Future of Media in Karmic

[kaivalagi]

please don't be one of those "I hate mono" people that scream microsoft technology but have no idea at all.

I won't be, don't get me wrong, I am a developer by trade and mostly write .net code professionally. I don't hate Microsoft, I don't love Linux....but I do like Linux a lot and wish I could find a decent development job working with Python, but in my neck of the woods that's not going to happen easily.

As much as I think mono is good for Linux, Python is more suited IMHO. There are more easily accessible libraries for Python and as such better plugin development is achievable by novice and expert.

Edit: just tried v.1.4.2 of Banshee, and it's okay...I prefer Rhythmbox
Banshee gripe: The app thinks it's a good idea to download all the cover art for all my music library in one go..all 7000+ mp3's of it. What's wrong with downloading as and when necessary

[glasen]

You likely already have a bunch of Banshee's deps installed - e.g. assorted gstreamer-foo packages

Which are also needed for Rhythmbox.

[Mazza558]

The mono argument doesn't really work any more, because (IIRC) F-spot also uses mono and that comes built-in anyway.

[olskar]

The mono argument doesn't really work any more, because (IIRC) F-spot also uses mono and that comes built-in anyway.

Tomboy also, I think?

[steeleyuk]

I too use Rhythmbox, I like the fact it is written in python. I have written python tools for it and like the dbus interface. For me it does the job right now.

If it is soon to be dead in the water I would like to see another python/gtk based player take over rather than one based on mono...what about further development of exaile?

Or maybe someone should right a feature rich front end for xmms2....xmms2 has enough plugins for everything you could want and is light on resources. It is easily developed against too...

Admittedly I want a music player rather than something that handles all media though. I prefer using alternative apps for video etc so just need a decent music player.

Rhythmbox is written in C. Some of the plugins might be in Python but the actual app itself is definitely C.

Exaile, Quod Libet and Listen (no longer regularly developed) are all written in Python and GTK.

I agree with you about the player just handling music though. Thats one thing that bothers me about Banshee, it breaks the UNIX way of do one thing and do it well. For me Totem handles all video, for others its VLC or Mplayer.

[Merk42]

What's Songbird written in? That player seems to have come a long way in a short time.

[fut21]

Exaile, Quod Libet and Listen (no longer regularly developed) are all written in Python and GTK.

Exaile are still in develoment:
http://www.exaile.org/
https://launchpad.net/~exaile-devel

[UbuWu]

Listen (no longer regularly developed)

Looking at the trac timeline, it seems that 0.6 will be released soon...

[steeleyuk]

Exaile are still in develoment:
http://www.exaile.org/
https://launchpad.net/~exaile-devel

I know Exaile is still in development, I never said it wasn't. I said Listen wasn't being regularly developed. Though there have been a few patches and updates recently which is good to know.

[kaivalagi]

Rhythmbox is written in C. Some of the plugins might be in Python but the actual app itself is definitely C.

Exaile, Quod Libet and Listen (no longer regularly developed) are all written in Python and GTK.

I agree with you about the player just handling music though. Thats one thing that bothers me about Banshee, it breaks the UNIX way of do one thing and do it well. For me Totem handles all video, for others its VLC or Mplayer.

Yeah you're right, I guess what I mean is Python friendly and python extendible. The point I am trying to make is that plugin development in python lends itself more to Linux with a large range of libraries available to do all sorts of stuff simply. Mono is okay but I don't think there is quite the library support found there...(maybe I'm wrong?)

I like exaile (not as much as rb), it's a player just for music and has quite a range of plugins. And it is written in Python

I spent some time using xmms2, the music daemon, and used esperanza (qt based ) for the front end. It was okay, good on resources etc. If only a really nice front end was created for that.

Voted to keep Rhythmbox, it works and I don't see any reason to ditch it...if it has to go I will probably use exaile.