What's your favorite music player?- Super Thread

[garnertr]

Greetings,

Just got off duty this morning and I thought, hey what is everyone's favorite music player? I'm still a newbie and I just found one program that I enjoy, easy setup and easy to use...

ZINF - http://www.zinf.org/

What is your fav?

[xequence]

I like ubuntus dafault, rythmbox ;) In KDE, amaroK is great.

[raublekick]

i use xmms. i should start using a library based app, i guess.

[matthewv]

I use amaroK, even in gnome. It sorts all my music files and looks great. The only complaint I have is that it can be a bit heavy on my meager system resources

[erikpiper]

XMMS all the way! Nice and simple

[Pathogenix]

I quite like Quod Libet, the only problem is that it takes anywhere up to half an hour to open on my networked laptop while it refreshes the library. I'm wondering why it isn't possible to just pickle the old library locally, but I can't be bothered to pick through the code :)

I used Amarok on the same laptop under Mandrake and found it unusably buggy. It would randomly decide to dump my entire library into the playlist, since that's around 15,000 tracks, the interface would just lock for the same half hour. Once it had finished playing the current track, it would skip to the first track in its new, huge playlist. I got sick and bloody tired of hearing the first track from !!!'s album.

I keep meaning to get Foobar 2000 working under Wine because, basically, it's the world's best music player. I forget how to set ALSA up though, and all my music is on an NTFS drive which might cause problems because Foobar does a lot of on-the-fly tag updating.

[LHZ]

amaroK. It's worth installing the KDE libs for if you like all-in-one players.

(And contrary to the poster above, I've never had any major bugs.)

[poptones]

Like the image viewer applications, I haven't found one of those "index all your stuff" applications that even worked, much less that worked well. It seems they are all designed for someone who has only at most a few hundred files.

I still use xmms for music because everything else insists on inserting gaps between all the songs. It reminds me of my youth trying to enjoy Dark Side Of The Moon on my 8-track player; us..us..us.. and them... them... them... and in the kah-thunk! end it's not what we would choose... to do...

[aysiu]

JuK--it's nice and lightweight (starts up quickly and is very responsive).

P.S. Does anyone mind if I tack a poll onto this thread?

[Wolki]

Muine. It has a clean interface and works well with how I listen to music. I can even add an album from the tray icon :)

As for non library-based players... hm... totem, because it's default, works well enough and I'm lazy. ^^;;

[majikstreet]

Beep-Media-Player and Rhythmbox

I am currently trying library based apps.

EDIT: Rhythmbox is quite nice on 512mb RAM!

[bored2k]

rhythmbox & beep media player.

[Sheinar]

Beep Media Player. While I've never been a fan of Winamp styled media players, I just feel more comfortable using it than the other music players I've tried.

[raublekick]

can someone give me the lowdown on the difference between beep and xmms? can beep use xmms plugins?

[aysiu]

I'm tacking on a poll to this.

[majikstreet]

I'm tacking on a poll to this.
/me wishes he could choose 2 options.

[Sykil]

Amarok, even though I use Rhythmbox.

[aysiu]

/me wishes he could choose 2 options. I didn't want to inflate the results--after all, the question is what your favorite music player, not just which ones you use (as you may use up to four or more, possibly).

[majikstreet]

I guess..... I just switched to rhythmbox now :)

[Samuel]

i like beep-media-player
its like xmms but a little cleaner, the fonts in the menus are nicer. i used winamp in windows and xmms in other linux distros so i guess i just feel more at home with it.
also i can always find a skin that goes well with whatever theme im currently using

[bionnaki]

beep media player is my favorite, so far.
although I am not 100% content with it - or any linux media player.
I used to use foobar in windows
and well
it's hard to use anything less.
seriously, foobar-for-linux (or a foobar style) player
needs to be written up.

[bored2k]

beep media player is my favorite, so far.
although I am not 100% content with it - or any linux media player.
I used to use foobar in windows
and well
it's hard to use anything less.
seriously, foobar-for-linux (or a foobar style) player
needs to be written up.
What's so great about foobar? I've heard a lot about it but when I tried it I thought it was crap.

