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1. Introduction

This is the Sound Playing HOWTO. It lists the many sound formats and the applications that can be used to play them. It also lists some hacks and advice on using these applications. There are also some other interesting applications related to sound not directly related to playback. However, this document does not describe how one can setup a Linux system for sound support. Refer to the Linux Sound HOWTO by Jeff Tranter for instructions on setting up a Linux system for sound support and the supported sound hardware.

This deals with normal user sound applications. That is, it is only concerned about what the average user needs to know on the application side of sound, not exotic stuff like speech synthesis, or hardware stuff which is dealt in the Sound HOWTO.

1.1 Copyright of this document

This document can be freely distributed and modified (I would appreciate it if I were notified of any modifications), as long as this copyright notice is preserved. However, it cannot be placed under any further restrictions, and a modified document must have the same copyright as this one. Also, credit must be given where due.

1.2 Copyright of the listed applications

If there is no mention of any copyright, then the application is under the GNU General Public License.

1.3 Where to get this document

You can find the most recent version of this document on the World Wide Web at http://plaza.snu.ac.kr/~wacko/howto/Sound-Playing-HOWTO.html. This document can also be obtained from the Linux Documentation Project, albeit it might possibly be out of date by a few weeks.

A Korean version of this document (rather outdated) is available at http://plaza.snu.ac.kr/~wacko/howto/Sound-Playing-HOWTO.ks.

1.4 Feedback

I am not omniscient, and I don't use all the applications in here (a few I can't even try), so there are bound to be mistakes. Also, programs usually continuously evolve, so documentation tends to get out of date. Therefore, if you find anything wrong, please send me any corrections. Suggestions or additions to this document are welcome, too.

1.5 Acknowledgments

All the authors of the applications in this HOWTO. Also, Hannu Savolainen for the great sound driver and Linus Torvalds for the great underlying OS.

Raymond Nijssen ( raymond@es.ele.tue.nl) and Jeroen Rutten ( jeroen@es.ele.tue.nl) for information and help on Layer 3 Shareware Encoder/Decoder.

Antonio Perez ( aperez@arrakis.es) for information on MikMod.


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