How to install Songbird on the Acer Aspire One
Songbird is an Itunes replacement for Linux that supports Itunes Music Libraries and music files.
It’s written by the same people that created Firefox so it comes with some pedigree, it’s Interface is similar to Itunes so it should be easy to pick up quickly.
This guide will look at how to install Songbird and future guides will look at Itunes and Ipod connectivity.
This site give me the information to get started.
To install Songbird.
- Open a Terminal Window from the advanced menu
- type
wgethttp://download.songbirdnest.com/installer/linux/i686/Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz - Press return
sudo tar -zvxf Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz --directory /opt- Press return.
sudo chown user -R /opt/Songbird- Press return.
To add Songbird onto the Advanced menu.From the advanced menu choose settings and then select Menu Editor.
- Click on Add Entry.
- In the name box type SongBird.
- In the Command box type /opt/Songbird/songbird
- Click on Ok
- Drag the SongBird Entry to where you want it to be.
- Click on Save
SongBird will now be in the Advanced Menu.
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Categories: Linpus, Music Acer ASpire One, How to install Songbird, Ipod, Itunes, Linux, music player, songbird
Thanks John. In common with quite a few people who have tried to download to the Acer One by clicking on Songbird’s “Download” tab, all my previous efforts to get this get this fine application have ended with an error display halfway through installation. Your method worked straight away. I’ve posted a link to this page on Songbook. Thanks again.
Hi James
Glad i could help.
Hi there
I’ve gone through the steps above on my Acer Aspire One, but no luck. All the commands seems to run fine until the very last one (sudo chown user -R /opt/Songbird). When I hit return, it opens up a new command promt, but nothing more. I’ve looked in my downloads file, and nothing…
Help ! What am I doing wrong ? (I know nothing about Linux and am completely new to all of this)
Hi Gill
I’ve altered some of the text formatting in the instructions to fit all the text in the post window – some characters were appearing off screen.
Has this helped? If not do the previous commands look to complete ok?
Cheers
John M
UPDATE: following a bit of research I’ve changed the link to a later version of the file
hi John
Thanks for helping out on this.
I’ve re run both links (to the 1.0.0 & 1.2.0 versions),and they seem to install after the first prompt (the wget line) eg
`Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz’ saved [17675437/17675437]
Then I see all the various files after the 2nd prompt eg :
/Songbird/components/sbProxiedServices.so
./Songbird/components/sbMetadataModule.so
./Songbird/components/sbProperties.xpt
./Songbird/components/browsersearch.xpt
./Songbird/songbird.png
./Songbird/README.txt
[user@localhost ~]$ sudo chown user -R /opt/Songbird
[user@localhost ~]$
…but then, after the last prompt (sudo chown etc), as you can see above, nothing else happens. It looks like it’s waiting for another command ? I check in the downloads folder, but can’t seem to find where the download has gone !
Am I doing something wrong here ? What should I expect after the third command ?
thanks
gill
ah ha…found something on the Disc. I can see a ‘gzip’ compressed file icon for Songbird…but when I click on it to open and ask it to extract, it comes up with an error message. Is there anything else I can do with this link ? How can I actually opan and use it ?
It’s showing this on ‘my Disk’:
…file:///mnt/home/Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz
Hi Gill
I’ve just been through and insatlled it on a fresh linux install and everything looks
ok.
You can copy and paste the commands from this page into the terminal window if that helps.
What happens if you type /opt/Songbird/songbird into a terminal window – it should launch the application.
Hi John.
when I type in /opt/songbbird/songbird, it says there’s no such file or directory ! (although I didn’t go through the full 3 steps again, as there’s already a folder on ‘My Disc’, with over 600 files in it.) Do I need to delete that folder and start all over again ?
It seems that there may be something wrong with my Linpus lite OS, as I’ve keyed in your above steps to the letter (cutting and pasting etc), but it just doesn’t want to play.
This is so frustrating – comeback windows, all is forgiven !!
g
Hi Gill
I’m really sorry you are still having problems, Linpus is good at whats it’s supposed to do which is to provide a quick interface for firefox and openoffice. Sometimes it really is the biggest pain in the neck.
That said I’ve tried other operating systems on the Aspire One and without doubt non-are anywhere near as quick.
Ubuntu is slower, Windows XP doesn’t write to flashdiscs very well. I’m currently testing eeebuntu which has a great interface, but I’m so tempted to go back to Linpus becasue it’s so quick.
Back to your problem at hand – have you been able to install any other applications? Deleteing the songbird directory and starting again might be a good starting point.
We will get there.
well…I got further than I had before…hurray !- thanks John !
It seems to have downloaded, but some errors are now coming up :
eg (in the Terminal window) :
(songbird-bin:12008): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: cannot register existing type `RTPSession’
(songbird-bin:12008): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_param_spec_object: assertion `g_type_is_a (object_type, G_TYPE_OBJECT)’ failed
(songbird-bin:12008): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_class_install_property: assertion `G_IS_PARAM_SPEC (pspec)’ failed
eg (in Songbird) : “encountered media core failure. GStreamer encountered a general stream error”.
