To work with monkey’s audio (ape) files you need the “mac” command line tool. This software isn’t available in the Ubuntu repositories so you will need to either compile mac yourself, or alternatively install it from a .deb file.
Installing mac from a .deb file
I’ve put a .deb file for the mac software here (this is for 386 systems). Use it to install mac when you do not want to compile from source. It was compiled on a Kubuntu 6.10 system (works fine with Kubuntu/ Ubuntu 7.04). Save the file by right-clicking on the link and choosing “Save target as” or “Save as”. To install, open a terminal window, navigate to the directory containing the downloaded file, then enter the following:
sudo dpkg -i mac-3.99-u4_b3-1_i386.deb
To confirm the install went ok type “mac” in the terminal window – you should get a listing of mac’s usage details.
[Note: RareWares provides monkey's audio software for Debian users.]
Compiling mac from the source code
You need to install the development tools required to compile a program from source:
sudo apt-get install build-essential
Note that “nasm” (a dependency of mac) must also be installed before attempting to compile mac:
sudo apt-get install nasm
Click here to download the latest version (3.99) of the mac source code from the author’s web page. (I’ve placed a copy of the source here for if the author’s site is down).
Open a terminal window and uncompress the source code, and navigate into the source directory:
tar -zxvf mac-3.99-u4-b5.tar.gz
cd mac-3.99-u4-b5
Configure, make and install the source:
./configure
make
sudo make install
Confirm the install went ok by typing “mac” in the terminal window (should get a listing of mac’s usage details).
31 Comments
thanks for ape ubuntu guide, works great
aidanjm, thankyou from link
works in Ubuntu 7.10 too.
Great.Thanks.
Works well in hardy (alpha4).
Thanks.
I downloaded the source, and it seems that the NASM dependency has been changed to YASM.
This is truly a magnificent post, I’ve googled it a thousand times and have it bookmarked.
However, do you know whether there’s any hope for 64-bit users? Your guide worked perfectly when I was still running i386, but now that I’m on 64-bit, is all hope lost for me? The deb you posted of course won’t install…
Enough monkey business. Finally I can listen to my music!!! Works great in Ubuntu 7.10
If you’re looking for something available via apt-get and friends, there’s a Debian package called libjmac-java. But it appears to be dog-slow in decoding a 100MB .ape file. (At over an hour (and counting), it’s much, much slower than decoding a flac file of comparable size. Maybe it’s just the non-Sun Java(tm) interpreter I’m using? Is ape audio decoding really that slower?
However, since it’s Java-based, jmac can conceivably run on any machine for which a Java virtual machine is available (which probably means all widely available desktop processors).
Once the package is installed, the command to run the main decoder program is:
java -jar /usr/share/java/jmac.jar
Which produces the usage screen containing options for compressing, decompressing and verifying your .ape file.
I can’t compile it with Ubuntu 8.04! Plz help!
I always have this:
Prepare.cpp:4: warning: this decimal constant is unsigned only in ISO C90
and this:
Console.cpp:74: warning: ‘spOutputFilename.CSmartPtr::m_bArray’ may be used uninitialized in this function
Hi, thanks for the guide!
As Conor, I’d like to install it in a 64-bit machine. Any suggestion how to do it?
and here’s one more request for 64bit systems…
Those of you looking for 64-bit debs of libmac and monkeys-audio (for Hardy), look no further than this guy’s PPA.
Pre-hardy, there’s always Morgoth
Thanks a lot!
Can’t even believe it worked!
heliologue,
The only thing I see on the PPA page you mentioned is this:
rxvt-unicode
I installed it anyway but I still get an error at the very end of make install (can’t find libmac.so or something).
Has anyone had any success compiling mac-3.99 source pkg on x64 ubuntu (or other distro)? I would really like to have native ape support
Shouldn’t the line in bold,
cd mac-3.99-u4-b5.tar.gz
above, really be
cd mac-3.99-u4-b5
Thanks for a wonderful post!
thanks, chandra, I’ve fixed the command
Installing Audacious is easier.
true, it would be easier to use a player that is compatible with ape, rather than converting all your apes to flac or some other format. some of the best players though don’t have plug-ins for ape. for me, moving to flac has been a good decision.
source directory path with spaces results in errors :
“/home/a b/mac-3.99-u4-b5″
when :
Compiling mac from the source code
I cheated, I already had wine on ubuntu, so just installed the windows version of monkey’s audio, decompressed the ape, and burnt in brasero. The lazy could burn and image, then recode from that.
Check this site for other ways of doing things.
Hi, thank you very much for you manual for mac and cuetools.
Now that I’m using a Kubuntu amd64 system, I’m also searching for a amd64 binary of mac for Debian/*ubuntu, if someone has one, please, share with us.
Thanks.
A brilliant article. Worked perfectly. Thank you!
Hi, I found PPA with a binary of mac-3.99-u4-b5 for *Ubuntu Intrepid 64-bit!
https://launchpad.net/~g-christ/+archive/ppa
MAC for Arch Linux: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=18034
Worked perfectly on Ubuntu 9.04!
Thanks, User for pointing out the 64-bit repo at https://launchpad.net/~g-christ/+archive/ppa
Since I am using Jaunty, and the pre-built package is for Intrepid, this is what I did, in case it helps someone else:
1. Add the line
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/g-christ/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
to /etc/apt/sources.list
2. Add the GPG key of the repo following instructions onsite so:
gpg –recv-keys FB34808D7ED779F6
gpg –export –armor FB34808D7ED779F6 | sudo apt-key add -
3. apt-get update
4. Use prevu (assumed installed) to build a Jaunty package from Intrepid source so:
cd /tmp
apt-get source mac
cd mac-3.99-u4-b5
sudo prevu-update
prevu
5. On successful build of package,
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mac
6. Answer yes to any questions and complete installation.
Thank You very much! I have a lot of .ape in my Music archive and this guide is really useful. Greetings from Poland!
Works great in 9.04. Learned a lot here today!
Excellent site, keep up the good work
I was able to download 64-bit mac.deb package for my ubuntu 9.10 karmic using the link mentioned above https://launchpad.net/~g-christ/+archive/ppa. Thanks a lot!!!
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