Receiving Podcasts
You can configure Linux to receive podcasts from a variety of sources. You can then transfer these to your MP3 player -or listen to them from your PC (-either via a sound card and speakers or the headphone jack that most motherboards support).
To subscribe to a new podcast, you need to bring up your internet browser, navigate to the source that you want to subscribe to and find the RSS feed URL. This URL can then be pasted into your podcast player (e.g. Banshee or RhythmBox).
Let's consider how to locate the desired RSS feed by looking at an example. Suppose you wanted to subscribe to a particular BBC radio 4 podcast. You would first need to bring up a browser and navigate to the URL for BBC Radio 4 podcasts (-currently this is http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4):
Next, you would click on the link for the desired programme (-in this case, “Americana”):
Next, to find the RSS feed URL, click on the “RSS Feed” icon on the right hand side of the window, which should bring up a list of available episodes:
Finally, highlight the RSS URL (http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/americana/rss.xml) and copy it to your paste buffer (-using CTRL+C to copy it), ready to paste into your podcast player (-see below) later on.
In Fedora and most versions of Ubuntu, the distribution comes with a free application called Rhythmbox Music Player pre-installed. In Ubuntu, it can be accessed from :
Applications → Sound & Video → Rhythmbox Music Player
To start RhythmBox under Fedora, click on the speaker icon in the Favourites area:
If you are not using Ubuntu or Fedora, you can install this from your distro's Software Centre or directly from the web (-for example, from http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Rhythmbox-3904.shtml):
Once selected, you should see a screen open up similar to the one pictured below:
If you now click on the “Podcasts” option on the left had side, you will see all your podcast subscriptions listed (-initially, this will be blank, of course):
Select :
Music → New Podcast Feed
..and a new dialogue box will display, asking for a URL:
A dialogue box will open up asking for the podcast URL. Use CTRL+V to paste in the URL from the RSS feed and click on the “Add” button. All the available episodes should be added to the listing:
In Ubuntu 11.x, the distribution instead comes with a free application called Banshee pre-installed instead of RhythmBox. It looks similar to RhythmBox but has more bells and whistles. To invoke Banshee, Unity users can click the speaker icon in the top right of the desktop and choose "Banshee" from there:
If you are not using Ubuntu, you can install this from your distro's Software Centre or directly from the web (-for example, from http://banshee.fm/):
Once selected, you should see a screen open up similar to the one pictured below:
If you now click on the “Podcasts” option on the left had side, you will see all your podcast subscriptions listed (-initially, this will be blank, of course):
Either select:
Media → Add Podcast..
..or right click the "Pocasts" heading and pick the "Add Podcast.." option.
A dialogue box will open up asking for the podcast URL. Use CTRL+V to paste in the URL from the RSS feed and click on the "Subscribe" button. If you check the "Download new episodes" box, then all the available episodes from now onwards will automatically be downloaded: