Aqualung README
===============


Homepage: http://aqualung.sf.net


Aqualung is a music player for the GNU/Linux operating system. It
plays audio files from your filesystem and has the feature of
inserting no gaps between adjacent tracks.  It also supports high
quality sample rate conversion between the file and the output device,
when necessary.

Almost all sample-based, uncompressed formats (eg. WAV, AIFF, AU etc.)
are supported.  Files encoded with FLAC (the Free Lossless Audio
Codec), Ogg Vorbis, MPEG Audio (including the infamous MP3 format) and
MOD files (MOD, S3M, XM, IT, etc.) are also supported.

The program can play the music through OSS, ALSA or the JACK Audio
Connection Kit.

Aqualung supports the LADSPA 1.1 plugin standard.  You can use any
suitable plugin to enhance the music you are listening to.

Other features of the program: internally working volume and balance
controls (not touching the soundcard mixer), multiple skin support,
random seeking during playback, track repeat, list repeat and shuffle
mode (besides normal playback). It will come up in the same state as
it was when you closed it, including playback modes, volume & balance
settings, currently processing LADSPA plugins, window sizes, positions
& visibility, and other miscellaneous options.

You can control any running instance of the program remotely from the
command line (start, stop, pause etc.). Remote loading or enqueueing
soundfiles as well as complete playlists is also supported.

In addition to all this, Aqualung provides a so-called Music Store
that is an XML-based music database, capable of storing various
metadata about music on your computer (including, but not limited to,
the names of artists, and the titles of records and tracks). You can
(and should) organize your music into a tree of
Artists/Records/Tracks, thereby making life easier than with the
all-in-one Winamp/XMMS playlist.

Please refer to the HTML documentation provided with the program for a
detailed description of features, usage tips and miscellaneous info.
You will find it in the doc/html/ directory (just open index.html with
Any Browser).

To compile the program, you will need to have the following libraries
installed. It is possible to compile the program without some of these
packages by sacrificing some of the program's functionality (eg. not
including support for unneeded file formats).


name				where to get it
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GTK+-2.0			http://www.gtk.org
libXML2				http://xmlsoft.org
liblrdf				http://lrdf.sourceforge.net
JACK				http://jackit.sf.net
libasound			http://www.alsa-project.org
libsndfile			http://www.mega-nerd.com/libsndfile
libFLAC				http://flac.sourceforge.net
libvorbis, libvorbisfile	http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis
libMAD				http://www.underbit.com/products/mad
libid3tag			http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=12349
libmodplug			http://modplug-xmms.sourceforge.net
libsamplerate			http://www.mega-nerd.com/SRC


Compilation and installation instructions specific to Aqualung, as
well as usage information are covered by the HTML documentation in
greater detail.


Please consider subscribing to the project's mailing list at:
http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/aqualung-friends

General questions about compiling, usage etc. should go to this list
rather than the developer's private address. This is also the place
for development discussions.

The primary place for bugreports is the project's web-based
bugtracker at: http://aqualung.sf.net/mantis


Enjoy,

Tom Szilagyi <tszilagyi@users.sourceforge.net>
