Various questions

[Esquilax]

Hey everyone!

I am relatively new to the world of Linux and absolutely love it so far, but I had a couple of questions that really aren't essential I guess, but it would be nice to get the answers so that my system runs the way I want it to hehe

BTW, the distro I used is Red Hat 7.3, and I'm running KDE.

1. Is it possible to have XMMS play audio CDs by default instead of KsCD and, if yes, how in the world is such a feat accomplished? I mean, not that KsCD isn't working, it's just that XMMS is a little more.... easy on the eyes.

2. Is there any way to get the Winlogo and Menu keys to work on my keyboard? I've defined my keyboard as a "Generic 105-key (Intl) PC" in Control Center -> Peripherals -> Keyboard, but that didn't do the trick. Is it because I'm using a strange layout? (French Canadian)

Any answers would be really appreciated!

Esquilax
eskairo@hotmail.com

[mdwatts]

For the first question, have a look at my response in this thread http://linuxnewbie.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59951 and look for the audio file association.

I've heard you can assign those keys though I'm not sure how it is done.

Look into using .Xmodmap that you need to create in your home directory.

man xmodmap

Google for Linux searches for xmodmap may find some examples to try.

[Esquilax]

mdwatts, thanks for your reply, however I highly doubt that associating audio cds with xmms by default is done in Control Centre -> File Browsing -> File Associations, because audio cds cannot be mounted. I did try to add an entry for file type .cda (cd audio track) and associate it with xmms, but upon loading an audio cd in the computer, KsCD still launched. This is so strange, because it feels like I have looked everywhere, and all for such a small problem haha

Thanks also for the advice on the keyboard, I will give it a try.

Esquilax
eskairo@hotmail.com

[mdwatts]

Strange as my file associations for audio have the KDE Media Player (KSCD) listed ahead of xmms, so of course KSCD will open those audio files instead of xmms.

I would just move xmms up ahead of KDE Media Player.

Mine must be different from yours.

[drashkeev]

On Mandrake Linux, the menu keys are configured as follows:

in /usr/bin/startkde:

--Snip--
xmodmap -e 'keycode 115=F13'
xmodmap -e 'keycode 117=Menu'
--Snip--

This should be in an intelligent location, before kdeinit is called, i.e before it says
LD_BIND_NOW=true kdeinit +kcminit +knotify || \
xmessage -geometry 500x100 "Couldn't start kdeinit. Check your installation."

Note that this does not work for me in kde3.0, but did in kde2.2.2, which I believe RH has.

[mdwatts]

You can also add the keycodes to .Xmodmap in your home directory as long as your X startup files read .Xmodmap if it exists.

[Esquilax]

Okay, I found out how to switch the default application for playing audio cds, but it was pretty complicated. First I had to create a shell script that points to the application I want to use as the default player, in my case XMMS, so my shell script looked simply like this:
#Begin
/usr/bin/xmms -p /mnt/cdrom/
#End

After that, I had to edit a file called Autorun.desktop which was in $HOME/.kde/Autostart/ so that the line that executes autorun read "... --cdplayer=/path/to/shellscript"
And voilà!
Seems to work pretty well so far. I'm sure there's probably an easier way, but that's what I came up with haha
Haven't touched the keys problem yet, I'll look at it tomorrow haha
Thanks for your help!

Esquilax
eskairo@hotmail.com