Re: Other Operating Systems

[1mck]

Hello,

First, this is the greatest music converter that I have ever encountered! I downloaded a book on tape, and the sample rate couldn't be read by my portable MP3 player, and I tried just about every music converter out there, and dBpowerAmp was the only one that could convert it! Thanks:-)
Anyway, I've absolutely had it with Windows, and I am planning on possibly migrating over to "Lindows." My question is: "Is there, or is there going to be a version of dBpowerAmp for Linux/Lindows?

Thanks again,
Rob

[Spoon]

I don't think there will be, just not the demand.

[MODatic]

1mck, no harm in giving WINE a go once you're on Linux.

[1mck]

I'm a "Newbie" to the whole "WINE/Linux" Thing

Hey, thanks for all the replies.
I don't have the first clue about Linux, or WINE, so when I do the big migration I'll still have WinDoze on my computer, but my goal is to be WinDoze free if I can. Will I still be able to use dBPowerAmp with the WINE thingy-jiggy on Linux? How well does it work, and do I have to be a computer genius to work/install/blah, blah, blah? I'm getting good at configuring WinDoze, and I just hope the learning curve for the Linux/WINE thing isn't to high.
Anyway, thanks again for replies.

1mck

[Spoon]

WINE is effectively windows, however they have not done the COM emulation, alot of program use com, dMC in included, but only certain parts - so you might find a Wave >> Mp3 conversion works fine.

[totalXSive]

You may also find that someone has created a Linux equivalent.

Avoid Lindows - at the moment you pay US$99 for something that doesn't really work yet. And remember that even Windows XP Home is cheaper than that.

I use Mandrake Linux 8.2 - it's free and one of the more easy to use distributions. Though I can't seem to be able to get my sound card to work...

[tfolck]

running under linux with wine howto

Here is how to run dbpoweramp under Linux with Wine. I'm using Makdrake 9.1. WINE is automatically installed durring the installation. If you are using a different version of Linux make sure it is installed. If it is not, you can get it from http://www.winehq.com

Here is how to run wine:

Go to the shell
go to the directory on the windows partition
exampe: /mnt/win_c/Program\ Files/Illustrate/dbpowerAMP
type wine and then the name of the file you wish to run
example WINE MusicConverter.exe

a window will appear to select the music to convert. After that the right click menu from windows appears to select which codec to use.

For me, it worked great and at the same speed as it does under windows.

[bsiegel]

Re: Other Operating Systems

Actually it's much simpler than that. You want to be windows-free? OK. It sounds to me like your level of computer skills are probably right there in the middle of the pack with most other computer users on the net. Really, unless you're a techie, Lindows (er, Linspire) 5.0 is really the way to go. It's so simple to use that a child can easily start using it within 5 minutes of having it installed.

That doesn't mean it's not powerful = it's just as powerful as any other Linux OS. That stuff is all just hidden, masked by incredibly simple wizards. If you want a Linux distribution that you can get going and using right away without (hardly) any learning curve, Linspire is the only choice out there.

Don't get me wrong. I use SuSE 9.2 when I'm not in Windows gaming. And I love it - wouldn't trade it for any other distro (I used to be a mandrake guy, but...). But I would never put SuSE on my mother's computer. She could handle Linspire though.

On the issue of dbPowerAmp and Linux, the best way is to get Wine (or 'Cedega' if it is available) from the Click-n-Run website (Part of Linspire - makes installing new software literally a one click process). That will add new program entries to your "Start" menu. From there, just download dbPowerAmp from this here website, and run the setup file using Wine / Cedega. It will install, and put its shortcuts into your "Start" menu and everything, just like Windows. You should be able to start it up just fine.

A final note - Linspire won't run you $99 most of the time. You can get it for $50 without Click-N-Run (which is a yearly subscription of $49 - but worth it I'd say for the average computer user). Or you can get it with a year's worth of C-n-R included for $90. If you want the retail box add $10 to the cost of either of these. However - Linspire LOVES promotions to get people to switch. Pretty soon you'll start seeing coupon codes for free copies of Linspire 5 - then it's just $50 for the Click-n-Run if you want it. Or if you swing toward the p2p end of things you can get the cd image of Linspire 5 off of bittorrent (and probably other p2p services as well). Pretty sure that since Linux and the Linspire addons are all free and open source this is legal (shoot me an e-mail if you can't find anywhere to get the cd image).

--Brandon Siegel

[bohemier]

Re: Other Operating Systems

Just to let others know, I just tried my favorite converter (dbpoweramp of course) on Ubuntu 8.10 - Intrepid with Wine installed. My music is all in FLAC format on a samba share and I needed to convert an album to mp3 for my wife. I did the conversion with my windows machine just fine (took 6 minutes) but was curious to see if I could do it on my Ubuntu. Turns out it took 4 minutes to do the same conversion... Here's what I did:

1) Install DBPoweramp and FLAC codec
2) Went to Ubuntu Applications Menu->Wine->Program files->Illustrate->DbPoweramp->Converter
3) Selected files from my samba share which was already mounted in gnome (/home/myusername/.gvfs/music/...)
4) Saved the files in My Documents/Music (which already pointed to Ubuntu's Music folder... )
5) Voilà... took 2 minutes less than on windows (but took me 20 minutes more to set this up :p)

Enjoy

[Teufelshunde]

Re: Other Operating Systems

Thanks for that info! I am about to switch over to ubuntu 8.10 myself and was checking for ways to make what I consider my "core" apps work (if no Linux version exists).