Using Naxos Music Library on Linux.

Listening to files from Naxos Music Library on Linux is somewhat tricky because of the large number of nasty propriety formats used by Naxos Music Library to obfusticate and hide the streams. Whilst this goes some way to legitimately protecting the company's intellectual property rights, it does make it almost impossible for Linux users to legitimately use the resource for which their University, College or Library has paid. The following guide is therefore offered to those who are legitimately allowed use Naxos Music Library and want to play these files on a Linux machine. As these CDs are so cheap anyway, there is no execuse for stealing their music; just go and buy them!

This solution seems to work best with Totem Movie Player (with the necessary WM codecs) but presumably any software which can stream .wm files would work.

The First File

  1. Browse/search for the CD to which you wish to listen.
  2. Click on the link to it to cause the main pop–up to appear (you may need to enable pop–ups for this to occur).
  3. Click on “Show Static URL” in the box of controls, on the right.
  4. High–light the track you wish to play and press Ctrl–C to copy it to the clip–board.
  5. Paste this URL into your browser and load the page.
  6. View the source–code of the page.
  7. Search through the code for “mediaplayer1”
  8. Copy the URL given after “SRC="”
  9. Load this URL in your browser.
  10. View the source–code of this page.
  11. Copy the URL given after “ref href="”.
  12. Open Totem Movie Player, go to “Open Location” under the “Move” and paste the URL from above.
  13. Once the file is buffered, it should then play.

To listen to other files

The end of the URL which you entered into Totem will be similar to: “/u12345_01_full_wm_064.wm”. The number after the “u” seems to correspond with the CD, whilst the number separated by underscores before “full” relates to the track. To change tracks is therefore easy: to play track two of the example album above, change the end of the URL from “/u12345_01_full_wm_064.wm” to “/u12345_02_full_wm_064.wm”. To change CD is more tricky. Visit Naxos Music Library and choose the CD and view the static URLs, as above. At the end of each static URL you will see something like “%2fu22345%5f01”. The six letters between the “U” and the second & (in this case “22345”) should then be substituted into the URL you entered into Totem.