Ubuntu Desktop Screenshot of the Day #5

Wow! I have not posted in almost 3 weeks! Blogging takes a long time and I am short on time lately. I still don't have a ton of time so I am just going to take the easy way out and put up a new screenshot. Today's shot comes from my work desktop.


In it you see me downloading the Music For The Motion Picture Into The Wild by Eddie Vedder (you know, from Pearl Jam). When I first tried to download my album I got a message indicating there was a new release. The Linux Amazon MP3 Downloader was upgraded from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3. Here are the release notes:

Released: 1.0.3
- Fixed bug where read-only .amz files weren't being loaded.

Released: 1.0.2
- Initial release.

So they fixed that annoying bug keeping a lot of people from being able to download files. Nice work. I wonder how long ago they released it. I don't download a new album very often so I did not really keep up with it. I wrote about a work around for this problem before on March 4, 2008 though. I only had problems myself when I was running a Firefox 3 beta.

Unable to download with the Amazon MP3 Downloader in Linux?

I have seen that a few people have had problems getting the new Amazon MP3 Downloader for Linux working for them. See here and here.

Although I didn't have any problems on my main home system (Ubuntu 7.10), I did have problems on my Ubuntu system at work. The difference is that my system at work is running Firefox 3.0b3. (The other difference may be the download destination though, hmm...)

The problem I have seen has to do with the .amz file that is downloaded. Once it is downloaded the downloader is launched with the downloaded file passed in. The problem I have seen is that if the file is read-only, it will not work. The worst part is the downloader doesn't give you any errors or anything. It just fails silently. I think the problem with it not working is Amazon needs to be able to delete the file as soon as it starts downloading to keep you from downloading multiple times using that file.

So just change the .amz file you downloaded from read-only to read-write and open it again in the Amazon MP3 Downloader. Then, enjoy your new DRM free tunes in Linux.

I really hope Amazon fixes this issue in a release soon or at least changes the application to give the user some feedback instead of failing silently. Of course the bigger question for me is why are files I download being set as read-only sometimes but not others? The FAQ doesn't even provide any help yet.

Amazon MP3 Downloader for Linux is here!

A few months ago Amazon announced that they were working on a Linux version of their MP3 downloader. They already had a version for Windows and OS X. Well now it is ready for download. There are packages available for Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy, Debian 4 Etch, Fedora 8 and OpenSuSE 10.3.

The reason this release matters is because Amazon is selling 256 kbps DRM free MP3 tracks for the same price ($0.89 and $0.99 per track) as the DRM restricted files on iTunes. I've only downloaded the occasionall free track from iTunes. I have not bought anything from them specifically because of the DRM. The other reason this Linux downloader release matters is because Linux users never could buy from iTunes anyway. It is a double win. Linux users can now download DRM free music that they can use on any device (everyone and everything supports mp3).

So here is my brief experience with the Linux downloader. Installation was a breeze and making my first purchase was a pleasant experience.

I installed the amazonmp3.deb package in no time.
Dependencies were downloaded for me.

My first purchase was the new Nine Inch Nails album, Ghosts I-IV. I would have purchased it directly from NIN for the same price ($5) but I wanted to show my support for Amazon's Linux release in addition to NIN. Trent Reznor has really impressed me with his actions when it comes to digital music delivery.

My mp3s were saved in the default location ~/Music/Amazon MP3. That directory, of course, is configurable. My only problem with the download was there was no artwork included. Had I purchased it directly from NIN I would have also gotten a "PDF book covering the whole release" and a "digital extras pack with wallpapers, icons, and other graphics". Good thing I can still download that stuff for free from NIN. So Trent, don't use me as a statistic in your "Free Downloaders" because I paid for it, just not from you directly. If there wasn't a Linux downloader from Amazon I would have gotten it from your directly.

I just tried to download the free version (first 9 of 36 tracks + artwork/pdf) and it just stopped after about 9mb into the 82.5mb download. I wonder if they are getting slammed with traffic or if the flakiness of my Internet connection over the last few days is to blame. I will try it again later I guess. I want all those little extras!

One more thing about the download from NIN directly. You can also get lossless FLAC or lossless Apple versions from them too. How awesome is that? I am not enough of an audiophile to want a FLAC version but I can appreciate the availability of one.

This native Linux version sure beats the hacks and work arounds it took to buy music using the Windows version under Wine.

The Windows version under Wine is not so great

P.S. - Ghosts I-IV is good stuff. It is all insturmental and though I would enjoy some lyrics, this is a nice change and great music to work to.