Codeina
Codeina's a nifty little feature of OpenSolaris 2009.06. It's an application from Fluendo that points applications such as Totem or Rhythmbox to Fluendo's web shop if you are missing the codec for the file you are trying to play. In the case of MP3s, the codec is free. For other audio and video formats, you'll have to pay a small license fee.
For example, when I attempt to play an MP3 in Totem, I'm presented with the following:
Clicking Install launches the Codeina Web Shop application where I can register to "buy" the free MP3 decoder:
And then Install the decoder:
Which will quickly complete:
After which my song will automatically start playing.
Note, if Codeina isn't working for you, you may be running into issue Codeina fails to start. The quick fix for this is to remove the Fluendo configuration file and try again.
rm ~/.local/share/codeina/providers/fluendo.xml
Nice and worthy feature! Are you gonna to put Amazon widget as well?
Posted by Andrius Burlega on July 01, 2009 at 10:04 PM GMT #
So, strictly speaking, should we not say that Codeina is the first adware for OpenSolaris? After all, it is software that advertises a paid service/product from a commercial company, and does nothing else. The fact that it does so when one attempts to play a media file for which Fluendo has an available codec merely makes it well targeted advertising. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that Fluendo actually makes codecs available to Solaris users, and I hope they make a ton of money doing it... but I still call adware adware when I see it.
The situation might be different if Codeina was written to locate and assist with the installation of codecs from non-commercial sources (e.g. free codecs like Dirac, et al, as necessary), but as it stands, this program just looks like an electronic billboard.
Posted by Kevin on July 01, 2009 at 10:17 PM GMT #
Perhaps it is what Sun calling "cloud computing" is'nt?
Posted by Andrius Burlega on July 01, 2009 at 10:27 PM GMT #
Good day,
Kevin is quite correct. When *I* first filed a RFE on OpenSolaris Indiana back a year ago for easy codec access just like Ubuntu and such, this is not what I was expecting !
Considering how many pure numbers of useful bugs and rfe reports (which takes up a lot of time in its self) I did for the next opensolaris release that followed I would have expected at the very least my name in the credits list.
Pretty shame full really, and I expect this comment will be deleted by your marketing team.
Regards,
Edward.
Posted by Edward O'Callaghan on July 01, 2009 at 11:19 PM GMT #
I expected this post to raise some hackles :-). Here's the issue that ultimately led to Codeina's integration:
http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=1855
In which you'll see strong opinions as well. Edward, you personally commented:
"Gezz, I think this has got to be one of *the* most important REF for the next release in regards to Ubuntu-kind of usability."
Tomorrow, I'll have to take a look how differently Codeina behaves in Ubuntu. Personally, I'm just happy that I'm left with more than just an error telling me my file won't play.
/Brian
Posted by Brian Leonard on July 02, 2009 at 03:09 AM GMT #
That's Great, Finally I know someone that bought a fluendo codec, instead using the free mplayer or VLC player that are freely available.
Paolo
Posted by Paolo Marcheschi on July 02, 2009 at 07:15 AM GMT #
I bought the video codecs too.
Posted by Tim Foster on July 02, 2009 at 03:13 PM GMT #
wow!! Thank you for sharing this.
;-)
Posted by Paolo Marcheschi on July 02, 2009 at 03:21 PM GMT #
You ca have a set of multimedia free plugin here:
http://ips.homeunix.com:10906
pkg set-authority -O http://ips.homeunix.com:10906 ips.homeunix.com
Bye
Paolo
Posted by Paolo Marcheschi on July 03, 2009 at 07:15 AM GMT #
I bought the codecs, they did not install, even after following various methods suggested.
I don't mind mucking around for free stuff but paid for software should work if you want to OpenSolaris to be treated as a serious system.
Result? Back to Ubuntu for now. Pity really, but I only run one machine ( like many people ) and some stuff needs to just work.
Might try it again in VirtualBox some time.
Posted by Greg McKay on July 03, 2009 at 10:59 PM GMT #
That's a pity, but I found this guy:
http://blog.sartek.net/2009/05/gstreamer-stuff-on-opensolaris.html
And it works you can watch movies without Fluendo codecs.
I put these gstreamer plugins in:
.gstreamer-0.10/plugins/i386-sunos/
You can uninstall Codeine now.
Bye
Paolo
Posted by Paolo Marcheschi on July 06, 2009 at 10:00 AM GMT #
Thanks for the link will check it out. Have not given up on OpenSolaris yet, have installed it on VirtualBox so I can get the hang of it but interestingly the codecs did not install in VirtualBox either. I went back to my Fluendo account and the archive was still available for download. The GUI told me it had installed but still zip in every app. Maybe I need to do something to initialse it. Will investigate further when I have time but my original point holds ie if the machine tells you it has installed successfully it is reasonable to assume there is no more to do.
Posted by Greg McKay on July 06, 2009 at 10:52 AM GMT #
> http://blog.sartek.net/2009/05/gstreamer-stuff-on-opensolaris.html
> You can uninstall Codeine now.
No I can't, because it's illegal to use those codecs in my country, and in many others. Thanks anyway.
Posted by 213.202.132.205 on July 20, 2009 at 12:57 PM GMT #
Oh I didn't know that recompiling gstreamer codecs was illegal in Ireland ?
Sorry
Paolo
Posted by Paolo Marcheschi on July 20, 2009 at 01:10 PM GMT #