FOSSPICKS Sparkling gems and new releases from the world of FOSSpicks Free and Open Source Software Mike Saunders has spent a decade mining the internet for free software treasures. Here’s the result of his latest haul… Sound file tag editor Puddletag 1.0.5 e love discovering need Mutagen – this is the library programs that that handles the low-level Wostensibly perform operations of adding tags to music mundane tasks, but have so many files. On Ubuntu and Debian-based features and options that they distros, you can get all of the actually become rather cool. dependencies via the python-qt4, Puddletag is one such example: it’s python-pyparsing, python- a music file tag editor. Riveting, mutagen and python-configobj right? But when you start exploring packages. Then extract the the interface and discover some of puddletag-1.0.5.tar.gz file, go into the complexity behind it, you the resulting directory, and run actually start to admire it. And if you ./puddletag. manage a large music collection, you might find that you can’t live I, spreadsheet without it. Sure, most graphical The first thing you’ll notice is the music players on Linux include unusual interface: Puddletag looks Puddletag can work with ID3v1, ID3v2 (MP3), MP4, some kind of tag editing facility, but somewhat like a spreadsheet. This VorbisComments (Ogg and FLAC) and Musepack (mpc) tags. Puddletag is industrial strength. actually turns out to be a very good It’s written in Python (2) and uses design when you’re working on lots click on the F button in the toolbar, Qt 4 for the interface, so its main of files. Under the filesystem panel the file will be renamed according dependency is PyQt4. You’ll also on the bottom-left, navigate into a to the contents of its artist and track tags. In this way, you can turn “Puddletag is almost as flexible bachconcerto1.ogg into something nicer like Bach Concerto in G pt 1. as using a scripting language, but ogg. Excellently, you can do this for with the convenience of a GUI.” multiple files in the list by selecting them and clicking F – a great one-click way to clean up your directory containing audio files, and music collection. they’ll appear in the list on the right. And that’s just the start of it. You Just like in a spreadsheet, you can can create user-defined actions now click into cells and edit data – comprised of functions that sort that’s the simplest way to do it. values, merge fields, trim Where Puddletag really shines, whitespace, convert case, and so however, is in its automation much more. It’s almost as flexible facilities. Check out the drop-down as using a scripting language, but list in the toolbar: there you can with the convenience of a GUI, so if enter variables such as %artist% you have very specific requirements and %album%. You can use this for your collection, Puddletag should to rename files according to tags, handle them with aplomb. so say you have this in the Various functions are available to drop-down list: include in user-defined actions, such %artist% - %track% PROJECT WEBSITE http://puddletag.sourceforge.net as regex-based text replacement. If you now select an audio file and 68 www.linuxvoice.com FOSSPICKS Operating system PC-BSD 10 reeBSD is a fine server can take over the whole hard drive operating system, sharing automatically; custom partitioning Fmany of the same qualities is also available. One reboot later that Linux has: it’s open source, it’s and you’re prompted to create a reliable, it’s secure and it can run root password and normal user thousands of FOSS programs. account, before landing at your Some people use it as a desktop chosen desktop. OS, but it’s not the best experience out of the box – quite a lot of A bundle of joy manual work is required to get One of PC-BSD’s most notable everything set up properly. That’s features is its PBI packaging not a criticism, as FreeBSD just system. This aims to make provides a base system and software installation more expects you to know what you’re Windows or Mac OS X-like, in that PC-BSD takes the solid doing, like in Arch Linux. But if you users can download single .pbi So, why else would you consider server foundations of want to try something more packages, double-click, and get a FreeBSD and adds a using PC-BSD rather than Linux? newbie-friendly, PC-BSD, a desktop- new program. All dependencies are user-friendly desktop There’s not a lot between them, oriented OS based on FreeBSD, is bundled into the package, and it’s and packaging system. although hardware support tends worth a look. installed