Installing PyKaraoke

Pykaraoke Install
Pykaraoke is a python software to play karaoke files (.kar) which encompass midi background music, lyrics and the actual lyrics progress while the song is playing on the screen.

Pykaraoke official website: http://www.kibosh.org/pykaraoke/

I have tested it personally on the N810 though I assume it would run just as well on the 770/N800, please update this article if you have verified it works with either/both of them, thanks in advance.

Dependencies

 * python2.5 python2.5-pygame
 * timidity
 * freepats
 * pykaraoke (obviously)

Python
Either from the GUI's Application Manager or from a root shell you should install the two packages: python2.5 and python2.5-pygame (from the root shell: apt-get install python2.5 python2.5-pygame)

Timidity
From maemo's garage page you should grab the debs and install them on the tablet. The address is: https://garage.maemo.org/frs/?group_id=631&release_id=1602 You need to get 2 debian packages: timidity and timidity-data Once you've downloaded them and transferred to your tablet, install them.

Configuration
Create the directory /etc/timidity, and create a new file called timidity.conf and add to it:

Create a new file called freepats.conf (also in /etc/timidity) and add to it:

What's that freepats thing you ask? well it's a bunch of midi patch set. It is available as a debian package to get on an i386 under the name 'freepats' although it hasn't been packaged to the tablets so 2 things you can do (one or the other): 1. get the .pat files from the original website: http://freepats.opensrc.org/freepats/ if you do that, you need to create a directory called /usr/share/midi/freepats on the tablet and download from that website address the 2 directories Drum_000 and Tone_000 into /usr/share/midi

2. get the freepats debian package and unpack it to get the directories Drum_000 and Tone_000 and make sure both of them are in /usr/share/midi/freepats

Pykaraoke
Get the pykaraoke zip archive from the official website: http://www.kibosh.org/pykaraoke/downloads.php (current version is pykaraoke-0.6.zip) and unzip it to whatever directory you'd like in your tablet, inside the pykaraoke directory create the link:

Usage
We will be using the pykaraoke_mini.py program. It is a .kar player which stores your kar files entries in a database of it's own so the first time we start it we need to tell it to scan the directory where you keep your .kar files so:

It will then start and scan that directory for available .kar files and display them in a list. In the next time you can start the pykaraoke_mini.py program by itself without appending any arguments.

Notice, I have tested this with the N810 and using the N810 you need to use the keyboard to navigate through the karaoke files. Navigation is done using the hardware keyboard left menu button (up/down) and choosing to play a karaoke file is done using the middle button of the left menu.

Regards, Liran Tal 