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Two special sound-related projects in Linux also might be able to helpyou. One is Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA), which you canfind at www.alsa-project.org/. The other is Open Sound System (OSS) at www.opensound.com/. There s also the Linux Sound & MIDI site athttp://linux-sound.org/. Listening to CDsMost of the distributions automatically open up CD players when you place amusic CD into the drive. You can, of course, also open the CD player manuallyif you choose, from: Fedora:Choose Applications.Sound & Video.CD Player (see Figure 18-1). Knoppix:From the main menu, choose Multimedia.KsCD, with the minorcaveat that you need to have a second CD drive to use it because themain CD drive has Knoppix in it! Linspire:From the main menu, choose Programs.Audio & MP3.CDPlayer. Mandrake:From the main menu, choose Multimedia.Sound.KsCD. SuSE:From the main menu, choose Multimedia.CD Player (see Figure 18-2). Figure 18-2: The KsCD inSuSE with aCD playing. Figure 18-1: The plain- Jane CDPlayer inFedora with a CD playing. 348Part IV:Getting Things Done

Mandrake:From the main menu, choose Multimedia.Sound.KMix. SuSE:From the main menu, choose Multimedia.Volume Control. Youmay find other programs useful in this menu as well. Xandros:Choose Launch.Applications.Multimedia.Sound Mixer. Mixer terms of interest include the following: Lock:When two slider bars appear for a setting, this option just makessure that they re always level with one another. Mute:No sound comes from this section. PCM:Control the volume for audio files as opposed to, say, CDs. Volume:Control the overall volume. Finally, many of the distributions have a little volume control icon on thepanel. If everything else looks right but you get no sound, click it and makesure that it hasn t been pulled down to the bottom. Investigating Troublesome Sound IssuesIf your sound isn t working, your card may not be supported. The followingstrategies can help you to track down a potential solution: Proceed to the manufacturer s Web site and locate the page for the spe- cific card that you have. This page often has a link to technical support, drivers, and downloads. If it does, follow these links and see whether adriver(the piece of software that tells your operating system how to talkto each piece of hardware) is available for your card in Linux. If driversare listed by kernel version the version of the Linux core that you reusing type uname -rto see your version number and then choosethe closest driver that you can. You also might have to try the centraltech support page on that site if there isn t one dedicated to the hard- ware in question. Search on www.google.comfor the make and model of your card, plusthe word Linux.For example, I might search forYamaha YMF-744B LinuxYou may be lucky enough to find a nice, simple solution to your problem. Or, you may find one that requires you to have a degree in Geekspeak. Ifso, see the Web sites that I mention in Chapter 1 for where to go for helpthat you can understand. 347Chapter 18: Multimedia Wow!

Checking Your Sound CardBefore you can listen to tunes, you have to make sure that your sound card isworking properly. After the configuration issues are dealt with, you can moveon to the fun stuff like listening to CDs and Internet radio and downloadingtunes. Many distributions ask you to test your sound as part of the installation orimmediate post-installation routine. Just in case you skipped this step, thefirst thing to do here is locate the sound-testing program (if one exists) to seewhether yours is working: Fedora:Choose Applications.System Settings.Soundcard Detection tosee whether the card is correctly detected and plays test sounds. Knoppix:From the main menu, choose KNOPPIX.Configure.SoundcardConfiguration to start the sound configuration utility. Linspire:From the main menu, choose Settings.Control Panel. Advanced Settings.Information.Sound to see whether the card is correctly detected. Mandrake:From the main menu, choose System.Configuration. Configure Your Desktop.Sound.Sound System.Hardware to seewhether the card is correctly detected. SuSE:From the main menu, choose Control Center.Sound & Multimedia. Sound System.Hardware to see what card has beenfound. Xandros:Choose Launch.Control Center.Hardware Information. Sound to see what sound card the operating system found. Looking into Your MixerIf the card seems to be detected properly, then a look at your mixer is thenext important step. Sometimes cards are picked up right, and yet the mixerfor some reason by default has things muted, or other strange things are set. To find the mixer: Fedora:Choose Applications.Sound & Video.Volume Control. Knoppix:From the main menu, choose Multimedia.KMix. Linspire:From the main menu, choose Programs.Audio & MP3. Volume. 346Part IV:Getting Things Done

Chapter 18Multimedia Wow! In This Chapter Listening to music Using, recording to, and ripping from CDs Creating and modifying high-powered graphics with The GIMP Watching moviesThe price of freedom is responsibility, but it s a bargain, because freedom ispriceless. Hugh DownsIn these days of computing in noisy Technicolor, it just doesn t feel like acomputer unless you can make it sing and dance. This used to be a weakpoint for Linux, but these days there s little that I can t do on my Linux desk- top machine. From listening to CDs to watching QuickTime movies, you cando just about anything. Sometimes it just takes a bit of elbow grease to getthings working. Time to take a trip on the wild side and get your Linux box doing the Macarena. Because legal complications surround a number of multimedia programs andtheir use in countries like the United States of America, some multimedia capa- bilities had to be removed from some Linux distributions. However, thesecapabilities are still available if you know where to look and if you re in alegal jurisdiction that allows listening to MP3s, watching DVDs, or other touchysubjects under patent laws and the DMCA. Chapter 12 shows you how to addmany of the features discussed throughout this chapter.

