt-cache show mp3blaster|grep -i -A 1 description
Description-en: Full-screen console mp3 and Ogg Vorbis player
 mp3blaster is an interactive text-based mp3 and Ogg Vorbis player with
–
Description-md5: 0f28b31112e54bf3e946048856a7b6ce
Tag: interface::text-mode, role::program, sound::mixer, sound::player,

To install:

 

debian:~# apt-get install --yes mp3blaster
...
3. Open Cubic Player – Cubic Player rewrite for UNIX and Linux

listening mp3 mod xm in console and terminal opencubicplayer ocp gnu linux debian

Those who remember how we used to listen music in DOS (Disk Operating System) days, should certainly remember Cubic Player – IMHO it used to be best MSDOS music player to play CDAudio, midi, MODs, WAVES etc. sound formats. I was more than delighted to find out some few years ago, some geeky developers started project aiming to rewrite from scratch Cubic Player for UNIX OS-es. Open Cubic Player is nowadays reality stable and kicks ass. I warmly recommend it to everyone who want to play music from console or terminal! It simply kicks ass!!! :)

Install it with;

debian:~# apt-get install --yes opencubicplayer
...
4. Cmus C Music Player (mp3 / wav / aac / flac / ogg vorbis) console player

Cmus tiny console terminal gnu linux mp3 music player screenshot
debian:~# apt-cache show cmus|grep -i description -A 2

Description-en: lightweight ncurses audio player
 C* Music Player is a modular and very configurable ncurses-based audio player.
 It has some interesting features like configurable colorscheme, mp3 and ogg

Install it with:

debian:~# apt-get install --yes cmus
...
Cmus tiny console terminal gnu linux mp3 music player screenshot
5.Good old but gold Mplayer

noah:~# apt-cache show mplayer|grep -i description -A 2

Description: Ultimate Movie Player For Linux.
 It plays most mpeg, avi and asf files, supported by many native and win32
 DLL codecs. You can watch VCD, DVD and even DivX movies too. The other
–
Description-en: movie player for Unix-like systems
 MPlayer plays most MPEG, VOB, AVI, Ogg/OGM, VIVO,
 ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, FLI, RM, NuppelVideo, yuv4mpeg, FILM, RoQ, PVA files,

noah:~# apt-get install --yes mplayer
playing music in console and terminal mplayer play mp3 ogg and videos in linux console

 


7. herrie – Minimalistic console music player

herrie linux console music player
Other newer player I just recently heard of is Herrie.
I red quite positive things about it, installed it but never got into habit of using it.

8. MikMod – Portable tracked music player

mikmod-console-mod-xm-it-old-school-music-format-player-for-gnu-linux-and-freebsd

Talking about geek music and old school stuff it is impossible not to mention MikMod. Even 12 years after i saw it for first time I still use it often to play cool music from modarchive.org. Its my personal believe MikMod is a player for hard core coders and hackers :)

noah:~# apt-cache show mikmod|grep -i description -A 2

Description-en: Portable tracked music player
 Mikmod is a very portable tracked music player which supports a wide
 variety of module formats including compressed sample Impulse Tracker
–

I'll be glad to hear from others what was your favourite console sound player

noah:~# apt-get install --yes mikmod
...

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ZenMap Nmap multi platform Graphical frontend for checking port security

Saturday, June 15th, 2013

graphic program to scan remote network server port security on GNU Linux and Windows ZenMap

Recently I wrote little article with some examples for scanning server port security with Nmap. I forgot to mention in the article that there is also Nmap frontend GUI program called ZenMap. ZenMap port is available for both Windows and Linux. In Debian, Ubuntu, Mint and other debian derivative distributions ZenMap is available from standard package repositories;

 noah:~# apt-cache show zenmap|grep -i description -A 3

Description-en: The Network Mapper Front End
 Zenmap is an Nmap frontend. It is meant to be useful for advanced users
 and to make Nmap easy to use by beginners. It was originally derived
 from Umit, an Nmap GUI created as part of the Google Summer of Code.
Description-md5: 4e4e4c6aeaa4441484054473e97b7168
Tag: implemented-in::python, interface::x11, network::scanner, role::program,
 uitoolkit::gtk, use::scanning, x11::application
Section: net

To install  ZenMap on Debian / Ubuntu Linux:

noah:~# apt-get install --yes zenmap
...

