Is this a sign for things to come? [XMMS Removal]

tabanus · Guru Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 549 Location: UK

You know, if you were a hacker, xmms might be the ideal program to attack a Linux distribution with. Examine the code (I'm not a coder but by all accounts it's a mess), find an exploit, and well, exploit it, safe in the knowledge that there's possibly millions of Linux PCs running it, with no possibility of a fix.

Anyone using a dead package like this is just asking for trouble, and should have been removed a long time ago.
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Corona688 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 1204

except that, being a sane media player, xmms runs in usermode and doesn't open server sockets. How're you going to exploit something you can't talk to without needing another exploit to exploit the exploit of the exploit? default security is a wonderful thing.
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tabanus · Guru Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 549 Location: UK

Corona688 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 1204

Corona688 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 1204

tabanus · Guru Joined: 11 Jun 2004 Posts: 549 Location: UK

Corona688 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 1204

wizkid · n00b Joined: 23 Sep 2004 Posts: 54

Hey, I've been using xmms for years, and have been using the alarm plugin. I looked at audicy and the other one listed here, niether of them list an alarm plugin. The alarm plugin is soooooo much easier then crontabing starts and stops for music players! Are there any packages in the gentoo tree that anyone knows about that has similar functionality?

:cry:

Thanks
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D-M · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 23 Jan 2004 Posts: 103

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I want to add my voice of support the to Dev's over XMMS.

Bottom line, based on everything I have read, knowing how difficult it is to support the unsupportable, I think the Dev's did the right thing.

For future package removals may I suggest a bit of a tweaking to how the news is broken.

First, once the discussion on the Dev Mailing list are complete and the decision is made, place a read only announcement in the forums that contains the following info.

The why. Don't need the whole history of why, just a brief summery of why a package is being removed.
The date the package will be masked
The date the package will be finally removed

The Weekly newsletter might also be helpful in getting out the word.

Sure people could have followed the discussions on the Dev mailing list, but you shouldn't have to. if you aren't interested in all the dev talk, then even if you are subscribed, you probably aren't paying that close attention the discussions. So to people who aren't subscribed this does seem a bit sudden.

Sudden or not, again I can't say it enough. Based on what I have read, forum, planet Gentoo etc. Removing XMMS was the right choice.

archangel777 · n00b Joined: 30 Oct 2006 Posts: 13

Ya, I'm sorry if I sound like I'm wining about something I've used for years and gotten used to and I have used BMPx and Audacious and sometimes just use good ol' mplayer. I did like both, I guess I just need to look at the scripting options of where it says what it plays so I can log the time and artist playing. I love the gkrellm plugin and have used it forever and BMPx does work with it, but has some issues. I know it'll all come in time and do understand why they are hard masked, just an old schooler that have pretty picky setup. Hard mask it, but do keep it around, I also make my own XMMS skins depending on my theme at the time.

AllenJB · Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 9:32 pm Post subject: Re: alarm plugin

AllenJB · Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 9:50 pm Post subject:

Corona688 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 1204

static_k · n00b Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 73 Location: NY

Just a note, I installed Amarok today and I love it. I have been using XMMS ever since I've had a linux machine and I never had a problem with it. I just loaded playlists/directories and it went for the whole day. I figured that since XMMS was being phased out of portage I would re-visit my music situation. I took a look at Amarok and can't believe I didn't try this player earlier. I was just Wow'd at all the features it has(Amazon covers, wiki lookups right in the player, many playlist options, OSD, inline tag editor, lyric fetcher).

I'm still trying it out but as long as Amarok runs smoothly(which it has so far on my machine), I say bye-bye XMMS!

BTW: I'm not running KDE either. It's running in XFCE.

Corona688 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 1204

Good for you, but... Argh. Crap like that is why I wanted to stick with XMMS. Just hearing the feature bloat second hand is giving me abdominal pain. Just imagine the lags and security holes in all those "Web 2.0" features.
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Headrush · Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 11:44 pm Post subject:

onlinepancakes · Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:39 am Post subject:

timeBandit · Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:43 am Post subject:

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:55 am Post subject:

AllenJB · Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:34 am Post subject:

vipernicus · Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 4:50 pm Post subject:

The original XMMS should be deprecated in my opinion.
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Phenax · l33t Joined: 10 Mar 2006 Posts: 972

I think this is blown out of proportion.
Here's the way I, an MPD user, view this:

XMMS is old, not being developed, and buggy. Should the ebuild maintainers be subjected to so much extra work to keep it going, when in fact, there are several audio applications that are like XMMS only with more functionality, less bugs, and still being developed?

Audacious and BMPx would both make a flawless transition with an XMMS user. Their user interfaces are very similar, they can use XMMS themes, etc. Both were originally based on XMMS. They take many design concepts from XMMS, and I believe users will feel right at home on BMPx or Audacious.

There are also others like MPD, Amarok, etc.

Corona688 · Veteran Joined: 10 Jan 2004 Posts: 1204

The problem with feature bloat, as I see it, is it's the complete opposite of modularity, and an indication of poor planning. Whether the features work is not the point. Without a strictly defined set of features and a planned interface, big programs will mutate out of recognition, sometimes lose it's utility for certain things you use but most don't, and sometimes even it's primary purpose can change(see XMMS2). Sure, I could use Amarok or any of the other big media players, but when you do a major upgrade, you never know what interface you're going to get, what features you'll gain, what features you'll lose... Compare WMP2, WMP3, WMP6, WMP10, and WMP11.

XMMS short-circuited all that by holding to someone else's design plan, NullSoft's Winamp2. It's a standard that people recognize and can live with, something I consider more important than being able to browse wikipedia in my sound player.

I'm hoping Audacious will be this stable once it settles. Porting plugins for it is a real chore, so far.
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