Friday 14 January 2011

Ubuntu One music store - without Ubuntu

Purchasing online digital music for me personally is always a bit of a pain. I actively seek to support free formats like Ogg Vorbis, but at the same time I want to listen to a wide variety of music, which often means that I'm restricted to MP3s.

In the past I've purchased a few songs from Amazon, along with a variety of other companies. When Canonical announced that it was launching a music store I thought: great, at least I can support an open source company. I was very disappointed initially when I found out that you had to be an Ubuntu user to benefit from this.

Having used Ubuntu some 4 years ago when I started using Linux, I have worked my way through a variety of distros (and still do to this day) before settling with Gentoo. However the music store is not owned by Canonical, instead it is using 7digital's music store with an Ubuntu front. Ubuntu get a part of the sale, but it is actually 7digital's business, Ubuntu is the agent.

In order to get to the Ubuntu One music store we need only two things:
1) an Ubuntu One account
2) an internet connection

If you are reading this then I'm assuming that you have an internet connection, to sign up to Ubuntu One simply go to http://one.ubuntu.com to get your free 2GB account. Notice that there is no Ubuntu operating system on that list.

Once you have an account simply go to http://stores.7digital.com/stores/default.aspx?shop=34&partner=983 and your in the Ubuntu One music store. You can now purchase music and support an open source company. To prove this is not an Ubuntu screenshot take a look at the kernel.
















The files are sent to your Ubuntu One cloud account where you can move them to your PC very easily. The only issue is that their progress never appears to move, don't worry: they're being downloaded to your Ubuntu One cloud server as you wait. I'm not quite sure why Canonical have tried to limit the music store to Ubuntu users, I am always happy to support open source companies and this view is shared by a lot of other Linux users I know.
















Happy musical purchases and please keep supporting open source whenever possible.

No comments:

Post a Comment