python on unix [getting started]

[dsavitsk]

"Martin v. Loewis" <martin at v.loewis.de> wrote in message
news:m34ragk3ts.fsf at mira.informatik.hu-berlin.de...

Thanks for the response

> > In particular, I would like to control mpg123 (i think?).
>
> Depends on what precisely "this" is. In general, on Unix, there is
> nothing like COM. So when you want to use some functionality written
> by somebody else, you have two options:
>
> b) use a library that somebody else has written. In this case, you
> need to find a Python wrapper for the library - which either may
> already exist, or needs to be written.

So perhaps the question is, how does one write a wrapper for using a library
with python? (I see there is a xmms wrapper, but I don't have X installed,
so I assume that that is not an option) again, on win32, it is simple enough
to use either windll or even vb to declare non-COM functions and write COM
wrappers to them.  Where would I look to do this on unix?

> "On Unix", playing mp3 files is not supported. Instead, different Unix
> systems have different ways of playing mp3 files - some do not support
> it at all. So you need to find out what Unix you use (invoke uname for
> that), then you need to contact an appropriate newsgroup dealing with
> that system specifically.

my unix is FreeBSD 4.7. I am comfortable enough with it to install,
configure, etc., just not to program.

> Most likely, mpg123 is available on your system as well.

Indeed as I installed it last night :)