Amarok 1 vs Amarok 2

[dr.silly]

Personally I prefer Amarok 1's user interface over the ui in Amarok 2

[Skripka]

Amarok 1, at least it could play audio CDs.

[Sand & Mercury]

Amarok 2 is far inferior.

[TalioGladius]

I just upgraded to 2, so I can't say definitively yet. But I like it so far.

[sujoy]

amarok 1

the amarok 2 UI looks weird to me

[reyfer]

Amarok 1, at least it could play audio CDs.

I have no problems with that....and I love the new UI, so Amarok 2

[smartboyathome]

Where is the "I don't use Amarok" option. I don't use it, never have, so I wouldn't have an opinion on it. :P

[run1206]

i havne't tried amarok 2 yet, i still have amarok 1.4.10 so my vote's amarok 1 :lol:

[Rokurosv]

Amarok 1. I like Amarok 2's UI but it's far too bloated for me.

[Perfect Storm]

Amarok 2 - but there's still room for improvements.

[Trail]

Amarok2.

It's technically superior than amarok1. I currently don't really miss any features from amarok1 (replaygain is integrated on core amarok2 on svn, btw) (and moodbar is not really needed). It has some extra features that i really like (dynamic/biased playlists, musicexplorer script etc). Looks way better. What I still like from amarok1 is the ability to edit ratings/score etc through the excelsheet table thingy. But on amarok2.1 you'll be able to configure what information is the playlist displaying, so it'll cover me.

And did I mention a sane, organised, fast mysql?

[Johnsie]

Amorkal 2 by far.

[etnlIcarus]

Where is the "I don't use Amarok" option. I don't use it, never have, so I wouldn't have an opinion on it. :P

There's a secret way to vote, "I don't use Amarok"; you click on the, "Close Tab", button.


OT, I dislike applications which expect me to run them maximised and are flippant about space conservation so 1.x wins there, alone.

[billgoldberg]

Amarok 2 is a lot beter than 1, but both are slow so I don't use them.

[billgoldberg]

There's a secret way to vote, "I don't use Amarok"; you click on the, "Close Tab", button.


OT, I dislike applications which expect me to run them maximised and are flippant about space conservation so 1.x wins there, alone.

Amarok 2 didn't have to be maximised on my pc.

[etnlIcarus]

Amarok 2 didn't have to be maximised on my pc.

It's called being dramatic. 2 wastes screen real estate.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Amarok 1, I dislike the new interface heavily, no equalizer in 2 just yet, plus no CD playback in 2 thanks to KDE 4.2's audio CD bug.

[Trail]

It's called being dramatic. 2 wastes screen real estate.

Wastes screen space? I only have amarok unminimized when I am editing the playlist. And when I'm editing the playlist, the maximized window is welcome. At all other times it's on system tray. No space wasted for me.

Besides, global shortcuts ftw.

[Skripka]

Amarok 1, I dislike the new interface heavily, no equalizer in 2 just yet, plus no CD playback in 2 thanks to KDE 4.2's audio CD bug.

Actually, it is a "feature" on the part of the Amarok devs. They "intended" to eliminate audio CD playback on Amarok2.



No, Amarok 2 does not currently play Audio CDs.

We developers don't find this an important feature, as it takes about 3 minutes to fully rip a CD to harddisk with modern software. And this gives you so many advantages, that it's just not worth messing with the CD media from the 80s.


PS: Technically, playing an Audio CD with modern computers is the same thing as ripping. Just that you're not saving the ripped data to your harddisk.

Posted by:
Mark Kretschmann, Amarok Developer


In Arch, KsCD will play audio CDs fine-but KDE by design does not mount audio CDs anymore.

[pluviosity]

My main gripe with Amarok 2 is that I don't like the "two lines of text per song" list style. The one line style in Amarok 1 lets you see more songs in the list, and it's easier to glance down the list without having to think about two different info fields at once. The same thing happened to Kmail, so I am now using Gmail. So Amarok 1 for me :)

[etnlIcarus]

Wastes screen space? I only have amarok unminimized when I am editing the playlist. And when I'm editing the playlist, the maximized window is welcome. At all other times it's on system tray. No space wasted for me.

Besides, global shortcuts ftw.

I don't like minimising windows. I like to have everything onscreen - just not obstructing my view of everything else. I used to be able to get 1.4.x down to reasonable size. Never quite as petite as XMMS or Consonance but still reasonable. Actually just gave Consonance another shot tonight. Rather impressed by how efficient it is:

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4063/screenshotejg.th.png (http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/4063/screenshotejg.png)

If Consonance had Amarok 2's Back/Play/Stop/Next buttons alone, I wouldn't be able to see my playlist.

[vishzilla]

Amarok 2. Its still in nascent stage, there is room for improvement. I find it a little buggy. Eventually the bugs should be ironed out.

[domino1241]

Amarok 1

I love feature-full KDE apps, like KTorrent, Okular, KSnapshot, etc, but seriously, do I need to add/remove widgets to my center panel in Amarok? Absolutely not. I enjoy being able to personalize the UI, but I do not need it to be a smudgeable palette of clay that feels like it's never in a final, usable form. I actually have a similar gripe with KDE4 (I'm using Fluxbox now).

Also, Amarok 2 was buggy when I tried it, which I'm sure will iron out with time. Until it gets better, I'm happy with the old, two panel Amarok. I just wish somebody updated the Wikipedia section so it could read the new Wikipedia layouts...