I’m assuming that I need to go to songbird to get this resolved, but if you’ve any thoughts John, they’d be gratefully received !
g
update – looked on Songbird, and it seems this is a common error, and needs Quicktime to resolve it….which isn’t available for Linux ! Doh !! Feels as if all that hard work from both of us has been in vain John !
g
Hi Gill
I installed Songbird last night without problem, i just need to work out what I’ve added to my install to get it working.
Hi everybody,
I’m newbie to Linux but i’m trying hard to lern it
This time I’m trying to install Songbird fallowing suggestions from this post.
I downloaded it to Downloads directory. It’s not unpacked now.
The problem:
1. when I’m trying to use this command in terminal window
sudo tar -zvxf Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz –directory /opt
it doesn’t work. it shows commenst like this:
tar: Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz: Cannot open: No such file or directory
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
tar: Child returnet status 2
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
[user@localhost "]$
any help? what should I do? Please notice that I have zip, zero, nada knowledge of Linux way of working. So please, be very specific..
thanks a lot!
stephen
Hi stephen.
Welcome to the world of Linux – Linpus can be a bit awkward sometimes.
How did you download the app, was it through the firefox web browser or did you type wget http://download.songbirdnest.com/installer/linux/i686/Songbird_1.2.0-1146_linux-i686.tar.gz into the terminal window?
I downloaded it through opera browser from website
Hi Stephen.
2 suggestions spring to mind.
Download the app using the terminal command, and then follow the rest of the guide or open the terminal from the download dirctory.
I’m not sure which version of Linux you are using but in Linpus you can open a terminal session from a menu on the explorer window, and then I believe terminal starts in that directory.
i forgot to say that
. I have AA1 with linpus lite (no idea how to check wersion of it).
It seems I need a little kick
this time i wrote everything very carefully and it worked! sure it was my foult 
I like speed of it and security. The only problem I have is with opera – when few tabs are open is makind aa1 very sloooow. And the second thing: how to check RAM memory status? would like to know how much memory is currently in use…
For my use (internet, listen to the music, and emails) I dont mind Linpus Lite. At least i can become familiar with Linux type system
thanks for push anyway!!
Hi Stephen glad it worked for you.
Linpus is very quick and a great start with Linux – I’m currently testing EEEBuntu and really thinking of switching back as it’s not as quick as Linpus.
I’m not sure how to check the ram usage – I’ll see if I can find out.
Not many people use opera – I might have to try it. Firefox is the most common browser, although again if you open multiple tabs then it can slow down.
Cheers
John M
Hi John,
I just discovered that to check RAM status is as easy as in windows – just press CTR+ALT+DEL and simililar widnow will pop up
I know that Firefox is a very good browser but in Opera it’s email client plus notes tab are making my day
And under Linpus for the firs time when I deleted spam emails within Opera email client few minutes later they were also deleted from web account. I never bother to dig this out but in windows that’s never happened 
One more question with Songbird: did you ever notice any sudden interruption when playing music? For some reason there are suddent pauses, sometimes quite often. I looked at RAM and CPU status and when they happening there are no hikes in RAM or CPU usage. Is it problem with Songbird or rather with bitrate of the tunes?
Any thoughts?
cheers
steven
Hi Stephen.
I might have to give opera a try
I’ve not noticed any pauses when using Songbird, although to be honest I’ve not used it that much.
One quick check to make – click on the battery settings in the task bar and make sure that your AA1 is running on high performance mode. It certainly makes iplayer run more smoothly so it may make a difference for song bird
Cheers
John M
Hi John
Thanks for your reply – I had a ‘rest’ from Linux for a week as I was losing the will to live ! I’m wondering if the problem with my songbird is due to me importing my itunes library into it ? Does songbird recognise the itunes format ?
I really don’t want to have to either buy my library again straight onto Songbird, or buy an external CD drive to download all my CDs onto it.
The Songbird app itself looks great…it just won’t play my music !
g
Hi Gill.
Glad you got Songird installed? I’ll need to research Itunes format with songbird as I’ve never tried it.
Does songbird play non-itunes music? Can you download an mp3 off the net to test it out?
I’ll try an itunes song later when I get home.
Cheers
John M
Hi Gill.
Unfortunatly I’m not going to get on the aa1 tonight, but I’ve been doing some research.
Quick question Are you importing using the tools > Options… > Media Importer tab?
Also Have a look here – Try adding the songs individually and see if it works.
Cheers
John M
Muchas Gracias John,
Your lines have been very useful to me to install the SongBird.
You are great!!!
People like you make Linux easy for “starters” like me.
Thanks a lot
Alejandro (from Spain)
No problem – glad to help