Frequently asked questions

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"I don't know why and I'm not yet motivated to fix it since my views on esd are mostly unprintable."
- Alan Cox

Compilation

  1. Does XMMS work with GTK+ 2.x?

Running

  1. Why do I keep getting "Gdk-WARNING **: shmat failed!" in Solaris?
  2. Why does XMMS windows behave differently than my other windows?
  3. Why does XMMS have 5-6 running instances which each takes x% of my memory, isn't 5-6*x% memory A REAL WASTE?
  4. My XMMS don't output any sound and it seems to go about 3 -> N times as fast.
  5. XMMS works OK as root, but not as a user.
  6. No matter how much I try, I just can't change the ID3 information of a mp3, it always revert to the old values.
  7. How do I play CD's with XMMS?

Streaming

  1. How can I play shoutcast/icecast/http streams when I'm behind a proxy?

Skins

  1. Where do I install skins?
  2. Does XMMS support .WSZ files?
  3. Does XMMS support WinAmp3/.WAL skins?
  4. Where can I find more skins/tutorials?

Development

  1. Is there an API manual available for the different plugin types?

General

  1. Can I use Winamp plugins with XMMS?
  2. I found a bug.
  3. Where can I find equalizer presets?

Compilation

Does XMMS work with GTK+ 2.x?

No, XMMS 1.2.x does not work with GTK+ 2, it requires GTK+/GLIB 1.2.x. There is a project called BEEP which is a GTK+2 fork of XMMS. But your existing plugin will have to be ported to GTK+2 for this to work. We will eventually release a GTK+2 version of XMMS 1, but it still hasn't been decided when that will be. Hopefully we'll merge back the good stuff from BEEP to make the transition faster and help to convince plugin authors to port their GTK+1 versions to GTK+2.

Running

Why do I keep getting "Gdk-WARNING **: shmat failed!" in Solaris?

Solaris (2.5, 2.6, 2.7) has insufficient IPC settings by default for some products that use shared memory.

You need to place this in /etc/system:

set shmsys:shminfo_shmmax = 8388608
set shmsys:shminfo_shmmni = 0x1000
set shmsys:shminfo_shmseg = 0x100

Thanks to Yuri Kulaghin and Jeff Johnson

Why does XMMS windows behave differently than my other windows?

Since XMMS disables the window managers window decorations, the window manager might be unable to raise/lower/move XMMS as it's configured to do. Although, since XMMS 1.2.5 you can now enable window decorations if you like your window manager to handle XMMS windows instead.

Why does XMMS have 5-6 running instances which each takes x% of my memory, isn't 5-6*x% memory A REAL WASTE?

XMMS is not using that memory for each instance, it shares the memory between the instances, so if you have 6 entries in your "ps aux" output which takes 5mb, XMMS is using 5 mb, and not 6x5mb.

My XMMS don't output any sound and it seems to go about 3 -> N times as fast.

Whoops, you have been using the diskwriter plugin, press ctrl + p and change the output plugin to either OSS or ESD. You might want to check the configuration for the diskwriter plugin, the path will contain a couple of well sized wavs.

XMMS works OK as root, but not as a user.

You probably have the wrong permissions on the sound device. As root do this: chmod 622 /dev/dsp and chmod 666 /dev/mixer

No matter how much I try, I just can't change the ID3 information of a mp3, it always revert to the old values.

The mp3 file probably includes the tag information in ID3V2 format, which is supported by XMMS, at least reading. Editing or writing of the ID3V2 data is not yet possible. To be able to change what XMMS outputs in the playlist etc, change the MPG123 settings to disable the support of ID3v2 tags.

How do I play CD's with XMMS?

I suggest you read the documentation, or the included README in section 3.6.1.1

Streaming

How can I play shoutcast/icecast/http streams when I'm behind a proxy?

You'll have to set your proxy information in Preferences/Input Plugins/MPG123/Streaming.

Skins

Where do I install skins?

If you want your skins to be available to all users put them in <prefix>/share/xmms/Skins and for user specific skins use ~/.xmms/Skins
Skins can be installed without unzipping them. To be able to use zipped skins you need unzip installed.

Does XMMS support .WSZ files?

Yes, WSZ are just renamed zip files, XMMS 1.0.1 handles WSZ's just fine, in earlier versions, just rename the .wsz to .zip and it's good to go.

Does XMMS support WinAmp3/.WAL skins?

No, and we have currently no plans on implementing them.

Where can I find more skins/tutorials?

Apart from the skins on our page (/skins.php) you could try some skin sites like themes.freshmeat.net, www.skinz.org and www.customize.org.

Winamp 2.x Skinning tutorial:
v1.5 and v1.6 update
PDF document by Taras 'SacRat' Brizitsky.

Development

Is there an API manual available for the different plugin types?

No, currently there is no API manuals available, the best way now would be to look at some of the more simple plugins source code.

General

Can I use Winamp plugins with XMMS?

Yes, Visualization plugins are supported by a third party plugin (XMMS-WinAMP) which acts as glue between XMMS and WinAMP plugins. However, WinAMP input/output/general plugins are not supported.

I found a bug.

Where can I find equalizer presets?

Right here. These were converted from WinAMP's presets by Urpo Lankinen.

To install:
gunzip -c winamp_presets.gz > ~/.xmms/eq.preset
This will overwrite any existing presets you may have.