[Pathogenix]

I used to use foobar in windows and well it's hard to use anything less.
seriously, foobar-for-linux (or a foobar style) player needs to be written up.


Aye... Foobar spoils you rotten. I keep intending to have a stab at it myself, but it's not a small project and my spare time is mostly between the hours of 9 pm and 1 am, with one ear out for a restless baby. If I could find enough fellow fans, maybe I'd give it a go.

Gnoobar anyone?

[pmj]

I tried to give Rythmbox chance but after giving it 30 hours to load all my music and it still claimed to be working on it I decided to kill it.

So instead I'm using Quod Libet. Despite what they say, having 15k files in your music library makes it really slow. It takes about 2 minutes to start, a simple search takes several seconds and switching view mode takes a long time as well. And the 15k files I have loaded is only half of my collection. I don't dare adding the rest.

Despite these problems I guess it's still my favorite player as it allows me to play my whole collection with shuffle on. I only wish there was an easy way to get every song by a certain artist, get everything of a certain genre or search for albums without switching view mode and do repeated searches.

[Pathogenix]

What's so great about foobar? I've heard a lot about it but when I tried it I thought it was crap.


What's so great about [linux/command line interfaces/programming]?

Once you're bitten by the bug, you're hooked permanently. It's fast, really fast. It sorts 15000+ tracks in a couple of seconds, by arbitrary criteria with a mini scripting language.

It allows me, via the foo_playlist_tree plugin to set up a tree view of dynamic folders - one for genre views, one for albums, one for compilations, one with enough tunes to fill a half-gig flash card chosen randomly from my favourites, one for single tracks I downloaded and want to store separately from the artist/album hierarchy etc etc.

It has superb support for the APEV2 tag format, so I can have multiple values for a tag and use my own arbitrary tags which I can display or filter on with the TAGZ scripting language.

I used it, for example, to archive those 15k tracks. I used an ARCHIVE tag with a CD number. I tagged 700Mb of files, used the built-in masstagger to move those files to a new folder, with a standardised directory/filename format, and burnt them.

If I want to know what CD a specific track is on, I search for it (also insanely fast) and check the archive number. When my son eats a CD, I recreate it straight out of Foobar.

Um... It's endlessly customisable, stripped down by default but open to bloat, and more powerful than you could possibly want. Check it out again... it's every bit as good as its adherents say.... but then I would say that, wouldn't I?

[bionnaki]

What's so great about foobar? I've heard a lot about it but when I tried it I thought it was crap.

in windows, it loaded instantly (as opposed to bloated winamp)
great & customizable interface
native support for every audio format
light on system resources
...and very customizable

definitely an audiophile geek player
the irony is foobar is one of the more "linux-like" apps
but yet there is nothing in linux like it.

[bionnaki]

Gnoobar anyone?

that would be amazing.
even something similiar to fb2k would be f'in great.
I guess it cannot be ported, correct?

[angrykeyboarder]

I'm surprised (as of this writing) that the microscopic-butt-ugly-circa-1997-GTK1-dated-but-strangely-popular XMMS wasn't #1.

I'll never understand why that app is so popular. There are any number of better choices.

[Wolki]

Warning: More Muine Fanboyisms following ^^;;



So instead I'm using Quod Libet. Despite what they say, having 15k files in your music library makes it really slow. It takes about 2 minutes to start, a simple search takes several seconds and switching view mode takes a long time as well. And the 15k files I have loaded is only half of my collection. I don't dare adding the rest.

My library is currently only 10k, but Muine loads very fast and imports the Library in a reasonable time. Have to finish tagging the rest soon to see if performance gets worse with a bigger library ^^;;

[/quote]Despite these problems I guess it's still my favorite player as it allows me to play my whole collection with shuffle on.[/quote]

Possible, but muine's shuffle works differently. Instead of playing a random song after each one, it shuffles the playlist once, then plays it in that order.


I only wish there was an easy way to get every song by a certain artist, get everything of a certain genre or search for albums without switching view mode and do repeated searches.

