If there’s one thing I’ve realised over the course of the last few weeks, it’s that I have a lot to learn about Linux. Although I’ve been hooked since I first installed a copy of Red Hat 9 on my old PC and have now been using Ubuntu as the OS on my main PC for some time now, I’ve mostly stayed clear of delving into the actual code and tinkering around with it. Until now, anyway. 🙂

One of the benefits of not having a full-time job is that it gives you time to do a few of those things that you’ve been meaning to do for a while but just never got round to. So this week I checked out the source code for one of my favourite Linux applications – the GNOME music player Rhythmbox – and tried my hand at building the application from there.

Needless to say, it wasn’t as easy as I first thought. I had to download a whole heap of development libraries, master the black art that is accessing a CVS repository on the command line and get the hang of using the various GNOME build tools needed to compile the code. I even had to correct a couple of errors in the C code that prevented the application from compiling at first.

But I did it. I now have a working version of the Rhythmbox development code built, installed, working and running on my PC. This is the code straight from CVS HEAD that people are adding to and improving on a daily basis. And I can download, build and use this on a day-by-day basis. I love open source software!

One of the best features that’s only in CVS at the moment is AudioScrobbler integration, which updates your last.fm music profile with the tunes you’re listening to at the moment. There’s no nasty plugins or anything: any time I listen to a piece of music in Rhythmbox it’s automatically added to my Recent Songs list, assuming I have a network connection at the time. And even if I don’t, Rhythmbox remembers which tracks I’ve listened to and submits the list to the server the next time it gets a chance.

Actually, that’s quite scary… Perhaps I should delete those S Club songs…

Recovering from: Yet another job interview, but it went well!
Talking to: Naked people on the phone