Playing Music and Movies: Amarok, Kaffeine and More

Contents

19.1. Mixers
19.2. Playing Music Files
19.3. Handling Audio CDs
19.4. Playing Movie Files
19.5. Troubleshooting

Abstract

During installation, YaST normally identifies and configures the sound cards of your computer automatically. Otherwise (or if you installed a new sound card), start YaST and configure the sound card manually in the Sound module. For details, refer to Abschnitt „Einrichten von Soundkarten“ (Kapitel 2, Einrichten von Hardware-Komponenten mit YaST, ↑Start). When your sound card has been configured, you can control the volume and balance with a mixer and start other sound applications.

Linux includes a wide range of sound and multimedia applications. Some of these applications are installed on your Linux system by default. With the applications described here you can control the volume and balance of playback and play CDs, music and movie files.You can also record and compress your own audio data.

In case one of the listed applications is not installed by default on your system, use YaST to install the missing packages. Use the search function of the YaST package management tool to find the package names. For details on installing software, see Kapitel Installieren bzw. Entfernen von Software (↑Referenz).

Mixers

Mixers provide a convenient means of controlling the volume and balance of the sound output and input of computers.

The main difference between the various mixers is the outward appearance of the user interface. However, there are a number of mixers that are designed for specific hardware. From the mixers available, select the one that best suits your needs.

The default KDE mixer application is KMix. If the mixer icon (a loudspeaker symbol) is not visible in the panel of your desktop, press Alt+F2 and enter kmix or start the mixer from the main menu. By default, clicking the KMix icon in the system tray shows the master controller with which to control the overall volume. To fine-tune your sound settings for several channels, right-click the KMix icon and select Show Mixer Window.

You can mute and increase or decrease the volume for all of the channels separately. If you need or want to change the channel to be used as master channel, right-click the KMix icon and click Select Master Channel. If you want more or less channels to appear in the mixer window, select Settings+Configure Channels and select the ones you want to show.

Figure 19.1. KMix Mixer Window

KMix Mixer Window

[Tip]Starting the Mixer

Generally, it is advisable to open a mixer application before opening other sound applications. Use the mixer to test and adjust the control settings for the input and output of the sound card.