in /Programs. This is in to be broader in Linux. Pretty much Version 10.0 is available as a contrast to Linux, where every major FOSS desktop app is 3.4GB ISO which you can burn to a dependencies are used more available in PC-BSD – LibreOffice, DVD-R. For testing purposes, extensively and programs are Firefox, Gimp and so forth. There’s though, it’s much easier to boot it scattered around the filesystem. Is also the usual gamut of up in VirtualBox. The minimum PC-BSD’s approach better? Well, it’s development tools. But PC-BSD has system requirements are 1GB of certainly easier when it comes to a few aces up its sleeve as well, RAM and 20GB of hard drive space, grabbing new apps from the web, inherited from FreeBSD, such as but the PC-BSD team recommends but there’s a lot of duplication. If a excellent ZFS support. ZFS is a 4GB and 50GB respectively. This security hole is discovered in a filesystem that features storage might seem excessive, given that widely-used library, every PBI using pools, snapshots, compression, the FreeBSD core is rather svelte, that library has to be updated – this corruption prevention and many but the choice of desktop is more time-consuming than the other goodies. Meanwhile, FreeBSD environments and supplied apps shared library approach. jails are like chroot on steroids, and makes it a beefy package. the licence makes it much easier to After booting, you’re given default “PC-BSD’s packaging system aims incorporate into proprietary settings for installation, including a software (if that’s your wish). KDE 4.12 desktop. You can change to make software installation more this to Gnome, Mate, Xfce or some PROJECT WEBSITE Windows- or Mac OS X-like.” www.pc-bsd.org lighter window managers. PC-BSD How it works: Adding software 1 AppCafe 2 Search 3 Install Click the AppCafe icon on the desktop, and AppCafe shows recommended applications Click Install Now, or Install In Jail to set it enter your password when prompted. You’ll see a by default; use the search bar to find a specific up in a restricted environment. The latter option is cluttered window – resize it to make more space. application. Click its name in the list up details. recommended for untrusted programs. www.linuxvoice.com 69 FOSSPICKS Video/audio transcoder Transmageddon 1.5 e’re pretty hardcore Bizarrely, Transmageddon doesn’t geeks at Linux Voice. But open a file if you specify it at the Wone thing has always command line. We’re not sure if this terrified us: Mencoder. This tool, part is just a simple oversight, but of MPlayer, is tremendously anyway: you can choose the input powerful when it comes to file once the GUI appears. converting media from one format Transmageddon will identify the to another. But it’s insanely audio and/or video codecs used by complicated – the man page alone the file, and provide some extra contains almost 45,000 words! information such as the resolution Transmageddon has a So we’re always on the lookout and number of audio channels. You the details about them. Under the limited range of options, for graphical tools that make the can then choose the container for but it’s great for quick Presets drop-down menu, for job a lot simpler. Handbrake and VLC the output format, such as Ogg, converting tasks. instance, you can choose from work well here, but Transmageddon Matroska, AVI, FLV, WebM and various mobile phones, the Sony is an excellent lightweight others, and then specify the audio PS3, a “generic Linux” profile (Ogg alternative. It’s built on Gnome and video codecs to be used inside Vorbis and Theora), HTLM 5 video, libraries – although it ran without the container. and more. These profiles are stored any problems on our minimalist in XML format in /usr/share/ Openbox installation – and uses Hurrah for codecs! transmageddon/profiles – you can GStreamer to handle media codecs. So far so good. But what makes easily edit them to create your own So if you want to transcode into the Transmageddon especially useful is for other devices. widest possible range of formats, its in-built profiles, which let you install the “bad” and “ugly” convert for specific devices and PROJECT WEBSITE www.linuxrising.org GStreamer codec packages. platforms without having to know Drop-down terminal Guake 0.5.1 f you do a lot of work in the usually not well known by users of terminal, you probably have other desktops. We gave it a try on Iseveral terminal windows at any a plain Openbox setup, and were one time, and can easily identify pleased to see that it works them in your taskbar or window list.