[domino1241]

My main gripe with Amarok 2 is that I don't like the "two lines of text per song" list style. The one line style in Amarok 1 lets you see more songs in the list, and it's easier to glance down the list without having to think about two different info fields at once. The same thing happened to Kmail, so I am now using Gmail. So Amarok 1 for me :)

Pluviosity,

You should check out this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk2QxwkeGg8

Your problem with the "two lines of text per song" seems to be taken care of, and then some!

[3startuna]

I just switched to 9.04

Amarok 2 is annoying me, it runs smooth but I dont like how it looks, i miss the layout of amarok 1

[SunnyRabbiera]

Actually, it is a "feature" on the part of the Amarok devs. They "intended" to eliminate audio CD playback on Amarok2.

In Arch, KsCD will play audio CDs fine-but KDE by design does not mount audio CDs anymore.

That is just plain stupid, how does disabling audio CD's equal user friendly?
Isnt the goal to have a competing DE?
If Audio CD's are no longer supported in KDE4 then it really is inferior.

[tbroderick]

That is just plain stupid, how does disabling audio CD's equal user friendly?
Isnt the goal to have a competing DE?
If Audio CD's are no longer supported in KDE4 then it really is inferior.

Audio CDs aren't mounted in Linux. They are played/ripped without mounting.

The Device Notifier, in KDE 4.2 will handle it. It works similar to when a USB drive is plugged in. When an audio CD is loaded in the tray it will pop-up and notify the user. The user can then click the CD notification and it will launch a CD player like KsCD. When the user is done, they can eject the CD from the Device Notifier.

[gn2]

~ Actually just gave Consonance another shot tonight. Rather impressed by how efficient it is: ~

Never heard of Consonance until now, will definitely be giving it a try, thanks etnlIcarus :)

Amarok 2 does not meet my needs and is gone.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Audio CDs aren't mounted in Linux. They are played/ripped without mounting.

The Device Notifier, in KDE 4.2 will handle it. It works similar to when a USB drive is plugged in. When an audio CD is loaded in the tray it will pop-up and notify the user. The user can then click the CD notification and it will launch a CD player like KsCD. When the user is done, they can eject the CD from the Device Notifier.

In gnome audio CD's are mounted though, it comes up on my screen all the time when I pop in a CD

[3startuna]

They got rid of the shortcut keys!!!!!!!!!!

And it wont save ID3 tags wtf?

Ill edit it exit restart come back the ID3 tags arent what I changed them to.

This neew one is a step backwards big time

[Xbehave]

Not been a fan of the direction amarok was heading since they removed ctrl+m shortcut, fortunately kde4 is very powerful so im sure somebody (me eventually if need be) will bash out an amarok 1 clone :D

[monsterstack]

I voted for Amarok 1.4. Pics related. If Amarok 2 could do that, I would gladly start using it.

[Rhapsody]

Yeah, I'm afraid I have to vote for Amarok 1 myself. I was a big lover of Amarok 1, and Amarok 2 isn't matching up just yet. I've started using Amarok 2.0.2 here, and here's my current list of gripes:

Stop after this track and Queueing may be back, but they don't work properly. Queueing only labels tracks as queued about half of the time, while Stop after this track never labels tracks as being the one it's going to stop after, and fails to apply about 70% the time (which I never know about, because it never gives me any feedback even if it does apply!*). Either these are bugs or defects, but they're annoying whatever the explanation.

Ugly. 'Nuff said really, you can see from the screenshots earlier that Amarok 1 was neat and svelte. Amarok 2 has massive buttons, no visualizer, and a centre pane that is insistent about taking up 80% of the window space that could be much better spent on the playlist. It's everything people say is wrong with KDE.

The playlist itself. I thought I might not miss the Excel-style playlist, but I do, massively. Having all of the info right in front of me was the greatest thing Amarok 1 did, and losing it in Amarok 2 makes it no better than all of the other unremarkable audio players. It better back and working for Amarok 2.1 or I'm moving on.

Amarok 2 randomly decides certain tracks don't have any info any more. The tags are still there, but Amarok lists nothing for all info (including track length, bitrate, and samplerate, which is just ludicrous). How the hell can a bug like that still be in something that's not alpha or even beta software?

Even the tray icon is nerfed. At a glance, there's no indication if a track is playing or how far any track that is playing is along. Amarok 1 did both, and I want that functionality back now.

Playlist saving is nasty too. When I first went into 'My Playlists', I found a few dozen playlists already there. Exsqueeze me? This was a brand new install, where the hell did these come from? So I deleted all of them and created Background Noise III (to be the successor to Background Noise II, the prolific Amarok 1.4 mega-playlist), which seemed fine. Then I modify the playlist, and save a new one. But rather than asking me if I wanted to replace the old Background Noise III, it just saves a new copy under exactly the same name! So now I have two playlists, with the same name, and no idea how to tell which is which! ARGH!

Edit: Ah, I also forgot about another complaint. Some of my tracks are of Japanese origin, and still have kanji in the track titles because I can't be bothered editing them out. Amarok 1.4 displayed these correctly as kanji, Amarok 2 displays nothing by question marks in the place of the characters. I can't even see why Amarok 2 is doing this, and it seems like big flaw.

That's about it. I was saying when thinking about upgrading to KDE 4 that Amarok had better not be screwed-up, and it is. Amarok 2.1 may be better, but all of this talk about dynamic playlists and Replay Gain isn't making up for all of the problems above I have to deal with.

*Please note that as I type this, Stop after this track just failed to apply again. What the hell is going on?

[hg21]

I've switched back to 1.4.

If you want to, go to:-

http://nomad.ca/blog/2009/apr/3/amarok-14-jaunty-ubuntu-904/

[meho_r]

Amarok 1.4 was the best player ever. V.2 is miles away and I'm not sure if it'll ever catch up. It is sad to see how such a beautiful piece of software is being degraded :(

BTW, three part window is IMO the most stupid thing I've ever seen in any media player. Why should I have lyrics/album art etc. take the central part of the app? Really can't get it.

For now went to Exaile and Banshee, but also heavily testing may-be-the-winner, Listen Player. We'll see...

[gn2]

Anyone tried aTunes (http://www.atunes.org/) yet?

[JoshRobertson92]

Personally I prefer Amarok 1's user interface over the ui in Amarok 2

I agree i feel the developers have tried to hard on this one..

[Xbehave]

Amarok 1.4 was the best player ever. V.2 is miles away and I'm not sure if it'll ever catch up. It is sad to see how such a beautiful piece of software is being degraded :(It a shame because with kde4 they could easily catch up but it seams they don't want too!

[meho_r]

Anyone tried aTunes (http://www.atunes.org/) yet?

I kinda like it, though I'm not sure if I'll use it as main player. It's too much javaish :) Not to mention that it took almost 200MB of RAM. Even Songbird doesn't take that much.

[Trail]

I voted for Amarok 1.4. Pics related. If Amarok 2 could do that, I would gladly start using it.

It can do that.

Edit:

*Please note that as I type this, Stop after this track just failed to apply again. What the hell is going on?

Most likely, you're using an old version. It works for me, the tray icon also shows state/time played since quite a while ago, and you can configure the playlist to show any fields you like since the beta1, spread-sheet style.

[jonathanysp]

1st post!

i used to prefer amarok 1 over 2 but after i updated to amarok 2.1 things seems to get a little better...

[Screwdriver0815]

where is the Rhythmbox-option?

I don't get the point.. all the time I see such an Hype around Amarok.

The truth is: speaking for Amarok 2, its useless.

Rhythmbox is far beyond Amarok 2. It has a more useful UI, can rip CDs, has the much better organisation of the playlists, manages internet radio and live streams... and so on.

Amarok can manage the playlist... but only half of it. Amarok can do internet radio and live streams... but only half of them... Amarok can't rip CDs... using Amarok is annoying because all the options are either hidden somewhere or not present.
In Rhythmbox, everything is on its place where it should be and the user knows intuitively where all the options are.

in my eyes, my honest opinion Amarok 2 is a piece of crap. Feels like a windows app.

Rhythmbox is the only Gnome app I miss with KDE.

[tomcheng76]

definitely Amarok 1 :p

because my Jaunty is still using Amarok 2.02...and the interface is weird...](*,)

1. The Middle Applet places is suck, my screen resolution is 1024x768...it just block me and preventing me to see the details in the playlist...

2. Current Track Info 's icons is ugly, i don't need any rating, and the most important thing is that i can't remove this applet, it just shows up again and again if i restart amarok.

3. Searching in collection is weird and i cannot find my recently imported song or any sorting criteria (sort by date), but i found something similar in the damn applet places.

I didn't try Amarok 2.1, can someone post a PPA repo for that? :)

The worst thing in Jaunty is Amarok 2.0, Upgrading Ubuntu to 9.04 and i have no regret but i miss Amarok 1.

[Falcorian]

Currently upgrading to 2.1. In 2.0ish I didn't see the option to do [(Artist == A OR Arist == B) AND (Rating == 5)] playlists like in 1.4... That's the key feature I'm missing at this point. :(

[meho_r]

Currently upgrading to 2.1. In 2.0ish I didn't see the option to do [(Artist == A OR Arist == B) AND (Rating == 5)] playlists like in 1.4... That's the key feature I'm missing at this point. :(

Make a backup of your music collection just to be sure. I had (and I have again) strange issues (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7424085#post7424085) with Amarok collection that even moves files from one folder to another. I'm not sure if its Amarok or mysql issue, but for me, Amarok is totally useless in this shape. Will wait for next version before try it again. Too bad :(

[Tipped OuT]

I'm going to have to say Amarok 2, because I've never used Amarok 1 before and I'm used to Amarok 2's UI.


Where is the "I don't use Amarok" option. I don't use it, never have, so I wouldn't have an opinion on it. :P

If you don't use Amarok, then why are you on this thread? Exactly.


where is the Rhythmbox-option?

I don't get the point.. all the time I see such an Hype around Amarok.

The truth is: speaking for Amarok 2, its useless.

Rhythmbox is far beyond Amarok 2. It has a more useful UI, can rip CDs, has the much better organisation of the playlists, manages internet radio and live streams... and so on.

Amarok can manage the playlist... but only half of it. Amarok can do internet radio and live streams... but only half of them... Amarok can't rip CDs... using Amarok is annoying because all the options are either hidden somewhere or not present.
In Rhythmbox, everything is on its place where it should be and the user knows intuitively where all the options are.

in my eyes, my honest opinion Amarok 2 is a piece of crap. Feels like a windows app.

Rhythmbox is the only Gnome app I miss with KDE.

