Playing iTunes's M4A files in XMMS on Debian GNU/Linux

This took way too much futzing around to get working (or perhaps I’m just too used to Mac OS X now), so here’s a no-frills guide to get it working:

  • Add the lines
    deb http://marillat.free.fr/ unstable main
    and
    deb http://pessoal.onda.com.br/rjamorim/debian/ ./
    to your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
  • apt-get update; apt-get install libfaad2-dev
  • apt-get -t unstable install libstdc++5
  • If you’re on x86, download the i386 .deb of my patched version of Frederic Fondriest’s xmms-mp4plugin XMMS input plugin.
  • If you’re exotic enough to not have an x86, download the debian source, and run
    fakeroot debian/rules binary
    to build the .deb for you. You need the g++-3.3 and automake1.7 packages installed to compile this thing.
  • Execute sudo dpkg -i xmms-mp4plugin_0.2-1.andrep_*.deb to install the package.
  • Run XMMS and enjoy.

Useful links:

(Random keywords to be more search-engine friendly: Debian, Linux, XMMS, iTunes, MPEG-4, MP4, AAC, M4A.)

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