Installing Semplice

There are four levels of support for installing Semplice onto assorted Linux distros, as follows:

• Tier 1: Used by me daily, on real hardware, extensively tested, guaranteed to work
• Tier 2: Used by me infrequently, only in virtual machines, lightly tested, tested extensively in the past, things will almost certainly work
• Tier 3: Hardly ever used by me and then only in virtual machines. No testing done, unless specific issues are reported, but has worked in the past just fine, so things ought still to work, too
• Tier 4: Thought to work, and tested to work in the past, but you're really on your own.

Putting specific, named distros into each tier goes as follows:

• Tier 1: AlmaLinux 9 and 10; Raspberry Pi OS, Fedora, Linux Mint
• Tier 2: Debian, EndeavourOS, Ubuntu
• Tier 3: OpenSuse Leap & Tumbleweed, GeckoLinux, Arch, Manjaro, Garuda Linux, Devuan, Linux Mint Debian Edition, Peppermint OS, MX Linux, AntiX Linux, Pop! OS, Linux Lite, Zorin OS, Elementary OS, KDE Neon, Tuxedo OS, Nobara, Ultramarine
• Tier 4: Windows, Apple macOS

Every listed distro did run Semplice perfectly at some time in the past and, if the distro developers haven't messed around with core libraries too much, they should still work. However, only those distros in Tier 1 will receive extensive real-world testing from Version 2.12 and up. Other distros will receive either light-touch testing to make sure most things seem to work fine (Tier 2), or will only be tested on-demand by users reporting specific problems (Tier 3). I've provided some distro-specific notes and gotchas elsewhere.

Windows is a bit of a special case, because it probably runs Semplice just fine… but I have no means of knowing that for sure. Windows 10 reached end of Microsoft's official support back in October 2025, so all the hardware I have running Semplice on Windows 10 is now no longer representative of anything supported by the operating system's own manufacturer. Windows 11 is, of course, fully supported by Microsoft -but I literally have no hardware that is officially supported for running it. I can hack Windows 11 onto a bunch of spare hardware, but it will be an unsupported and unrepresentative platform. The principle, however, is that if you get Windows running the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) then you can install one of the supported distros on that (for example, Ubuntu or Fedora) and Semplice will run perfectly well in that environment (except for CD ripping functionality, which requires direct access to the relevant hardware). So, it's not that Semplice won't run on Windows: it's just that I now expend zero development effort proving it does so. Any issues arising as you try to run it are therefore really yours to resolve. I will certainly offer advice and help if asked, but it will be merely on a 'best efforts' basis. In the meantime, I have written installation instructions for Windows 11 here.

Semplice from Version 2.12 and up does run on Apple macOS: I use Monterey on a 2015 iMac as a daily driver and so can confirm it works (apart from the CD ripping functionality). You also have to do quite a bit of installation work yourself ahead of time (such as installing Homebrew or Macports, a newer version of Bash and the wget utility): this stuff is taken care of automatically when running on Linux, but on Mac, you have to do it manually. Semplice on Apple remains a Tier 4 installation, however, with little or no support, because I don't know enough about macOS to be sure that my installation advice and techniques are in any way sensible. I also don't own Apple Silicon iMacs or Mac Minis: my Apple hardware is all second-hand and as old as the hills, resolutely using Intel CPUs: who knows if my installation process even begins to work on Apple Silicon? Without any appropriate hardware to hand (and no prospect of getting it any time soon), it would be foolish to say I can meaningfully support that platform. I certainly know it works for real with my particular setup, which I've happily documented, but as a Tier 4 platform, it's very much: give it a go and see how you get on.

Semplice definitely does not work on the Solus Linux distro.

The basic installation procedure for any supported operating system is, in a new terminal session:

wget software.bbritten.com/seminst

The installer is small (around 20KB) , so it will take hardly any time to download it. Once the installer has been downloaded, you launch it in the same folder you saved it to, with the command:

bash seminst

You will first see a screen warning you that the installer will make quite a few changes to your system, if you let it:

You need to type 'y' (and then press [Enter]) to proceed. If you type anything else, the installer will terminate without having touched your system at all.