Not possible for genres since muine doesn't support that (no big deal for me since i'm too lazy to tag genres anyway), but the rest is quite easy. There's only two 'view modes', "Add Song" and "Add Album", each a dialog of its own. You have a text entry field that filters the list by artist and album (for add song) or artist, album and song (for add song). Filtering works instantly, or, with large collections in "add song", at least really fast.

It's rather low-featured though. The basic player only has things related to playing music. Some things (audioscrobbler, automated playlists, etc) can be added with plugins, though.
If you want more features, try amaroK. It's probably the most complete player in the world, and I enjoy that. But I find the different view modes quite distracting and somehow inefficient, I feel... playing music should be easy and require as little thought as possible.

[jeffreyvergara.NET]

aMarok here! I like it's feature similar to Window$ Media player

[bdash]

Since everyone was talking about Amarok, I gave it a try... I didn't mind to use a KDE application in Gnome because I managed to get a quite nice theme for KDE.

But aMarok's interface is too bloated for me, I spend more time to find the right window than to actually listen to my music :)

So I get back to Muine quickly. What is wonderful with Muine is that you actually forget that you're using an application for your music. It just feels natural and direct. The guy who designed the user interface of Muine is a genius.

[Pablo_Escobar]

I was a BMP user, but as I tested amaroK i felt in love with it. Pure genious, no Win app comes even close.
I lurve it :D (even when I'm running Gnome)

[Pathogenix]

that would be amazing.
even something similiar to fb2k would be f'in great.
I guess it cannot be ported, correct?

Correct, the core is closed source. Peter Wassisname has said he's not interested in opening it, mostly to avoid admin headaches I think, and he's not up for doing a straight port due to lack of time and necessity. Most of the plugins are GPL though. There's a constant mutter on the internet from Foobar fans who say they're going to do a port, but nothing ever happens.

Besides, the Foobar core is closely tied to Windows and all its manifold strangenesses. A clone is the best we can hope for.

[Arathorn]

I would love a foobar clone as well. After using it for ages on Windows I found out that no Linux player can replace it. The closest I get is Amarok.

[Quartus]

I would love a foobar clone as well. After using it for ages on Windows I found out that no Linux player can replace it. The closest I get is Amarok.
Same here.
Except for the fact that I'm still using foobar, with wine.
Works just perfect.

[LorenzoD]

Muine. It is almost perfect.

[Pathogenix]

Same here.
Except for the fact that I'm still using foobar, with wine.
Works just perfect.

I don't want to start another Foobar advocacy club, but have you got foo_ui_columns working?

[zenrox]

i chose xmms casue beep dont do dubble size

[Arathorn]

Same here.
Except for the fact that I'm still using foobar, with wine.
Works just perfect.
Wine doesn't work on AMD64 Ubuntu.:(

[.Danny]

Muine, been using it for a week now and love it. ;)

[MichaëlVD]

Amarok... at least until a public version of rhythmbox supports podcasts.

[bionnaki]

Same here.
Except for the fact that I'm still using foobar, with wine.
Works just perfect.

I have foobar on running on wine
but im not pleased.
I am unable to drag/drop music directories
into it.
this is how I like to play albums
instead of clicking "add directory"
and having to search for it...
just a personal preference.

[pickarooney]

I never found a decent one. I usually used xmms on previous distros, but it's just so ugly on Ubuntu that I'm giving beep a try. It seems a bit light on features (if someone made a beep-media-player-bells-and-whistles package that would be particularly nice).

I despise AmaroK. Everything about it is just so wrong! :D

[Denis]

I use Beep media player. It looks nicer than xmms. It's quite simple and it has all the features I desire.
But I am actually waiting for xmms 2, because I expect a great deal of that. Is anyone here experimenting with xmms 2 allready?

[Luggy]

I tried out amaroK a few weeks ago and I love it. It's not some nifty features like lyric search and album art. Granted that bloats it quite a bit and it takes some configin' to get set up properly but that didn't turn me off it.

