this is obsolete doc -- see http://doc.nethence.com/ instead

Hard Disk Music Player based with Slackware Linux 

Introduction 

I'm using Slackware with a custom kernel (Envy/24 chipset sound card, Onkyo Wavio SE-90PCI). 

Requirements 

To view the internationalized filenames, enable UTF8. 

/etc/lilo.conf: append = " vt.default_utf8=1"

/etc/profile.d/lang.sh: export LANG=en_US.utf8

(if using PuTTY to control the Music Player/Server, you need to enable UTF8 in it too)

Make sure the user has access to the sound card device, namely /dev/dsp and /dev/snd/*. Adding it to the 'audio' group should be enought, 

usermod -aG audio USERNAME

I recommend mplayer, it's the first, if not the only one, command line music player that supports seeking in FLAC files. SoX/play doesn't. Make sure it's installed, 

the 'mplayer' package is installed, 

ls -l /var/log/packages/MPlayer*

I simply use Midnight Commander to browse my music files. Also make sure it's installed, 

ls -l /var/log/packages/mc-*

MPlayer configuration 

Setup the default sound level to 50%, to you can increase (*) and decrease (/) the volume while playing, 

cd ~/.mplayer/

cat >> config <<EOF9

volume=50

EOF9

Enable volume control with the + and - keys, also those from the the numpad (F4 and ',', mplayer actually shows what keys it doesn't recognise when typing them). Reduce seeking to 5 seconds instead of the default 10. 

cd ~/.mplayer/

cat >> input.conf <<EOF9

F4              volume -1

,               volume 1

-               volume -1

+               volume 1

RIGHT           seek +5

LEFT            seek -5

EOF9

Midnight Commander configuration 

Just a little trick. I prefer the black/yellow layout design. On Slackware, 

cd /usr/share/mc/skins/

sed 's/blue/black/g; s/cyan/yellow/g' default.ini > custom.ini

and add this alias to your environment, 

alias mc='mc --nomouse --skin=custom'

Note. --nomouse to prevent some bugs with the gpm daemon. 

I also get rid of some parts of the layout, 

cd ~/.mc/

mv ini ini.dist

sed '

s/message_visible=1/message_visible=0/;

s/keybar_visible=1/keybar_visible=0/;

s/menubar_visible=1/menubar_visible=0/;

' ini.dist > ini

Note. I keep the command prompt e.g. to quickly change the working directory 

Note. I keep the mini_info (status bar) e.g. to see symlink's details 

Edit mc's extentions file, 

cd /etc/mc/

cp mc.ext mc.ext.dist

vi mc.ext

go to "### Sound files ###", remove everything and replace by, 

# WAV

regex/\.(wav|WAV)$

        Include=sound

# FLAC

regex/\.(flac|FLAC|fla|FLA)$

        Include=sound

# MP3

regex/\.(mp3|MP3)$

        Include=sound

# AAC

regex/\.(m4a|M4A)$

        Include=sound

# Microsoft ASF

regex/\.(wma|WMA)$

        Include=sound

include/sound

        Open=mplayer -vo null %f

Note. I voluntary use simplistic regex so I can actually visualize what I'm catching. Compare with the original 'mc.ext' file and you'll understand. 

MPlayer usage 

Browse your music tree with mc and when playing, 

*    increase the volume

/    decrease the volume

>    next in playlist

<    previous in playlist

m    mute sound

p/SPACE  pause

q/ESC    stop playing and quite

References 

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/control.html