raymac46 Posted April 27, 2023 Share Posted April 27, 2023 (edited) I have a music streaming subscription with Amazon Prime Unlimited. You can play music in a web browser, but Amazon does not supply a standalone client for Linux. I decided to try Wine with the Windows version. First I had to put a change agent extension on Chrome to fake it as a Windows browser. Then I could download the .EXE file for Amazon Music Player. Attempts to install it using the repos' version of Wine failed with multiple errors. So I installed the bleeding edge version of Winehq-staging using the procedure given here. https://wine.htmlvalidator.com/install-wine-on-linux-mint-21.html This finally worked and I got an icon in the menu. I now have an Amazon Music client that works in Linux Mint. Edited April 27, 2023 by raymac46 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 27, 2023 Author Share Posted April 27, 2023 (edited) Here is the AppDB rating: https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=application&iId=16528 Edited April 27, 2023 by raymac46 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted April 27, 2023 Share Posted April 27, 2023 Very nice, good job Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 27, 2023 Author Share Posted April 27, 2023 (edited) The only problem I noticed was that the appearance looked rather janky using the ubiquitous Times New Roman font. So I used winetricks to install the MS Corefonts into the Wine default prefix. Now it looks a lot better. I have the same problems with Wine as I used to have with Virtual Machines - namely I haven't used it much so I am unfamiliar with all the tricks and techniques to get best performance. Another learning curve. It's worth it to listen to "Frampton Comes Alive" though. Edited April 27, 2023 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 27, 2023 Share Posted April 27, 2023 (edited) I also have an Amazon Prime subscription, but I'm not much of a fan of "renting" music. I'm an old schooler, so I prefer to buy my music, download it, own it FOREVER, and copy it to ALL my devices....as many as I want (yes, that's a blatant dig at Apple's 3-device policy). Amazon used to download albums in a special format....I believe it was *.AMZ format, and Banshee was VERY accommodating with Amazon, even providing Amazon Music as a source of music, like a Podcast or something. Banshee seems to have been abandoned and I gave up on it a LONG time ago. Shame too, because it was the best Music/Media Manager in Linux land, IMO, by a long shot and was even the default in Ubuntu back in 2014ish, before 'Buntu reverted back to Rhythmbox. But in its time, Banshee was VERY friendly for Amazon Music, and maybe still is if you can find the right combination of Banshee version and base distro to run it on? Nowadays, Amazon just downloads music in a standard compressed *.ZIP file. But I digress. Never been a fan of using WINE for Windows apps in Linux, as it seems to fail more often than succeed, at least for the software I'd be interested in. Which is how I initially learned about VMs. But sometimes you just have a very specific application that is Windows ONLY, for which no suitable Linux alternative exists (yet), and a Windows VM is just overkill for that. Sounds like the Amazon Music Player is a perfect example of that instance where WINE makes more sense....as long as it works. It's been a LONG time since I used anything WINE related, but I seem to remember that the WINE forum had a database of software and rankings of how well it ran on Linux (gold, silver, bronze, and NOT, if I recall correctly), as well as a "recipe" of successful installations: i.e. distro installed on, extra packages required, special configs, etc... Those recipes almost always involved some kind of "winetricks" incantation. And now that I say that, I also remember CrossOver, which did all that for you. CrossOver sounded very promising, but that was about the time frame I discovered VMs, so I never got to fully discover nor experience CrossOver. But that's probably an option also, if it didn't get abandoned like Banshee did. EDIT: Can you post a screenshot of the Amazon player? I'd be interested in seeing what it looks like on Linux! Edited April 27, 2023 by Hedon James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 27, 2023 Author Share Posted April 27, 2023 (edited) @HJ here ya go. I am not downloading anything - strictly streaming. Off Topic: Alan Parsons and Pilot guitarist Ian Bairnson passed away earlier this month at the age of 69. You can catch some of his riffs here: Edited April 27, 2023 by raymac46 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 28, 2023 Share Posted April 28, 2023 Thanks for the screenshot Ray! Looks alot like the online version in my web browser. I was just curious to see, but it isn't much different, aesthetically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 28, 2023 Author Share Posted April 28, 2023 I just like to have a standalone player so I don't accidentally switch it off if I close a browser tab. I used to have Spotify which gives you both Windows and Linux players. Amazon supports Mac, mobile and Windows but not Linux so I'm happy that Wine worked out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abarbarian Posted April 29, 2023 Share Posted April 29, 2023 The Alan Parsons Project by gum that takes me back aways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wa4chq Posted April 29, 2023 Share Posted April 29, 2023 I was using Plex media server with a Raspberry Pi. It worked but there was just too much "stuff" going on for my liking. I use ripit to to convert my CD's to mp3's and load 'em up on a spare RPi I have. I use mp3blaster and access it with ssh from command central. So I can enjoy The Harmonicats or We are the Harmonicats Live or all of my Cowsills albums...enable Repeat on mp3blaster and I'm good. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 30, 2023 Author Share Posted April 30, 2023 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted May 1, 2023 Share Posted May 1, 2023 23 hours ago, raymac46 said: ALL RIGHT!!!! Now the blood is pumping Ray! I enjoy Alan Parsons (Eye In The Sky) and Pilot (Magic), but Rick Derringer is more of my cup of tea! Keep on Rocking!! \m/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted May 1, 2023 Author Share Posted May 1, 2023 (edited) What? No Cowsills? Edited May 1, 2023 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wa4chq Posted May 1, 2023 Share Posted May 1, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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