[Jason-X]

Beep-Media-Player is what I'm sticking with. Nice and light on resources.:)

[TecnoVM64]

I used to have Beep Media Player since XMMS is really buggy, but then I tried amaroK and yeah, it's an amazing player, not even <insert an amazing windows music player here> can be any better, and almost everything can be done with the DCOP commands, and never got a crash and/or an error, It's the best one!. ;)

[bored2k]

Beep-Media-Player is what I'm sticking with. Nice and light on resources.:)
Actually, BMP is not as light as it looks and people think. Rhythmbox is lighter as well as XMMS and many others.

[xequence]

Actually, BMP is not as light as it looks and people think. Rhythmbox is lighter as well as XMMS and many others.

I havnt used beep, but rythmbox and xmms are quite light. I just wish rythmbox had ID3 tag editing. Other then that, its great.

Except for amaroK being heavier on resources (but still tons faster then iTunes), and the fact that for some odd reason sound doesent work in anything but gnome (it used to work though) amaroK is great.

[kjcon]

I like xmms. It's small, fast and isn't overloaded with features I have no use for.

[bom28]

Mine is gmusicbrowser (http://squentin.free.fr/gmusicbrowser/gmusicbrowser.html), the fastest for big collections, great mass-tagging dialog.
Doesn't yet have all the features of amarok, but much nicer to use IMHO.

[CodyJarrett]

Hey,

I know Amarok is the sh*t, but I've had a lot of problems with it in Gnome, so I'm on a lookout for an alternative.
So far Quod Libet looks best - didn't really like Rhythmbox all that much.

What's your favourite music manager/player? Maybe you can give me some good ideas?

thanx

[poofyhairguy]

Muine and Banshee

[xequence]

Foobar2000 :)

[Kimm]

Banshee rocks! :cool:

[majikstreet]

I've used rhythmbox, beep-media-player, and bmpX.. all nice :)

[fordfan753]

I like amar....oh, besides amaroK....hmm, is there anything else?
What problems have you had with GNOME and amaroK? I find that using MySQL for the collection backend and using SVN amaroK keeps me up to date, without getting any nasty crashes.

[Supermouse]

I like Rhytmbox, but I've listened very well of VNC...

[manfo]

Ok. I haven't still managed to get amaroK to work. My favourite by now is Quod Libet, but Rhythmbox is good as well.

Bye!
.m

[erikpiper]

Xmms!

Beep-media-player doesnt have doublesize :(

[bionnaki]

does Quod Libet support flac?

[CodyJarrett]

Well, Amarok crashes while searching my mp3s. Maybe it chokes on some tabs - dunno really.... I really would like it to run. Quod Libet is okay, but reeeeal ugly. Same goes for most other apps. Amarok looks great though. I like my managers with lots of bells and whistles.

I'm a n00b, so could you tell me how you got Amarok to work in Gnome - what is SVN (don't hit me)?

[piedamaro]

I love quodlibet! :)

[GrahamAdler]

I have tried a few. I have compiled Jplayer a Java based Winamp lookalike. It works. XMMS is good too. IMHO anyway...

[jrw6]

I use MPD (http://www.musicpd.org/), since it's a really nice idea to have your music player running as a daemon. This means that if you log out of X, then your music keeps on playing. It also means that you have a choice of clients to play your music. I use NCMPC (http://www.musicpd.org/ncmpc.shtml), since I like the text-based interface, but there are others available. There are web-based interfaces, and a GNOME interface for MPD too. Of course, there's an Last.FM (http://www.last.fm/index.php) plugin available, which is great for seeing what you've been playing recently, finding other interesting artists and generally getting nice statistics on what you've been playing.

[fordfan753]

Well, Amarok crashes while searching my mp3s. Maybe it chokes on some tabs - dunno really.... I really would like it to run. Quod Libet is okay, but reeeeal ugly. Same goes for most other apps. Amarok looks great though. I like my managers with lots of bells and whistles.

I'm a n00b, so could you tell me how you got Amarok to work in Gnome - what is SVN (don't hit me)?

SVN is subversion, it's the same sort of idea as CVS, I guess you could say that it's the bleeding edge, it's where all the new features appear before they make it into an upcoming release. I use these instructions: http://amarok.kde.org/amarokwiki/index.php/Installation_HowTo#From_Anonymous_SVN
but I also like to use mysql for the collection backend, it seems to make it faster and a lot more stable, there is more on the website about this. You'll have to install some stuff like kdelibs4-dev and the threaded qt libraries to get it to compile, and you'll need to get the latest version of taglib, since the version in the repositories wont cut it.