This is not a "Rhythmbox vs Amarok" thread, stick to the subject, please.

[Falcorian]

Make a backup of your music collection just to be sure. I had (and I have again) strange issues (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7424085#post7424085) with Amarok collection that even moves files from one folder to another. I'm not sure if its Amarok or mysql issue, but for me, Amarok is totally useless in this shape. Will wait for next version before try it again. Too bad :(
Good advice! I have my ~ mirroring nightly, so when I downgraded from 2.1 (it was glitchy for me) back to 2.0.2 I was ok, even though somewhere in there my library got eaten. :-/

[Sammyf]

Amarok 1, definitely. I was using a mySQL Server, so it was fast, the UI was ugly but very well thought of, and, most importantly, creating playlists, especially dynamic ones was easy and powerful.
Sure, they added the fuzzy and proportional dynamic playlist, and they are neat, but 90% of the options you had in 1.4 are gone. Searching for files in a specific directory? not possible. You want a playlist with a genre in which the string "electro" appears, but want to exclude some artists? sorry .. that's gone too. You want a playlist with 150 tracks? ahh .. Well .. no options for choosing the amount of tracks which will be selected.
Additionally, at least for me, Amarok2.1 is slow when searching through the database.

Switched to Banshee, but I don't like the way it works. I just installed Exaile. it's apparently not as powerfull and user friendly as Amarok used to be, but it's still a whole world better than Amarok2.1.

That's all really sad, though. It's like the devs are reinventing the wheel, but they decided at some point that those curved bits were a bit too old-school.

[XyanKnight]

Hey, I am really annoyed by 2 and found an easy method to install 1.4

http://thedaneshproject.com/posts/install-amarok-14-on-ubuntu-904/

Just tried it and worked great. Before, I had been downloading the tarballs and doing it myself.

[arch0njw]

Hey, I am really annoyed by 2 and found an easy method to install 1.4

http://thedaneshproject.com/posts/install-amarok-14-on-ubuntu-904/

Just tried it and worked great. Before, I had been downloading the tarballs and doing it myself.

This is absolutely brilliant. I found it elsewhere. I'm sorry, Amarok Team, but Amarok 2 has a few distinct things that keep me from liking it:
1. lack of smart playlists
2. lack of equalizer

Now I just need to figure out how to at least make the colors of KDE3 apps match my KDE4 apps; maybe, just maybe, there is even a way to get the icons to match or update.

I'm just glad to have Amarok 1.4 back AND a copy that plays m4a files.

AWESOME!

[koleoptero]

I won't vote, I really don't know what I prefer...

Amarok 1.4 was amazing, it worked like a charm, fast, full of the features I want...

Amarok 2 has a much improved interface IMHO but still lacks some of the features 1.4 had.

So I won't vote for any of them. ATM Amarok 1.4 is better but in time Amarok 2 will improve.

[buzzmandt]

amarok 2 sucks so bad I don't even use it anymore, use to be the only thing I'd even think about using for music. now it's minirok or banshee

[mcallenSchmee]

I went back to Amarok 1 because of the way it handles mtp music players. Amarok 2 doesn't have a way to transfer the album art to tracks on an mtp device.

[arch0njw]

I won't vote, I really don't know what I prefer...

Amarok 1.4 was amazing, it worked like a charm, fast, full of the features I want...

Amarok 2 has a much improved interface IMHO but still lacks some of the features 1.4 had.

So I won't vote for any of them. ATM Amarok 1.4 is better but in time Amarok 2 will improve.

I am sincerely hoping Amarok 2 outshines Amarok 1.4 quite soon. I don't really like "hack workarounds" to get back the features that make the software useful to me. 2 has a great interface, and some good ideas shining through; it still has a few more steps to go before then.

[Firestem4]

Never tried Amarok 1.x. However I do genuinely like Amarok 2.

[arch0njw]

Never tried Amarok 1.x. However I do genuinely like Amarok 2.

I think if I hadn't gotten used to some features in '1 I would have taken to '2 pretty quickly. The absence of an equaliser has a reason and can be overlooked in the short term.

I'm looking for a way to have both installed so I can keep trying it out.

[donuthater]

I like Amarok 2 but I preferred the UI in one. If there were an option so you change the UI back to the way it was in 1 I would have no complaints.

[chadwick359]

I feel the same way about Amarok 2 as i do about KDE4 on the whole. I want to like it so bad, but it's still so unfinished that it makkes my head hurt.

E: Also, I miss my detached player window.

[Leed]

Can't mount my ipod-touch with amarok 2, worked great in 1, makes me very annoyed because I use the device as music player in my living room.

Amarok 1 was full of usefull features, amarok 2 doesn't let you do anything, looks like you're using media player, just total crap. They thought they are making things easier by automating everything, but they underestimated the power they're own player had in it's previous version, also they forgot why most people used amarok 1.... simply because you can do so much with it.

[bgreenaway]

Amarok 2 is a huge steaming pile of cack. Will stick to Amarok 1.4.10 (which I love) until there is a dramatic improvement.

[doorknob60]

I like Amarok 1 better. It just worked better for me. But this same thing happened with KDE 4.0. I thought it was terrible at first, and then after I gave it time to mature and develop I fell in love with it.

[Trail]

By the way, you can unlock the layout, and edit the playlist columns.

[khelben1979]

I have Amarok (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amarok_(software)) 1.4.10 in my system. I have never tried Amarok 2.

