Version: (using KDE KDE 3.3.1) Installed from: RedHat RPMs OS: NetBSD I'm a Fedora Core user - mostly because I know it, and it has most software available for it as RPMs. Unfortunately, because Fedora comes from the US, they've had to strip out MP3 support from most applications (xmms, k3b, noatun, juk, etc....) In the case of xmms and k3b, the applications have been built in a way so that http://rpm.livna.org can supply drop-in-and-use xmms-mp3 and k3b-mp3 RPMs. That makes the inconvenience of not having mp3 in the distro very slight. However, the procedure for getting MP3 support into noatun is a nightmare: see http://www.holovaty.com/linux/fedorafaq/kde_mp3.html Basically, it involves recompiling SRPMS with modified sources - not something for the newbie. Even the alternative of learning about and using kde-redhat.sf.net is a many-hours job. If we had noatun-mp3 and juk-mp3 RPMs, it would save a lot of people a lot of time! I guess that this request basically boils down to a request to refactor the noatun code in such a way as to make the MP3 support modular - so that the rpm.livna.org people can then build a noatun-mp3 RPM that can be used in future versions of Fedora, just as they presently do with xmms (which I'm using until I get time/energy to recompile kdemultimedia as in the HOWTO above) and k3b.
Noatun does not do the playback, it's arts that does. arts itself is plugin based and akode and mpeglib both could be compiled as seperate packages (it could simply depend on the arts package). Please also note that KDE is not providing any binary packages. The RPMs are created only distributors so if you need a certain package you have to ask your distributor.
Thanks. I was aware that KDE don't provide binary packages. I think that my misunderstanding was that I thought that arts isn't currently modularised in a way that would allow a drop-in solution for adding MP3 without having to recompile. I've filed a bug at Red Hat, asking them to repackage the arts RPM to allow an arts-mp3 package: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=141601
akode and mpeglib are both part of kdemultimedia, not arts (although they are plugins for arts). You should ask for a SRPM that _only_ packages the akode or mpeglib + mpeglib_artsplug directories found in kdemultimedia (the RedHat RPM spec simply omits these directories while compiling and packaging, that's why there is no mp3 support in their kdemultimedia package).
So, is it the case that someone could produce an RPM to enable MP3 in Fedora Core without any changes to the current Fedora kde-multimedia package? The RedHat employee responsible for KDE seems to think that it needs a change in the core kde-multimedia code, which was what I was originally asking for: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=141601 Is he wrong? If so, could you comment directly on that bug, as it'll sound a lot better coming from someone who knows rather than J Random User... (i.e. me).
Stefan is right. All you need to do is take kdemultimedia/akode, and install it. It does not require changes to any other module, unless Red Hat broke our software more than they usually do. aRts should pick up the new stuff as soon as artsd is restarted. You can prove this to yourself by grabbing the kdemultimedia tarball, configuring it, and doing a make ; make install in the akode directory. (You may need to compile the arts directory as well, but not install it).