344Part IV:Getting Things Done

344Part IV:Getting Things Done

Linspire: From the main menu, choose Programs.Business & Finance. OpenOffice.org 1.1.0.OpenOffice Printer Administration. Mandrake: Integrated with the main print manager, so you don t need todo anything. SuSE: Integrated with the main print manager, so you don t need to doanything. Xandros: Choose Launch.Applications.OpenOffice.org.PrinterAdministration. Then do the following: 1.Click New Printer. The Choose A Device Type dialog box appears. 2.Make sure that Add A Printer is selected and then click Next. The Choose A Driver dialog box appears. 3.Scroll through this screen and locate the make and model of yourprinter or choose Generic Printer. 4.After you make your selection, click Next. The Choose A Command Line dialog box appears. 5.Click Next to skip this item. The Choose A Name dialog box appears. 6.Change the name for this printer if you want. 7.If you want to use this printer as your default, click the Use As DefaultPrinter box. 8.Click Finish to add this printer to your list and then Close to close theprinting tool. Before you close the tool, you may want to click Test Page to see whetheryou can print a test page. 343Chapter 17: Word-Processing and More with OpenOffice.org24_

OpenOffice.org Math supports (among others) its own format (.SXM) andMathML 1.01 (.MML), which isn t a program. MathMLis a standard, similar toHTML for working on the Web, and 1.01 is a specific version of this standard. For this particular version of MathML, see www.w3.org/TR/REC-MathML/. The main standard page is available at www.w3.org/Math/. If you need toadd formulas to Web pages, this site can be quite an interesting read! Configuring Printing for OpenOffice.orgBefore you can print from OpenOffice.org, you may need to set up printingfor this suite. If you already set up your printing in Chapter 7, try printing apage from any of the OpenOffice.org applications and see whether it works. For those that are unable to print from OpenOffice.org but can print fromother applications, open the OpenOffice.org print tool from: Fedora: Integrated with the main print manager, so you don t need to doanything. Knoppix: From the main menu, choose Office.OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org Printer Administration. Figure 17-10: A completeformula inOpenOffice. org Math. 342Part IV:Getting Things Done

4.Replace each of the entries with the proper letters and numbersfor your formula. When I change matrix{ # ## # }to matrix{A # B ## C # D}, I see the result shown in Figure 17-9.5.Continue adding components to the formula until you re finished. Suppose that you want to multiply the matrix by 3. To find out how, press Enter to go down to the next line in the Commands window (to useas scratch paper ), right-click to display the pop-up menu, and chooseUnary/Binary Operators.a Times b. This choice adds the phrase times beneath the matrix code. Now you know how to format amultiplication, so erase this phrase and use it as a guideline to changeyour formula to: 3 times matrix{A # B ## C # D} This line gives the result shown in Figure 17-20. I could go on, but I hopeby now that you re eager to start with your own explorations! Figure 17-9: A 4 x 4matrix inOpenOffice. org Math. 341Chapter 17: Word-Processing and More with OpenOffice.org24_

Document sectionThings get tricky here if you ve never used formula-editing software. You can ttype anything in the main (upper) document window in OpenOffice.org Math. Instead, you type in the Commands (lower) window. Right-clicking in theCommands window opens a shortcut menu. To help you get used to workingwith the formulas, I suggest that you play around with this tool. For example, if you have never used software like this, you might follow these steps: 1.Right-click in the Commands window. The main shortcut menu opens. 2.Select a submenu to open. For example, Formats3.Select a formula component within this submenu. I m a geek, and I fondly remember taking a class on matrices, so I chosematrix {…} as an example. Immediately, the code that s needed in orderto add a matrix to my formula appears in the Commands dialog box. Amoment later, because I m letting the program refresh the rest of thescreen as I work, I see what the matrix looks like in the documentwindow. The combination is shown in Figure 17-8. Figure 17-8: Startingto add amatrix inOpenOffice. org Math. 340Part IV:Getting Things Done