[starcraft.man]

I just had to add my 2 cents on this. I've been recently investigating KDE apps, I'm happy with KDE 4.2, and I'll likely switch upon 4.3 release. Anyway, I was simply expecting something along the lines of 1.4 (haven't used 2 at all before today, though saw pics). Was my mind ever BLOWN!

To be blunt, Amarok 2 is a terrible GUI for a media player, worst I've used to date. It's like they're design philosophy was "how can we turn this into a horrible player" and then just went and did that. I know it's still in development, but these problems aren't bugs, it's their design philosophy. As I see it, if their philosophy is this broken, no GUI they produce with the mindset will be good. A few questions that came to my mind immediately:


Why no columns for quick sort (incidentally, renders ratings worthless)?
Why the giant context menu in the middle?
Why does the context menu need a lyrics section, when the current track one has the lyrics at the bottom?
Why do I have to go through playlist > Random/Repeat instead of just on the GUI (like every other player)?


I'd also like to add, I'm NOT opposed to drastic change. As a long time MS office user, I got used to the new Office UI (Ribbon) and think it's nice (even though I griped for a long while about it) this isn't the case with Amarok.

Also, I was also reading reddit at the time I was looking at 2 and came across this article. (http://briancarper.net/blog/songbird-vs-amarok-how-not-to-design-a-gui) I think it pretty much points out all the flaws, Amarok devs need to pay attention.

I'm still likely to switch to KDE 4.3, I won't be using Amarok 2 though. At present, I'm divided between Amarok 1.4, songbird and Exaile (though it's GTK, kinda a problem, it is however my current one).

That's it.

[tonique]

I voted for 1.4. I upgraded recently to Jaunty, and got 2.1. The upsides in 2.1 are built-in replaygain and... er... I don't quite know what else. The general light grey appearance and the big play buttons became annoying in four days.

So I went back to the trusty 1.4.

[unelement]

I'll never use A2, for the simple reason they took off some of the features I used everyday, like smart playlists to feed (synchronize) ipods.

I believe new versions should improve or add functionalities, no cut-off useful ones. A2 is a different program, shoud've started with a new name and keept the amarok one for the real amarok (1x).

[arch0njw]

I have given in and started using A2. I am getting used to it. There are definitely features missing, and I agree that a step backwards like that is not good. It would have been better if they had permitted amarok1 and amarok2 to live next to each other until amarok2 feature parity and user-happiness had been addressed.

[ssri]

I tried living with amarok 2.3.x for the past two months. I wanted to keep my kde setup pretty pure with only kde4 libs and qt4. For handling a small local collection on my laptop it is fine, as setting up dynamic playlists is all that I need--even if its controls are cumbersome and non-intuitive.

However, all was not well when trying to use amarok 2.3.1 as a music manager for my collection housed in an external drive. The return of smartplaylists convinced me to try using the new version to control my collection on an external drive, something version 1.4.10 handled flawlessly. Problems abounded. For thing, the collection is deleted when accidently starting amarok without the external drive mounted. This is stupid, as I have to rescan the entire collection; amarok 1.4.10, on the other hand, waited patiently until I mounted the drive and it continued functioning without any fuss.

Secondly, the smartplaylist feature is a failure on two counts: 1) the blank slate presented to the user in 2.3.1 versus the simple but informative layout seen in 1.4.10; 2) 30 track limit (wtf?). I can easily load 10 to 4,000 tracks using the smartplaylist feature in 1.4.10. I wouldn't be so harsh on the devs if this was their first stab at the feature, but they had a beautiful framework previous and simply, or not so simply, port those features to qt4. Instead, they went ahead and reinvented the wheel.

Third, for some strange reason the startup times for amarok 2.3.1 are noticeably longer than in 2.3.0, even after deleting ~/.kde4/share/apps/amarok.

Sorry, but I broke down and re-installed amarok 1.4.10 and wondered what the hell was I thinking by staying with amarok 2.3.x for that long. After recompiling xine's libraries, I can play most of what I throw at it (mp4, tracker modules, etc). Maybe when it is at 2.4.10, I'll consider trying it again.

[kung fu buntu]

@ssri
How did you install 1.4.10 on your computer?

Anyway, I feel your pain in another way, but the end result is the same, amarok 2.3.1 still sucks big time.


But what I wanted to tell everyone is that there finally seems to exist a faithful replacement to amarok 1.4 for KDE4.
It seems good so far, but I just installed it 1 hour ago.

http://pana.bunnies.net/
http://pana.bunnies.net/
http://pana.bunnies.net/

I think this needs all the support (users, advertisement, coders) that it can get in order to live and prosper (including encouragement to the developer).
I've heard of other "clones" as well, like cuberok or clementine... but Pana seems to be the real thing :D


If you like Pana, I would suggest to add it to your signature:
http://pana.bunnies.net/ An Amarok 1.4 clone for KDE4.

[ssri]

@ssri
How did you install 1.4.10 on your computer?

I actually used Arch's User Repository (aur) to get the build script on my Arch machine (sorry), which automagically compiled amarok 1.4.10 on my system. Doing it this way allowed me to enable some of the features (ie mp4 support) that was missing (to my knowledge) in ubuntu's version. One can look at the build script and see what patches were used and which options were set for it to compile on newer userspaces and kernels.

