Comment 0 for bug 229786

Binary package hint: gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad

The package gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad 0.10.6-5 in ubuntu hardy 8.04 does not include the plugin libgsttimidity.so
(http://webcvs.freedesktop.org/gstreamer/gst-plugins-bad/ext/timidity/gsttimidity.c?view=log)
required to use timidity as a back-end to play midi files. It only includes the plugin libgstwildmidi.so:

$dpkg -L gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad |grep midi
/usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstwildmidi.so
$ gst-inspect|grep midi
typefindfunctions: audio/midi: mid, midi
wildmidi: wildmidi: WildMidi

Because of that, the following gstreamer command fails in hardy:

$gst-launch filesrc location=mysong.mid ! timidity ! alsasink
WARNING: erroneous pipeline: no element "timidity"

The above command works with wildmidi:
$gst-launch filesrc location=mysong.mid ! wildmidi ! alsasink

But timidity is much more powerful than wildmidi: While both work with the basic sound fonts in the package "freepats", timidity works out-of-the-box with more advanced sound font packages like those in the package "fluid-soundfont-gm".

Therefore, totem, which uses gst-plugins-bad to play midi files, only plays midi files with basic freepats sound fonts through wildmidi, even when fluid-soundfont-gm is installed. Because libgsttimidity.so is absent, in order to enjoy more complex soundfonts like fluid-soundfont-gm, the user must ignore totem and resort to executing timidity directly in the terminal.