To start with, the Semplice installer will check for the presence of various packages on your system and will seek to install any that it finds to be missing. You can usually just let it do it's thing at this point, but if you are interested, here are the packages/programs that Semplice deems essential to install:

• ImageMagick (an image processing program)
• fd or fd-find, depending on distro (a file searching program)
• ncurses (enables display of forms in a terminal)
• coreutils
• build-essential or distro-equivalent (enables the compilation of software sources)
• cuetools
• bc (program allowing Bash to perform non-integer arithmetic)
• flac (the library that allows FLAC audio files to be read and understood)
• ffmpeg (an audio player)
• xclip (a little utility allowing command line management of the clipboard)
• curl (a command line tool for fetching files across the Internet)
• xterm (a terminal emulator or console window)
• dialog (a program allowing the creation and display of user input forms for the terminal)
• cmake (a program allowing source code to be compiled)
• python and python-devel (libraries necessary for audiotools program to be compiled from source)
• git (a tool allowing sacd and audiotools software sources to be downloaded)
• sacd

Audiotools is needed to allow Semplice's CD ripping utility to compare your rips with those previously done of the same CD by others, using the AccurateRip database. If your rip agrees with theirs, chances are it's 'good'. If it doesn't, maybe you're using a different pressing or mastering, or maybe your CD contains errors. The sacd package is installed to give Semplice the ability to convert the ISOs ripped from SACDs to more usable audio formats (such as FLAC). Both audiotools and sacd have to be compiled from their source code, which is why the Semplice installer also installs the build-essential packages (or their distro equivalents), which includes tools such as glibc, make and other packages needed to compile software.

If having any of this software installed on your system gives you cause for concern, type 'n' when the installer prompts you and give up on the idea of installing Semplice altogether: the program cannot run without all of them being present, I'm afraid.

Once Semplice is installed, you can launch it by (a) clicking on the launcher provided on the Desktop (some distros require you to 'trust' or 'mark as executable' the launcher before it will work); or (b) clicking the option provided somewhere in the main menu, which is usually to be found under 'Multimedia' or (depending on distro) 'Sounds & Video'. The main program display should then appear:

Operation of the program beyond this point is hopefully self-explanatory, with the 'top menu' giving access to each of the four main functional components of Semplice in turn: Tagging contains all the functionality that allows you to mark up your FLACs with metadata tags and cover art; Audio Processing lets you convert FLACs to MP3s, or OGGs to WAVs, amongst other things. It also allows you to increase the volume of ripped recordings, if they can be volume-boosted without introducing distortion; the SuperFLAC menu lets you merge individual FLACs into single-file, whole-composition FLACs… and to reverse that process should you want to do so; and the Ripping menu contains options that allow you to accurately rip music from standard audio CDs or SACDs.

The Miscellaneous menu contains options for general 'housekeeping': configuration parameters that controls the way Semplice behaves when performing any of its four major pieces of functionality. It's also the menu that contains an option to check for, and to apply, any program updates that I might release in the future… so, it's something you should be using fairly regularly!

In all cases, top-bar menu options can be accessed by right- or left-arrow keys (the menu wraps, so a right-arrow from Quit takes you back to Tagging, for example), or by tapping the first letter of the menu name (so tapping 'T' gets you directly to Tagging, 'R' to Ripping and so on). Once a top-bar menu option has been selected, the numbered menu items within that option will be displayed and can be invoked simply by tapping the number associated with the item. Thus tapping 'T', then '4', will invoke the FLAC renumbering menu item; 'R' then '2' will let you choose which CD device you want to use when ripping an audio CD, and so on.

A handful of options are accessible regardless of which top-bar menu is selected: they are accessible at any time by tapping the letter associated with them (these options are listed on the right-hand side of the main program display area). Thus tapping 'F' will open your operating system's default file manager; tapping 'W' will bring up a folder selection dialog so that you can select a particular folder to set as the program's current 'working folder', and so on. Important options to learn and remember are 'K' to invoke the metadata tag cleaning routine and 'X' to quit the program without further modifying any FLAC files on the way out.

Beyond that quick-start approach, however, you should read the relevant pages elsewhere in the user manual for an exploration (and explanation!) of the rest of the program's functionality,

Summarising things as compactly as I can, then:

1. Read your distro's specific installation notes, to see if there are any pre- or post-installation steps you'll need to take
2. Fully update your distro, so that it's using the latest packages and patches
3. wget doco.absolutelybaching.com/seminst
4. bash seminst
5. Consider deleting the original Semplice folder and executable once you are happy to use Semplice Version 2

I hope all your Semplice Version 2 installations work successfully and that you get up-and-running with the new program quickly and painlessly!

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