Howto: MPD (Page 1 of 2)

just noticed this thread,http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … -use/page/ and it seems a lot of people were having trouble with mpd, just set it up myself so ive written this how to.

first of all install mpd:

sudo apt-get install mpd

then because its a daemon (Music Player Daemon) you need something to control it with:

sudo apt-get install mpc

next you need to sort out a configuration file:

sudo cp /usr/share/doc/mpd/examples/mpd.conf.gz ~

next ownership permissions, at the moment the file is still owned by root so:

sudo chown 'user':'group' ~/mpd.conf.gz

replace 'user' and 'group' with your own, they should by default both be your username you use to login.

now extract:

gunzip ~/mpd.conf.gz

and rename:

mv ~/mpd.conf ~/.mpdconf 

also create a file for later:

mkdir ~/.mpd

and now to edit:

nano ~/.mpdconf

(or your prefered editor)

in the 'required paths' section
change 'music_directory' from  /var/lib/mpd/music to point to where your music is

change other '/var/lib/mpd' lines to ~/.mpd so '/var/lib/mpd/tag_cache' would be '~/.mpd/tag_cache'.
do the same for the 'optional paths'

in 'daemon options' comment out user (add a # to the start of the line)

and finally in audio output uncomment the alsa audio driver.
this bit:

audio_output {
        type                    "alsa"
        name                    "My ALSA Device"
        device                  "hw:0,0"     # optional
        format                  "44100:16:2" # optional
}

now it should work so start mpd

mpd

mpc ls

should show your albums, this can be piped like so:

mpc ls | mpc add

and then:

 mpc play 

by this point you should hear sound (hopefully)

last thing is to have it start automatically,
add:

 mpd 

to your ~/.config/openbox/autostart.sh
(you can add an & suffix it you want, its a daemon so doesnt really matter.)

UPDATE:
a few people have been reporting problems with mpd running as root automatically at startup, errors such as "problem opening log file "/root/.mpd/mpd.log" (config line 11) for writing",or "unable to bind port 6600: Address already in use" or not finding your music folder
if you have this problem modify /etc/default/mpd.conf

sudo nano /etc/default/mpd

and change the START_MPD option to false

 START_MPD=false

then

sudo mpd --kill

to end the mpd currently running as root

now one of the great things about mpd is you can control it from anywhere, console, desktop, internet.
there are a whole host of front ends, ive heard good things about sonata, but ill cover standard crunchbang integration.

keyboard shortcuts
############
keybindings are kept in
'~/.config/openbox/rc.xml' accessible through the menu in preferences-->openbox

and add something like this to the keyboard section (around about line 160)

    <!-- mpd bindings -->
    <keybind key="W-Up">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>mpc toggle</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-Down">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>mpc stop</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-Left">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>mpc prev</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="W-Right">
      <action name="Execute">
        <command>mpc next</command>
      </action>
    </keybind>

'keybind key' is the keybinging so <keybind key="W-Up"> is windows key plus up.

'<command>mpc toggle</command>' is the command in this case toggle (play pause).

check out the manpage for mpc

man mpc

for a full list of commands.

*  See this post for XFCE keybindings http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/78771/#p78771

conky integration
###########
conky has a list of options for displaying output from mpd.

the conkyrc is by default at '~/.conky' (i think) also in the menu under preferences.

this is my setup, although for a full list http://conky.sourceforge.net/variables.html

${if_mpd_playing} ${hr}
$mpd_artist
$mpd_album
${mpd_title 15}
$mpd_elapsed/$mpd_length
$mpd_status

${mpd_bar 5,180}
${execi 2 ~/.config/conky/mpd-albumart.py}
${image /tmp/mpd.jpg -s 80x80 -p 100,349 } 
$endif

NB. at the moment ${if_mpd_playing} isn't working properly, it should hide when mpd is stopped but doesn't, its fixed in conky v1.8 so hopefully in karmic

the eagle eyed may have noticed:
${execi 2 ~/.config/conky/mpd-albumart.py}
${image /tmp/mpd.jpg -s 80x80 -p 100,349 }

its for displaying album art.

heres mpd-albumart.py

#! /usr/bin/env python

import sys,mpd,os,socket

musiclocation = '~/music' #location of music       
artlocation = '~/.mpd/covers' #where you want albumart storing
tmp_path = '/tmp/mpd.jpg' #location for temporary file so conky can find it

musiclocation = os.path.expanduser(musiclocation)
artlocation = os.path.expanduser(artlocation)

client = mpd.MPDClient()  
try:
    client.connect("localhost", 6600)    
except socket.error:
    sys.exit(1)
    
song = client.currentsong() 
artist = song['artist']
album = song['album']

covername = os.path.join( artlocation, artist+'-'+album+'.jpg')
covername = covername.replace(' ','_')     

if covername == os.path.realpath(tmp_path): # already have correct album cover
    sys.exit(0)

try:
    os.remove(tmp_path)    
except OSError: pass

if os.path.basename(covername) in os.listdir(artlocation):
    os.symlink(covername, tmp_path)  

else:    
    from urllib import FancyURLopener
    class MyOpener(FancyURLopener): version = ''
    try:   
        s = MyOpener().open('http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/keywords=%s+%s'%
            (artist.replace(' ','+'),album.replace(' ','+'))).read()

        import re
        link = re.findall('http://ecx.images-amazon.com\S*.jpg',s)[0]
        pic = MyOpener().open(link).read()
        open(covername ,'w').write(pic)        
        os.symlink(covername, tmp_path)        
    except IOError:
        pass

save it some where, change the paths (line 7,8 (9 if you really want to)).

make it executable:

chmod +x mpd-albumart.py

install python-mpd (needed to get track info):

sudo apt-get install python-mpd

add this to your conkyrc:

 imlib_cache_size 0 

some where before TEXT (this ensures the picture will actually change)

the script will load, the picture, if there isnt one, will get one from the internet

${execi 2 /path/to/mpd-albumart.py} #change to correct path (the will run every 2 seconds)
${image /tmp/mpd.jpg -s 80x80 -p 100,349 }# this will load the image from /tmp/mpd.jpg, ( -s is size, -p is placement)

pipemenu
######
you can control mpd fully from your main menu
i wrote a script for a menu option which i started this thread with
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic … nu-thread/

and thats it, a fully integrated mpd setup

Last edited by benj1 (2010-08-05 19:57:30)