Ubuntu® Linux® Secrets

Chapter 11. Using Audio

Secrets in This Chapter

• Using Sound Files

• Ubuntu and Sound

• Playing CDs with Rhythmbox

• Burning CDs with Brasero

• Playing Audio Files from Nautilus

It wasn't all that long ago that sound on a computer just meant a series of beeps and blips coming out of a tiny computer speaker. Over the past few years the computer world has exploded with audio features. From playing and extracting songs on a CD to listening to streaming radio stations on a web site, there are plenty of reasons to have audio software on your workstation. Ubuntu doesn't disappoint the audiophile with its basic installation packages. Plenty of audio features are built into Ubuntu, and you can download additional packages to provide even more audio features. This chapter walks through the basics of using your Ubuntu workstation to process audio files and CDs.

Audio File Basics

Before diving into the software packages, it's a good idea to first cover some of the basics of the open-source audio world. Unfortunately, the audio world is full of legal and ethical issues that cause problems for the open-source software enthusiast. You'll need to know what to expect, or you might be disappointed.

First, let's take a quick look at the popular audio file formats used on computers, portable music players, and the Internet. These formats are shown in Table 11-1.

Table 11.1. Common Audio File Formats

Extension	Name	Description
.aac	Advanced audio coding	An ISO standard audio compression format made popular as the default format ...