I Made The Switch

I recently made the switch. No! Not to Windows 7 !!!!
I switched to Mint.
I have been using Ubuntu since Edgy and became a full time Linux user since Feisty.
As good as it is, I needed a change. Not so much a full distro change but more of a look and feel change.

I had some help with this decision. I was trying out ReneL's new multi-boot DVD which contains Mint (Both Gnome and KDE) along with all the Ubuntu versions, SysRescue and TinyCore.
In case you haven't been following the comments in my blogs and missed it, you can get the torrent from here;
http://www.mininova.org/tor/2837481

I will also be posting a new article about it and hope to put up some RS links to it.
Now about Mint.
After I installed it I realized that the look was very different. Instead of 2 task bars, there was only one. And that was at the bottom of the screen. I know I said I wanted a new look and feel but I'm so accustomed to having the task bar on top I switched its position.

The install and updates along with additional software installs took about 2 hours.
And thanks to Linux keeping all your personal files in the Home directory along with the ability to have your Home folder loaded into it's own partition, my documents, bookmarks and email were all ready and waiting for me.

So now I will be using Mint until I tire of it and switch to another distro.
But I still have my back up computer that currently has Vector Linux on it that I also use.
I enjoy variety and thankfully Linux provides me with plenty of choices.
Maybe I will just have to set up a multi-boot on my back up computer and install TinyCore next to Vector just for the fun of it.

BTW..... As with all the Debian distros, Streamtuner also needed to be patched for the Shoutcast bug. Mint may look different but it still has it's roots in Debian.

Until next time.

TaZMAn

Streamtuner Shoutcast Plugin Oddity

I have to really wonder if the continuing Shoutcast problem in Streamtuner is in fact caused by the Ubuntu kernel.
I ask this question out loud after installing Vector Linux which is based on Slackware using Linux Kernel version 2.6.27.12

After I installed Vector Linux on an older 1 Ghz computer I saw that Streamtuner was preinstalled. Curious as to whether it would work properly or not I fired it up.
To my surprise, not only did the Shoutcast tab work perfectly but Punkcast and basic.ch plugins were installed and working properly.

Now it is possible that the good people involved with Vector Linux may have patched the plugin or it may be the latest Streamtuner release works as it should in Vector while still causing problems in Ubuntu.

I've also read that other distros don't have problems with the Streamtuner Shoutcast plugin that was recently released.
Yet it seems most Ubuntu users are still having problems with it.

I plan to take a look at the Vector install and the plugin they are using in an attempt to put this to rest once and for all.
I like Streamtuner and have not found anything that compares to it. So I'm not going to give up the fight to get this fixed properly.

TaZ

Shoutcast Bug In Streamtuner

So last week I fired up Streamtuner. It's been awhile since I have used it to listen to online music now that I have been using Songbird, so I was a bit upset when I couldn't get any listings for the Shoutcast feed.
At first I thought there was a glitch with their server but after a few days of checking it, I found it was still not working.
So I went digging.

Turns out that Shoutcast changed their website. The old Streamtuner plug-in doesn't work with the new design. What needed to be done was to fire up a hex editor and update the plug-in. But not an update that would use their new site feed. Nope! That would require a full rewrite of the plug-in code.

What I did was to find the Shoutcast address in the plug-in and change it to the new address that points to the old site that Shoutcast is maintaining.

Here's what you need to do in order to fix the Shoutcast plug-in.
Fire up your favorite hex editor and use it to open up the shoutcast.so plug-in found in usr/lib/streamtuner/plugins.
Now search for the two instances of www.shoutcast.com and replace them with 205.188.234.120 making sure you keep the spacing sane.
Now save it back into your folder.
Open up Streamtuner and go to the Shoutcast tab. You should now see your listings. If your don't just click on the Reload button.

For those of you who are saying that you don't know how to use a hex editor, no worries.
Here is a link to the patched shoutcast plug-in.
Download Plugin

Copy the plug-in, go to usr/lib/streamtuner/plugins folder. Open it as Root. Delete the existing shoutcast.so file and paste this patched file in to the folder.
Now open up Streamtuner, go to the Shoutcast tab and your listings should show up.

This is only a quick fix as it doesn't allow Streamtuner to access the new Shoutcast site and categories. Streamtuner itself needs to be fixed. I believe the original designer quit the project several years ago as there haven't been any updated versions. But I do believe there are some people maintaining it and hopefully they will release a newer 'fixed' version.

Update!!!

Thanks to Ernie for this easy fix that offers more functionality.

An alternative solution can be to edit your hosts file (/etc/hosts) and add the following line:
205.188.234.120 www.shoutcast.com
That overrides the shoutcast.com ip address provided by the DNS. It fixes the issue and you can access the webpage from the browser too.

Thanks again Ernie!


Enjoy!

TaZMAn