As for *ubuntu, there's a ppa for it: https://launchpad.net/~bogdanb/+archive/amarok14


If you like Pana, I would suggest to add it to your signature:
http://pana.bunnies.net/ An Amarok 1.4 clone for KDE4.

I did install Pana and was quite impressed with it. However, some of the amarok scripts that I use wouldn't initialize unless I replaced every mention of amarokapp with pana (I think). I felt lazy at the time and just compiled amarok1.4.10 instead. Pana still uses kde3.5.10 libs, so to call it an amarok1.4 clone for kde4 is somewhat inaccurate, as I would rather call it a fork. Clementine is an amarok1.4 clone for kde4, but it is still in its infancy and has yet to implement many of the features found in amarok1.4 and pana. Still, I'm glad to see amarok1.4's progenies being actively developed after amarok2's continued disappointment. :)

[Legendary_Bibo]

I use rythmbox because it was there and works with all my music and I like the store thing.

[45acp]

Amarok 1. Amarok 2 would not scan my music library correctly and sound quality of rhythmbox while playing the other OS music format was not very good on my system.

[Breambutt]

No contest, really. Switched to Exaile as soon as the horrid crap that is Amarok 2 became the default version in the repos. Clinging on to unsupported software isn't all that clever in the long run.

[ssri]

@ssri
How did you install 1.4.10 on your computer?

Here's the build script I used, as I just wanted to show you which flags I used to compile amarok1.4.10:

# Contributor: Juanma Hernández <juanmah@gmail.com>

pkgname=amarok1
_origname=amarok
pkgver=1.4.10
pkgrel=9
pkgdesc="amaroK - a media player for KDE - v1.4.10 xine engine with wikipedia patch (single package)"
arch=("i686" "x86_64")
url="http://amarok.kde.org"
license=('GPL')
depends=('xine-lib>=1.1.3' 'libmysqlclient>=5.0.45' 'postgresql-libs>=8.2.4' 'ruby' 'tunepimp>=0.5.3' 'kdelibs3>=3.5.7' 'libgpod>=0.6.0' 'libifp>=1.0.0.2' 'libnjb>=2.2.5' 'libvisual>=0.4.0' 'libmtp')
makedepends=('pkgconfig' 'kdelibs3' 'libmtp>=0.2.6.1' 'xine-lib>=1.1.8' 'sdl>=1.2.12')
#conflicts=('amarok')
provides=('amarok1')
install=amarok.install
source=("ftp://ftp.solnet.ch/mirror/KDE/stable/amarok/${pkgver}/src/${_origname}-${pkgver}.tar.bz2"
"amarok_addaspodcast.desktop"
"wikipedia.patch"
"libmtp.patch"
"gcc44.patch"
"amarok-1.4.10.coverfetcher.diff"
"ruby19_configure2.patch"
"ruby19_rstring.patch"
"gcc45.patch")
options=(!makeflags)

build() {
patch -Np0 -i $srcdir/wikipedia.patch || return 1
patch -Np0 -i $srcdir/libmtp.patch || return 1
patch -Np0 -i $srcdir/gcc44.patch || return 1
patch -Np0 -i $srcdir/amarok-1.4.10.coverfetcher.diff || return 1
patch -Np0 -i $srcdir/ruby19_configure2.patch || return 1
patch -Np0 -i $srcdir/ruby19_rstring.patch || return 1
patch -Np0 -i $srcdir/gcc45.patch || return 1

cd ${startdir}/src/${_origname}-${pkgver}
. /etc/profile.d/qt3.sh
. /etc/profile.d/kde3.sh

# prepare build
./configure --prefix=/opt/kde \
--with-gnu-ld \
--enable-mysql \
--enable-postgresql \
--with-mp4v2 \
--with-ifp \
--with-libnjb \
--with-libmtp \
--with-libgpod \
--without-arts \
--without-gstreamer \
--with-xine \
--without-nmm \
--without-mas \
--with-libvisual \
--disable-debug \
--enable-debug=no \
--without-xmms || return 1

# build
sed -i -e 's/konquisidebar//g' amarok/src/Makefile
make -j2 || return 1
make -j2 DESTDIR=${startdir}/pkg install || return 1

mkdir -p ${startdir}/pkg/opt/kde/share/apps/konqueror/servicemenus/
install -m644 ${startdir}/src/amarok_addaspodcast.desktop ${startdir}/pkg/opt/kde/share/apps/konqueror/servicemenus/
}
md5sums=('3bdbf26181bf5e5925f48968caba7ac2'
'7736a7e3e22b15818180df3cee7e4a79'
'a93eb0dad2078afa045a69f38256b369'
'02eb286127594b9427d27da7eb01f0de'
'cfa9310dec03c33048e5a067a0334266'
'f4e8754cde659342bdfd3fca36612bb5'
'e3c5201663052b4f346d5002a196421a'
'2a7ac1f359eb3cdb8bf724c8be660295'
'c441d4711f2c0ffc28a4a0b9757d397b')


Here is the build script I used to compile xine to play mp4s and tracker modules:


