Tux Training

Amazon MP3 Downloader on openSUSE 11

January 3, 2009, 10:57 am

This HOWTO will explain how to install the Amazon MP3 Downloader application under openSUSE 11 (both 11.0 and 11.1). Unfortunately, as of this writing, Amazon only provides a package for openSUSE 10.3, which will not work directly with 11.0. But you can get the downloader working under 11 with some manual steps.

Step 1: Download boost-1.33.1 RPM from the Build Service

Go to the Build Service.
Select openSUSE 10.3 and search for boost.
Download the appropriate RPM for your architecture and save it in your home directory. For example, I downloaded boost-1.33.1-108.i586.rpm. Do not use the 1-click install or try to install the RPM directly. That won’t work. Just save it for now.

Step 2: Extract files from the Boost RPM

Assuming you downloaded it to your home directory, open a terminal and run these commands, substituting the name of the file as appropriate:

cd
mkdir boost
cd boost
rpm2cpio ../boost-1.33.1-108.i586.rpm | cpio -idmv

Step 3: Download openSUSE 10.3 version of Amazon MP3 Downloader

Go to Amazon’s MP3 Downloader page and download amazonmp3.rpm to your home directory. Pick the openSUSE 10.3 version. Do not try to install the RPM directly. That won’t work. Just save it for now.

Step 4: Extract files from the Amazon MP3 RPM

Assuming you downloaded it to your home directory, open a terminal and run these commands:

cd
mkdir amazonmp3
cd amazonmp3
rpm2cpio ../amazonmp3.rpm | cpio -idmv

Step 5: Install Boost libraries

As root, we will copy the boost libraries to /usr/local/lib. They should not conflict with any YaST-managed packages there. Run these commands, substituting your non-root username for <username>:

su -
cp /home/<username>/boost/usr/lib/* /usr/local/lib

Step 6: Install Amazon MP3 Dowmloader

Still as root, we will copy the Amazon bin and share directory contents to /usr/local/bin and /usr/local/share, respectively. But first, we need to make the subdirectories of share readable by non-root users. (Don’t know why they’re not already.)

cp /home/<username>/amazonmp3/usr/bin/* /usr/local/bin
chmod +rx /home/<username>/amazonmp3/usr/share/*
cp -r /home/<username>/amazonmp3/usr/share/* /usr/local/share

Step 7: Reload libs

Since you’ve copied new library files into the lib directories, as root you need to run:

ldconfig

This will rescan the lib directories and make the libraries available.

Step 8: Run the Downloader

As a normal user, run amazonmp3 from the command line. It should come up. Note that Amazon.com might not recognize that the application is installed when you try to purchase an album for the first time. If that happens, look for the tiny link on the Downloader page that says something like: “If you have already installed the Amazon MP3 Downloader, click here to enable it for use with this browser.” Click the provided link and it should be fine from there. When you try to download an album using Firefox, you may need to point it to the amazonmp3 executable to open the AMZ file that the service sends to you.