In Fedora, CentOS and other RPM based Linux-es to install ZenMap run:

noah:~# yum -y install nmap-frontend nmap
...

To use Nmap's Frontend full functionality, you have to run it as (root) superuser:

hipo@noah:~$ sudo su
[sudo] password for hipo:
noah:~# zenmap

Zenmap saves, a lot of time as there is no need to  remember Nmap's arguments or run few Nmap scans until you get essential information for remote scanned machine.
It automatically gives details on Remote server running services (fingerprint)

Zenmap remote server security services scan with services software version

Very useful report it makes as well is network (and host) topology diagram,

network scanner remote host Linux Windows toplogy guess ZenMap screenshot

ZenMap is just Nmap frontend and under the GUI it does use Nmap with various arguments to do produce scan results. In Nmap Output tab, you can see a lot of verbose info.

Zenmap Linux Windows GUI port scanne nmap output tab screen Debian / Ubuntu Linux

Happy scanning :)

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Converting jpeg / png pictures to mp4 format videos on Linux with avconv

Wednesday, June 12th, 2013

making mp4 videos from jpeg and png pictures gnu linux
Here in my job, there is one internet (TV) around which can only read video formats in Mp4. Henceforth I needed a way to convert a number of JPEG / PNG format Picture files to Mp4. In my situation I needed to make video out of pictures and script it as this was required to be later pushed via FTP protocol to the Internet TV. Ater doing some research I figured out this is possible to build video out of pictures by using together ImageMagick and avconv.

First thing is to send pictures in certain resolution. There is a tool from imagemagick package called mogrify (which can do that). To convert a number of different dimension pictures to lets say 1024×768, used:

noah:~# mogrify -resize 1024×768 *.png

In earlier Linux distributions to create a movie from pictures ffmpeg was used like so:

# ffmpeg -qscale 5 -r 20 -b 9600 -i SDC%04d.png movie.mp4

However in newer version of ffmpeg support for this is removed, and to make video from images, there is other tool avconv. On most Linux distributions avconv is part of libav-tools package.

To install on avconv Debian and Ubuntu;
noah:~# apt-get install –yes libav-tools
…

Once installed to create single mp4 video from JPEG or PNG pictures:

noah:~# avconv -i SDC106001.JPG SDC10595.JPG SDC13611.JPG SDC13612.JPG SDC13614.JPG  movie-from-pictures.mp4

I found there is also a nice GUI,software Open Movie Editor, which can create video out of number of pictuers stored in a directory. 
Open Movie Editor is available in most Linux distributions (unfortunately as of time of writting on Debian Wheeze there is no install candidate of openmovieeditor), there is however substitute package doing the same job called openshot);
On latest Debian stable to install Openshot:

noah:~# apt-get install –yes openshot

openshot running on Debian Wheezy Linux create video from pictures

Openshot has an option (Import Image Sequence) from File -> Import Image Sequence. Using this option you can select a directory with fles with common prefix name lets say IMG*.png and create Video based on the photos inside.

Linux create video from images import image sequence Debian / Fedora and Ubuntu

On Ubuntu Linux or other distro where openmovieeditor is avialable install it with:

ubuntu:~# apt-get install –yes openmovieeditor
…

Openmovieeditor Linux create movies from images screenshot
To create a video out of pictures click on Media Browser tab. Choose the Folder with pictures from which video will be generated and drag them to the Video bar
(window).

To save produced video navigate to menus:

Project -> Render

and select format to save it as. One good codec to save output is Quicktime's. To convert later Quicktime MOV Video to MP4 video,
there is the  Pytube Media Converter script.

Well that's all enjoy your new videos from pictures :)

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Remove password prompt on GNOME Shutdown / Restart on Debian and Ubuntu Linux

Saturday, June 1st, 2013

It is ultra annoying, that in newest Debian and Ubuntu releases with GNOME 3 Desktop environment on every shutdown or restart you need to type in Super User (root) password, to authorize shutdown / restart.

Generally prompting for root password on GNOME restart is obviously a good think from security point of view, but from usability one – especially on notebooks it is useless annoyance…

So after changing this behavior I came up with this tiny article on how to get rid of GNOME Shutdown / Restart password prompt.

