Sounds
Sounds

Dear Linux Magazine Reader,
Recently I've been thinking about getting some kind of music playing device. Certainly everyone else in my vicinity has one. It isn't that I need to keep up with the crowd – or that such a device would make me feel like less of a dinosaur around the teenagers and pre-teenagers who inhabit my house. The main advantage I see is avoiding the clutter.
I have never really gotten on well with the technical details of music listening. Even in the old days, when the sounds came on big, flat, fragile hunks of vinyl that everyone knew required dutiful maintenance, I took risks with my collection that would make the audiophiles crackle and sputter. I never could relate to the obsessive steps that record collectors would go to protect their investments – tiny bottles of cleaning fluid, little wooden cleaning tools lined with dust-catching anti-lint fabric. Long lines of alphabetized records. The little tool rested on a little tool holder. Before you played a record, you placed the record on the turntable, started the turntable spinning, lifted the little tool, placed cleaning fluid on the fabric strip attached to the little tool, and gently pressed the fabric to the vinyl of the turning disk, lightly catching any dust that might have fallen in the grooves. We would watch the host enact this ritual as we sat around the stereo, on couches and pillows, waiting for the album to play. It was probably some crude approximation of the act of watching the host prepare a primitive campfire or, more recently, watching the host prepare and serve tea cups at tea time. Then we would all listen together.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 is Available
Linus Torvalds has announced that the latest kernel has been released with plenty of core improvements and even more hardware support.
-
Kali Linux 2025.3 Released with New Hacking Tools
If you're a Kali Linux fan, you'll be glad to know that the third release of this famous pen-testing distribution is now available with updates for key components.
-
Zorin OS 18 Beta Available for Testing
The latest release from the team behind Zorin OS is ready for public testing, and it includes plenty of improvements to make it more powerful, user-friendly, and productive.
-
Fedora Linux 43 Beta Now Available for Testing
Fedora Linux 43 Beta ships with Gnome 49 and KDE Plasma 6.4 (and other goodies).
-
USB4 Maintainer Leaves Intel
Michael Jamet, one of the primary maintainers of USB4 and Thunderbolt drivers, has left Intel, leaving a gaping hole for the Linux community to deal with.
-
Budgie 10.9.3 Now Available
The latest version of this elegant and configurable Linux desktop aligns with changes in Gnome 49.
-
KDE Linux Alpha Available for Daring Users
It's official, KDE Linux has arrived, but it's not quite ready for prime time.
-
AMD Initiates Graphics Driver Updates for Linux Kernel 6.18
This new AMD update focuses on power management, display handling, and hardware support for Radeon GPUs.
-
AerynOS Alpha Release Available
With a choice of several desktop environments, AerynOS 2025.08 is almost ready to be your next operating system.
-
AUR Repository Still Under DDoS Attack
Arch User Repository continues to be under a DDoS attack that has been going on for more than two weeks.