Project 1 – Installing an advanced audio playback application

Although there are many applications and utilities that will allow playback of sound files and streams, we will introduce only one of them.

We will use the VLC media player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html). The VLC media player is available for a large range of operating systems and has a very rich feature set. After installation, you will need to make some immediate configuration changes. These changes ensure that VLC is better suited to the Pi environment and its resource limitations.

To install it on your Pi, complete the following steps:

1. Type sudo apt-get –y install vlc to install the software.

2. Once installed, the VLC media player is available from Menu under Menu | Sound & Video | VLC Media Player.

3. Start VLC and configure the following elements via the interface using Tools | Preferences and Simple Settings:

   1. In Interface Settings:

      • Clear Integrate video in interface

      • Clear Show systray Icon

      • Select Allow only one instance...