There is a click button (on left of Auth prompt on Shutdown showing URL to XML policy rule from where this behavior is controlled. A really good hint to where to look for to change those annoying behavior…

 Here is how to change this new annoying behavior to old GNOME 2 default restart with no root password prompt .
linux:~# gedit /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.consolekit.policy
 

Find in XML source sections:
 

Restart the system when multiple users are logged in System policy prevents restarting the system when other users are logged in no auth_admin_keep
Stop the system when multiple users are logged in System policy prevents stopping the system when other users are logged in no auth_admin_keep

To change Restart and Shutdown GUI behavior to not prompt for password, you need to modify in above code:

auth_admin_keep
To:

yes

After changes both sections should look like so:

<action id="org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.restart">
<description>Restart the system</description>
<message>System policy prevents restarting the system</message>
<defaults>
<allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>

<action id="org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.restart-multiple-users">
<description>Restart the system when multiple users are logged in</description>
<message>System policy prevents restarting the system when other users are logged in</message>
<defaults>
<allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>
 

That's all you finally get rid of the annoying prompt for root password. Enjoy :)

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Remote Desktop client – Remmina, Connect Remote to MS Windows VNC hosts from Linux

Friday, May 31st, 2013

remmina remote connet to windows linux vnc client logo

If you're system administrator, who use Linux as Desktop. You surely want to check out Remmina – The GTK+ Remote Desktop Client.

As far as I tested among all VNC Linux clients I know Remmina is definitely the one of choice in terms of Interface simplicity / stability and remote connection level of responsibility.

Before finding out about Remmina existence, I tried xtightvncviewer, xvnc4viewer, gvncviewer, gtkvncviewer. xtightvncviewer, xvncviewer and gvncviewer are more for console geeks and hence either they lack GUI interface or user interface looks terrible.

GTKVncViewer's interface is also not bad but still not со nice as Remmina's.

gtkvncviewer Debian GNU Linux Wheezy screenshot Linux VNC simple client

As you see in above shot, gtkvncviewer lacks any configuration. The only thing it can do is connect to remote host and you have option to configure nothing related how remote connection will respond, what type of Resolution to use etc.

I know of of no other Linux VNC Clients that has configurability and GUI interface of Remmina.

 

As of time of writting Remmina is at stable version 1.0 and supports following Remote connection protocols:

  • VNC
  • VNC
  • RDP
  • RDPF
  • RDPS
  • SFTP
  • SSH

Remmina is available across mostly all Linux mainstream distributions:

To install Remmina on Debian / Ubuntu and deb derivatives:

debian:~# apt-get –yes install remmina
….

On Redhats (Fedora, CentOS, RHEL – RPM based Linuxes) install via:

[root@centos ~]# yum –yes install remmina
…

Below are few screenshots of Remmina:

Remmina Linux remote vnc connect best software gui frontend screenshot

Linux VNC best VNC connect tool Remmina preferences screenshot

One of best Remmina feature is it supports Tabbing just like in Firefox. You can open a number of Remote VNC connects to different Windows hosts and manage them all by switching from tab to tab.

Remmina best vnc linux desktop client screenshot with tabs / What is best VNC client for Linux

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Show / Restore missing Gimp 2.8 Toolbox Menu on Debian Wheezy 7.0 Linux

Tuesday, May 28th, 2013

After installing latest Debian Wheezy Linux on my Lenovo Thinkpad Notebook. One of first packages after very basic GNOME install was of course GIMP.

I edit images with GIMP mostly on daily basis, so life without GIMP is impossible…
Debian 7 comes with shiny new version of GIMP – GIMP 2.8. So far so good, but the problem is when started it for a first time, the default configuration is made in a way that it miss essential Gimp Panel Window (The Toolbox Window). Missing Brushes and selectors, move, scissors etc. is something really terrible.

My first guess was I can display it somehow from GIMP's View menu but after few minutes of try/errs I figured out this is not possible.

One menu I managed to displayed Toolbox in some mostly unusubale form, since they were not fitting well my 1024×768 resolution screen is via menus:

Windows -> Toolbox

Since this wasn't what I was looking for I spend some 10 minutes until I finally found "the fix". from menus:

Preferences -> Window Management -> Reset Saved Window Positions to Default Values

gimp 2.8 preferences menu screenshot debian gnu linux 7 wheeze screenshot

gimp 2.8 preferences menu restore saved window position to default values screenshot / display missing GIMP menus

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Install Microsoft Office 2007 on Debian Linux 7.0 Wheezy

Monday, May 27th, 2013

Install Microsoft Office 2007 on Debian GNU / Linux Wheezy / Debian and Microsoft Office logo

Here is few steps I followed to install succesfully Microsoft.Office.Enterprise.2007.bg-BG.SP2.Integrated on my recently installed Debian stable Wheezy Linux.

