#+date:        <2022-07-25 Mon 00:00:00>
#+title:       Curseradio: A Lightweight Command-Line Internet Radio Player for Linux
#+description: Stepwise instructions for installing and utilizing Curseradio, a lightweight command-line program for streaming radio stations within Linux environments.
#+slug:        curseradio
#+filetags:    :linux:radio:python:

* Overview

While exploring some interesting Linux applications, I stumbled across
[[https://github.com/chronitis/curseradio][curseradio]], a command-line
radio player based on Python.

This application is fantastic and incredibly easy to install, so I
wanted to dedicate a post today to this app. Let's look at the features
within the app and then walk through the installation process I took to
get =curseradio= working.

* Features

The radio player itself is quite minimal. As you can see in the
screenshot above, it contains a simple plaintext list of all available
categories, which can be broken down further and further. In addition,
radio shows are available for listening, alongside regular radio
stations.

For example, the =Sports= > =Pro Basketball= > =Shows= category contains
a number of specific shows related to Professional Basketball.

Aside from being able to play any of the listed stations/shows, you can
make a channel your favorite by pressing =f=. It will now show up at the
top of the radio player in the =Favourites= category.

** Commands/Shortcuts

| Key(s)     | Command                         |
|------------+---------------------------------|
| ↑, ↓       | navigate                        |
| PgUp, PgDn | navigate quickly                |
| Home, End  | to top/bottom                   |
| Enter      | open/close folders, play stream |
| k          | stop playing stream             |
| q          | quit                            |
| f          | toggle favourite                |

* Installation

** Dependencies

Before installing =curseradio=, a handful of system and Python packages
are required. To get started, install =python3=, =pip3=, and =mpv= on
your system. In this example, I'm using Fedora Linux, which uses the
=dnf= package manager. You may need to adjust this if you're using a
different system.

#+begin_src sh
sudo dnf install python3 pip3 mpv
#+end_src

Next, use =pip3= to install =requests=, =xdg=, and =lxml=:

#+begin_src sh
pip3 install requests xdg lxml
#+end_src

** Repository Source Installation

Once all the dependencies are installed, we can clone the source code
and enter that directory:

#+begin_src sh
git clone https://github.com/chronitis/curseradio && cd curseradio
#+end_src

Once you're within the =curseradio= directory, you can install the
application with the provided =setup.py= script.

#+begin_src sh
sudo python3 setup.py install
#+end_src

In my case, I ran into a few errors and needed to create the folders
that curseradio wanted to use for its installation. If you don't get any
errors, you can skip this and run the app.

#+begin_src sh
sudo mkdir /usr/local/lib/python3.10/
sudo mkdir /usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/
#+end_src

#+begin_src sh
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /usr/local/lib/python3.10/
#+end_src

* Run the Application

Once fully installed without errors, you can run the application!

#+begin_src sh
python3 /usr/local/bin/curseradio
#+end_src