# $Id: PKGBUILD 73317 2010-03-24 21:48:42Z eric $
# Maintainer: Eric Belanger <eric@archlinux.org>
# Contributor: Judd Vinet <jvinet@zeroflux.org>

pkgname=xine-lib
pkgver=1.1.18.1
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="A multimedia playback engine"
arch=('i686' 'x86_64')
url="http://www.xine-project.org"
license=('LGPL' 'GPL')
depends=('libgl' 'libxvmc' 'esound' 'flac' 'libvorbis' 'sdl' 'libmng' 'libtheora'
'libxcb' 'wavpack' 'ffmpeg' 'heimdal' 'faad2')
makedepends=('pkgconfig' 'libtool' 'imagemagick' 'smbclient' 'mesa' 'alsa-lib'
'vcdimager' 'jack')
optdepends=('imagemagick: for using the imagemagick plugin' 'smbclient: for using the smb plugin' \
'jack: for using the jack plugin' 'vcdimager: for using the vcd plugin')
options=('!libtool')
source=(http://downloads.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/xine/${pkgname}-${pkgver}.tar.bz2
xine-lib-1.1.1-configure-no-mcpu-march.patch)
md5sums=('3efad551f2f8a9c5734855a6639694ef' '9776df4eb54d2f1f68d8268adbc3b5c2')
sha1sums=('783232b6d6e23850a7ac97bf53b2a8bc2e74327 0' '121a8358d7919b2e51067412373f52848290338a')

build() {
cd "${srcdir}/${pkgname}-${pkgver}"
patch -p0 < ../xine-lib-1.1.1-configure-no-mcpu-march.patch || return 1

libtoolize --force --copy || return 1
aclocal -I m4 || return 1
autoconf || return 1
automake --add-missing || return 1

./configure --prefix=/usr --with-w32-path=/usr/lib/codecs \
--with-xv-path=/usr/lib --with-xxmc-path=/usr/lib --with-xvmc-path=/usr/lib \
--with-libflac --with-wavpack --with-xcb \
--without-arts --with-jack --without-speex \
--disable-gnomevfs --without-pulseaudio --disable-aalib \
--with-external-ffmpeg || return 1
make || return 1
make DESTDIR="${pkgdir}" install || return 1
}

[fryem720]

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was limited to machines running MS Windows for a couple of years. When I came back and saw what they had done with my beloved amarok, I almost cried.

Amarok 2 is an unmitigated piece of crap. 1.4 looked great, felt great, sounded great and functioned great. Apparently, someone decided that everything I loved about amarok wasn't worth keeping and decided to start from scratch.

The developers should be barred from even calling this amarok anymore. It seems that the bait-and-switch tactic lives on.

[Nick Brohman]

Amarok14 for me, I found the new one to very underwhelming

[Nick Brohman]

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I was limited to machines running MS Windows for a couple of years. When I came back and saw what they had done with my beloved amarok, I almost cried.

Amarok 2 is an unmitigated piece of crap. 1.4 looked great, felt great, sounded great and functioned great. Apparently, someone decided that everything I loved about amarok wasn't worth keeping and decided to start from scratch.

The developers should be barred from even calling this amarok anymore. It seems that the bait-and-switch tactic lives on.

Amarok14 is available, just trawl this forum and you'll find 2 or 3 variations.

I'm listening to Amarok14 now, it's only been on the laptop for 5months, from a PPA.

[axeae]

Amarok 2 is complete garbage compared to Amarok 1. Amarok 1 is absolutely better.

[DeadSuperHero]

I actually quite love Amarok 2. It's not perfect, but it suits my needs just fine. :)

[murderslastcrow]

Um, this is a forum of Gnome users. I wouldn't trust their opinion on a KDE-centric program. (OH SNAP!)

But seriously now, all the noobs to Linux who see Amarok 2 are hypnotized by how beautiful it is, and how simple it feels. The same people look at Amarok 1 and feel sick.

I think the people here have much different reasons to like one or the other than a new user does. New users are the majority of users, these days. In my experience, I found Amarok 2 extremely functional, feature-filled, and easy to use, as well as beautiful.

I never used Amarok 1, but I really don't like it all in comparison. And I'd like to think it goes beyond some preliminary bias, since I just use what I naturally feel more inclined for. I don't use one program for months before trying its alternatives- I use them all next to each other and see what they do well and don't do well.

Amarok 2 is just easier for me to use, and does the same stuff as Amarok 1 with more elegance and visual interest. It emphasizes what you use the program for in its design.

[warfacegod]

@ murderslastcrow

It has been well over a year since the Amarok 2 series was released and it is still missing some major functionality that 1.4 had. They keep promising these things but in the end it always out in favor of what appears to be a near identical release to the previous 2 version.

And I wouldn't go all snapping! at us Gnome users. By that statement you are implying that there is some crucial difference between Gnome and KDE apps and there isn't. You're also implying, among other things, that our opinions don't count.

Have you gone to a KDE forum and read a similar thread/poll? I'd be interested to see the results of that.

[dentaku65]

Here my guide to compile Amarok 1.4 on Lucid (with paches)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1559002

[warfacegod]

Awesome. I've been pounding head on the wall trying to get it compiled properly in Lucid.

[Nick Brohman]

Awesome. I've been pounding head on the wall trying to get it compiled properly in Lucid.

Hear, hear!

I haven't been poundin' m' head but I thank you...bogdanb PPA has been working for me in Lucid...but is missing a couple of things for me...

Thank you very much....:guitar:

[ticopelp]

Amarok 2 was a huge disappointment for me. And 1.4 is getting harder and harder to install; when I switched to Lucid I had to go hunting for some library and jump through hoops to get it installed... I expect in another couple of distros it'll probably be impossible to get working. I don't know what I'll do then, because Rhythmbox and Banshee aren't really to my liking either.