1. Install Wine and Winetricks

linux:~# apt-get install --yes winetricks wine
....

2. Download Microsoft XML support – msxml3.msi

Download URL for MS XML from CNET is here -

For simplicity I've mirrored msxml3.msi .
linux:~$ cd ~/.cache/winetricks/msxml3/
linux:~/.cache/winetricks/msxml3$ wget -q http://www.pc-freak.net/files/msxml3.msi
linux:~/cache/winetricks/msxml3$ winetricks msxml3

3. Insert Microsoft Office 2007 CD or  ISO

To Mount it you need to go in root shell:

To mount CD;

linux:~# mount -t iso9660 -o unhide /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
To mount MS Office 2007 from ISO file:

linux:~# mkdir /mnt/ISO
linux:~# mount -t iso9660 -o loop Microsoft.Office.Enterprise.2007.bg-BG.SP2.Integrated.iso /mnt/ISO/

4. Launch MS Office installation with WINE emulator

linux:~# wine /mnt/ISO/Microsoft.Office.Enterprise.2007.bg-BG.SP2.Integrated/setup.exe

microsoft office 2007 on debian linux installation in progress

Follow normal installations steps Install and Enjoy.

To start Microsoft Office further follow menus:

Applications -> Wine -> Programs -> Microsoft Office
 

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How to fix mysteriously disappeared Thunderbird e-mail message pane, Hide / Show Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail message window

Saturday, May 25th, 2013

Recently I did something so my standard Thunderbird e-mail message pane disappeared. I was not sure what happened so my logical guess was I had to do something from View menu, i.e. change something in:

View -> Layout or
View -> Toolbars
Anyways after taking close look in View, I realized can't fix it from there. So tried changing settings in:

Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced (tab)-> Reading & Display
Thunderbird edit preferences advanced tab Reading & Display screenshot

I tried changing setting for Open messages in with no luck. Finally after some more googling I got the fix under Mozilla Community Q&A site here. The fix is as simple as pressing F8Pressing F8 makes e-mail message pane appear or disappear, like shown in below screenshots …. Thunderbird with missing e-mail message pane

Thunderbird screenshot with e-mail message pane

That's all problem solved :)

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Merging pictures on Linux command shell with ImageMagick merge

Friday, May 17th, 2013

combining-multiple-jpg-png-pictures-imagemagick-magician-logo

It is generally useful to combine multiple pictures into single one. A example case, where merging pictures on Linux is necessary is if you previously used ImageMagick's convert command line tool to convert PDF file (pages) to JPEG / PNG pictures. Unfortunately convertion with convert(as far as I know is only capable of generating multiple picture files instead of one single one), thus you further need montage to merge pages in separate photos to one. In my case I had my Curriculum Vitae in PDF and I needed to have same PDF in single photo for my applications for online Job Employment Belarusian portal site rabota.tut.by.

montage is one of numerous ImageMagick package script (plugins).
On all major Linux distributions (Debian / Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, RHEL, SuSE) montage comes installed together with imagemagick deb / rpm package.

Whether you don't have montage on Debian / Ubuntu and deb derivatives install it via:

linux:~# apt-get install --yes imagemagick
....
On CentOS, Fedora, RHEL, SuSE to install montage:

[root@centos ~]# yum -y install imagemagick
....

To merge two JPEG Photos into single PNG format picture:
linux:~$ montage -geometry +2+2 Picture-1.jpeg Merged-picture.png

Combining more photos, lets say my 8 Pages photos output from previous PDF convert to pictures is done with:

linux:~$ montage -geometry +8+8 CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg-0.png \ CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg-1.png \ CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg-2.png \ CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg-3.png \ CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg-4.png \ CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg-5.png \ CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg-6.png \ CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg-7.png \ CV_Georgi_Georgiev_bg.png
montage has plenty of useful other options, to do various photo montages from command line. Other way to merge photos with montage is by using:

linux:~$ montage -mode concatenate -tile 1x input-pic*.jpg out.jpg

Merging photos is also possible by using directly convert.

Combining multiple photos into single JPEG or PNG with Imagick convert is done with:

linux:~$ convert -append input-pic-*.jpg combined-picture.jpg

Other example use of montage is located on ImageMagick's montage's script site here

 

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