The heart of the Linux or Unix platforms lies in the text mode of the OS, popularly known as the command line. Many enthusiastic open source developers have helped to bring entertainment even to the command line atmosphere, which is perhaps unimaginable for a Windows user. MP3Blaster is one such non-graphical music player for Unix-like operating systems.
The development of this utility is still alive as a project at sourceforge.net. To download MP3Blaster, go to
Download MP3 Blaster. The file you get here is a tarball (tar.gz or tar.bz2). We follow a method by which we download such applications to a folder called “Utilities”, and if it is a tarball file, we extract it to another folder called “more-apps”. This way, we can avoid folders and files of the same name (extraction creates a folder with a name identical to the compressed file) under the same folder, and this is also a methodical approach. So the command we use to extract is:
[root@test3 Utilities]# tar -C /usr/more-apps/ –zxvf mp3blaster-3.2.5.tar.gz
Now change your directory to /usr/more-apps/mp3blaster-3.2.5 to start with the installation. To install:
#./configure + [Enter] This command collects the system details and creates a file containing these details. The process may take some time, and if dependencies are encountered, you need to clear those by downloading the necessary packages.
#make + [Enter] Uses the system information recorded by the configure script to build an application as per your system. This process may consume time depending on your system performance.
#make install + [Enter] This process places all the build files of an application in folders as per the Linux File System Standard.
At the shell prompt, type in “mp3b” and hit [Tab]. This should complete the command as “mp3blaster”. If it doesn’t, then hit [Tab] twice to list all probable commands that begin with “mp3b”. This is a shortcut to know if your application has been installed perfectly, and of course, even run it.
#mp3blaster + [Enter] Will start the application on the entire Konsole window. That means you will have to dedicate a mingetty (TTY) to MP3Blaster.
Now you can listen your favorite songs in the command line. Sounds cool. Isn’t it?