Table of Contents

Installing Semplice

1.0 Operating System Support

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

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

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.

Apple became a Tier 1 operating system when I decided at the end of January 2026 to invest in a brand new Apple Silicon iMac. It's now my principle desktop operating system and, as my daily driver, is going to be the platform on which I test things out most thoroughly. I also have access to a couple of old Apple iMacs (from 2015 and 2012) that use Intel CPUs and can only run modern versions of the operating system thanks to Open Core Legacy Patcher: their 'officially supported' operating systems end with Catalina and Monterey respectively. Accordingly, Semplice will be a Tier 1 supported application on only Catalina, Monterey and whatever OS version runs on a 2024 iMac (Tahoe, probably). All other OS versions will be Tier 4 support: definitely do-able and definitely done and documented: but you're essentially on your own.

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 definitely does not work on the Solus Linux distro.

2.0 Installation

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.

2.1 Software packages needed for Semplice to work

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:

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.

3.0 Getting Started, post-Install

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,

4.0 Conclusion

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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