[bunburya]

I don't use KDE any more, but when I did I remember Amarok 1.4 having a much more intuitive UI than Amarok 2. But both are good IMO.

[DougieFresh4U]

Amarok 2 was a huge disappointment for me. And 1.4 is getting harder and harder to install; when I switched to Lucid I had to go hunting for some library and jump through hoops to get it installed... I expect in another couple of distros it'll probably be impossible to get working. I don't know what I'll do then, because Rhythmbox and Banshee aren't really to my liking either.

Agree with you on that.
I have 1.4 installed but all functions are not working correctly, lyrics tells me can not connect to server, covers are almost all the same cover for different artist, etc.
but I am still happy to have what is working.

[lee shore]

Where is the "I don't use Amarok" option. I don't use it, never have, so I wouldn't have an opinion on it.

:o Then why go out of your way to post in a thread that clearly does'nt concern you?

[warfacegod]

Agree with you on that.
I have 1.4 installed but all functions are not working correctly, lyrics tells me can not connect to server, covers are almost all the same cover for different artist, etc.
but I am still happy to have what is working.

Here's the script I use to get lyrics.

[warfacegod]

http://www.mediafire.com/Amarok

A .deb package for installing Amarok 1.4 into Lucid 32 bit. Courtesy of Leppie and warfacegod of Open Ubuntu Forums http://openubuntu.com

It won't install dependencies for some reason so that will need to be done separately.


sudo apt-get install libgpod-common libgpod-dev libgpod4 kdelibs4-dev libxine-dev libdbus-qt-1-dev libtag1-dev libsqlite3-dev libtunepimp-dev libmysqlclient15-dev libpq-dev libvisual-0.4-dev libsdl1.2-dev libifp-dev libxine1 libxine1-ffmpeg build-essential checkinstall

One of our members got the initial instruction set from, I believe, dentaku65's link.

[pieman711]

Sorry to drag up an old thread but I thought I'd chuck in my 2 cents worth (well 2 pence worth, I'm in England)
I like a lot of things about amarok 2, it took a while to play around with the looks (mainly to get it back to looking like amarok 1) but I'm quite happy with the layout and looks of it now.
I spent ages trying to get the moodbar function to work, thinking it was like the graphical equalizer of amarok1. It wasn't. It was a complete waste of time, if I'd known it was just an slightly more colourful tracker bar I really wouldn't have bothered!
The thing that really bugs me about the new one is the gnome-tray icon. In amarok 1.4 it did loads of things. You could chane the volume, restore amarok with just one click and hovering over it brought up info about the song, clicking both mouse buttons at once paused/played the song... oh and it changed depending on how far through the song you were. On amarok 2 it does basically nothing. Is there any way to bring back the functionality of amarok 1?
I like the look of amarok 2 (but that was after I spent ages getting it to look like a newer version of amarok 1) but I feel like it has been a step backwards from amarok 1. Hopefully they'll take everyone's comments on board and the next version will be somewhere between them both.
In the mean time I think I'll stick with it and see if I can get wowed by any new features rather than mess about trying to get amarok1 back.

--EDIT--
A little more fishing around on the internet and I've discovered that the new amarok tray icon is just a part of teh 'indicator applet' and not a stand alone icon in its own right. This is the same as the volume icon which works slightly differently than it did in old ubuntus (right clicking gave the option for muting where as now it doesn't) I've found that by putting the command gnome-volume-control-applet in the start up programs brings back the old volume control icon, rather than a less functional one (ie. one button option only) ran through 'indicator applet'. I think this may be why the amarok icon is no longer as functional. What I don't understand is why they can't have their own icon handling like they did in amarok 1.4? This would bring back all the wonderful options we had with the old panel icon.

[warfacegod]

Is there any way to bring back the functionality of amarok 1?

Yes. Use Amarok 1.4. :P


Hopefully they'll take everyone's comments on board and the next version will be somewhere between them both.

Unlikely. Somewhere on their page (can't find it now) they called Amarok 1.4 old and stale or something to that effect.

To be honest, I've given up on Amarok 1.4. It;s become too difficult to get it compiled correctly and I can't imagine it getting any easier with new Ubuntu releases. I'm using Guayadeque as a runner up to 1.4 and I've started experimenting with moc.

[Nick Brohman]

I have replaced Amarok14 with Clementine.....not quite as good as the old Amarok but just a lot easier to use than everything other player I've tried......

[koshari]

IMHO clemintine isnt far away,

if it gets dynamic playlists it will be a worthy successor to amarok14.

[warfacegod]

It needs a Context Browser but aside from that, it's damned fine.

[ssri]

It needs a Context Browser but aside from that, it's damned fine.
You might be pleasantly surprised if you compiled the latest git pull of Clementine. It now has really nice integration of last.fm (along with wikipedia and other services).

[warfacegod]

http://www.dwasifar.com/?p=1111

This method has worked for me in 5 different 32 and 64 bit installs of various Debian based OS's.

[SlugSlug]

Voted Amarok1 - BUT if it was not for Amarok2, I would never have tried mpd & gmpc [-o<
http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/gnome-music-player-client-gmpc-mpd-just.html

[arch0njw]

Voted Amarok1 - BUT if it was not for Amarok2, I would never have tried mpd & gmpc [-o<
http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/gnome-music-player-client-gmpc-mpd-just.html

HA! Same here. :D

[warfacegod]

I prefer MOC.