mp3 tagging problem with amarok

you'll need to install the following packages:

- libtunepimp2c2a
- libtunepimp2-dev

you can apt-get these packages if you add

deb http://archive.czessi.net/ubuntu/ dapper main

to /etc/apt/sources.list

If you've installed the software listed in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats for encoding and decoding mp3s, you can rebuild libtunepimp yourself by saying:
apt-get source libtunepimp
cd libtunepimp*
fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage
sudo dpkg -i ../libtunepimp*.deb

I performed the instructions posted above by Rocco Stanzione, and they worked like a charm (this is a . Musicbrainz lookup of mp3 tags now works great within Amarok. However, after performing the procedure Ubuntu immediately told me that I have updates available for the libtunepimp packages. I am guessing that if I apply the updates, it will overwrite the version I have installed with the version that is missing the mp3 tagging goodness. It that a correct assumption?

Thanks,
Bob

Yes, that assumption is correct. To avoid your custom libtunepimp package to be overwritten, theres a simple solution: You give it a higher version number, so “apt” gives it precedence. A very simple way without requiring to repeat above steps of rebuilding the package with a higher version number, is to use deb-reversion from the devscripts package.

Change into the directory of your custom .deb.

# deb-reversion libtunepimp2c2a_0.3.0-9.1ubuntu3_i386.deb

Save and close the changelog in the editor that is launched. No need to edit the new default entry that deb-reversion adds. Voila, there's a new libtunepimp2c2a_0.3.0-9.1ubuntu3+0.local.1_i386.deb.

# sudo dpkg -i libtunepimp2c2a_0.3.0-9.1ubuntu3+0.local.1_i386.deb

The version string was appended with “+0.local.1” by deb-reversion. Version “0.3.0-9.1ubuntu3+0.local.1” is greater than “0.3.0-9.1ubuntu3”, so it won't be overwritten. BUT: if there appears a new “0.3.0-10.1ubuntu3” in the repositories for example, it will get updated. So if you don't want that, change the version string to something much higher, like “666.0.3.0”. I won't recommend that though.

Actually there is a much better way to do this, which is to place the package on hold. This can be achived from synaptic by selecting your package, and then from the packages menu (not the context right click menu) lock version. Or, you can achieve this with command line tools.

I use wajig on the command line, so it is simply "wajig hold package-name", but it can definately be acheived with more standard tools.

Maybe "echo packagename hold | dpkg --set-selections" might be the way to do it.

Using out of range version numbers seems a little hacky to me.

This is old news by now, but just in case someone is still trying to do this by hand there is now a libtunepimp5-mp3 package that can be installed from synaptic.