kscd is the KDE CD player. It's pretty nice — it works, it can use the freedb database to show the album and track titles, it stores that information locally so it works even when disconnected from the Internet, I can see it (the default colors (at least in Mandrake 9.0 and 9.1) are a nice set of bright colors (vs. xmms (IIRC) which I can see, but not see any details on the dark blob that is its "window").

The one thing I wish was that it also played opps and mp3s, so I could also include the few mp3s that I have in a playlist. (And, when I build my "music jukebox", I may convert most of my .wav files to ogg format to save space.)

When I installed Mandrake 9.1 on system12 and moved my local database from System5 to System12, the title lookup feature did not work. See notes for what I found and did. (Some of it is still "magic".)

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Notes

When I installed Mandrake 9.1 on system12 and moved my local database from System5 to System12, the title lookup feature did not work. Some of it is still "magic".

• Copied the /home/rhk/cddb directory on System5 to /rhk/cddb. (I may later move it again back to /home/rhk -- see Knoppix32HardDriveInstall.

• Title lookup didn't work locally or remotely. After an annoyingly long time, I noticed that the "server" on the configuration screen was set to freedb.freedb.org cddbp 8880 - instead of www.freedb.org cddbp 8880 - — don't know if that trailing dash has any significance.

• Fooled around with lots of settings on that same page, like setting the local directory to variations of /rhk/cddb/, turning local save on and off, turning local lookup on and off, no luck.

• Went looking for manuals for kscd and freedb (I'll put some links in the resources)

• Went looking for a text based configuration file, found /home/rhk/.kde/share/config/kscdrc, looked at it, found that it didn't seem to be affected by the changes I had made on the configuration screen, started fooling with it (in vi). (For example, it still had the wrong local database directory (wrong by a lot — it was somewhere in /home/rhk/.../.kde/... IIRC).)

• Changed things in that file to be correct (AFAICT). I think I found that in order to make changes in that file effective, I had to not only close the kscd window on the screen, but also remove the icon from the toolbar.

• I changed the first section of the file to look like this:

[CDDB]
CDDBHTTPProxyEnabled=false
CDDBLocalAutoSaveEnabled=true
CDDBRemoteEnabled=false
CDDBSubmitAddress=freedb-submit@freedb.org
CDDBTimeout=60
CurrentServer=www.freedb.org cddbp 8880 -
HTTPProxyHost=
HTTPProxyPort=0
LocalBaseDir=/rhk/cddb/
SeverList=www.freedb.org cddbp 8880 -
SubmitList=freedb-submit@freedb.org,

Notes:

1. Now that I've got the local database working again, I'll re-enable remote lookup
2. Hmm, the file got changed again -- I had left a comment showing the original LocalBaseDir (prefixed with a #) — it's gone now — kscd must rewrite the file on occasion
3. In the second last line, I'm not sure whether "SeverList" is correct or a typo (that was in the original file)

Here are a few kscd links:

• The freedb tab — Ok, for the current version of kscd, but it did not lead me to the need to edit the kscdrc file.
• Play Music CDs — not real helpful, for an older version of kscd (screens arranged differently)

In looking at some of the pages for freedb, I learned that:

• you can "manually" query the database, which will be useful at times (for example, if I make a compilation CD and want to pick up some of the title information). Here's Prince's "The Hits 1".
• a freedb server is available for download / local install (at first this is what I thought I would need because nothing was working)

Contributors

• () RandyKramer - 25 May 2003
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