[super]

music players huh?

as i've said before, my priority when it come to media players is eye-candy. here are the ones that i've used and actually liked.

xmms-shell (http://directory.fsf.org/audio/ogg/xmms-shell.html) - i used the this back in the day when i was using fvwm a lot. the cool thing about xmms-shell is that it can be controlled from the command line. back then, using it with fvwm was just about the most eye-candy you could get because fvwm could control xmms-shell. basically you could use your desktop-environment to play and control your music. :cool: (here's what it can look like (http://www.chwombat.net/screenshots.php?g2_view=core%3ADownloadItem&g2_itemId=761), but mine never looked so nice. :razz: note xmms-shell controls bottom left and current song top left)


eclair (http://www3.get-e.org/EFL_User_Guide/English/_pages/3.1.html) - i used this with gnome. it's fast and light and pretty. and it automatically looks up album covers on the web. but it's not yet finished and it's hard to theme. (you can see what it looks like in the gnome deskshot in my sig.)

vlc w/ skins2 interface (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) - the media player i am currently using with e17. it's probably the slowest but it can look really nice. and i like the themability and the fact that it uses gtk2. but it seems to crash sometimes. (here is the skin i'm using (http://www.deviantart.com/view/25445166/).)

euphoria - the latest and greatest from the e17 team. i haven't tried it yet but getting it working will be my new project. it is really just a client for the xmms2 server but it is still very alpha. it looks nice don't it! (http://fs5.deviantart.com/i/2005/122/1/4/E17___Multipass_by_codito.jpg) :D

[Clazzy]

I adore Rhythmbox. It's simple, minimises into an icon (keeping it out the way), and isn't clogged with things like visualisations and online services. I only wish there was a Windows port.

[egon spengler]

Another vote for mpd. I've used quod, bmp, xmms, amarok (the only one I actually uninstalled) and really I always kept them hidden and controlled them with key bindings which I find to be a LOT quicker. I reallised I don't need a player with gui.

One problem I had with mpd is that in their quest to remain minimal the developers have chosen not to support tracknumber tags, I name all my files artist - track and so I had to write a small script to create numbered links. The side benefit of that is that now i can also burn mixtapes now without having to rename the files

[cptjaben]

hi, i'm somewhat new to ubuntu and i'm wondering what people think are the best programs for music players that would replace foobar2000 or itunes of windows. that is, they have support for a collection of music built into it, or even if you know of some other good music player that would be awesome as well.

Thanks

[PatrickMay16]

My favorite music player is Alsaplayer because it's very lightweight and loads quickly. However, you might like Rythmbox or Amarok.

[mjm115]

I am partial to amaroK.

[ComplexNumber]

My favorite music player is Alsaplayer because it's very lightweight and loads quickly. However, you might like Rythmbox or Amarok. mine is alsaplayer too. i'm not too bothered that it uses the gtk1 toolkit because it offers functionality that others don't without trying to do everything. i play bass guitar and need a way of slowing down the music (unfortunately, this also decreases the pitch...but thats the laws of physics for yer :D) so that i can hear a particular bass line section in a phrase where its too fast to hear the detail accurately. none of the others such as amorak, banshee, rhythbox, quod libet do.
i also like the fact that its lightweight, intuitive, and user friendly.

cptjaben
you may like to try amorak or banshee for your needs.

[wylfing]

Even though I use Gnome as my desktop, I still use AmaroK as my music player. I just think it's better than anything else out there -- the sound quality is top notch, it has loads of music-management features, and of course it looks fantastic. It has a high-qualiy solid-feeling polish to it that I like.

You should try out a bunch of players and see what you like, however:

Rhythmbox
Banshee
Quod Libet
Listen
XMMS

[rado_london]

I vote for xmms and iTunes.

[truthfatal]

ogg123 if I already have a playlist, or XMMS while I'm making a playlist.

[BoyOfDestiny]

Audacious (think winamp, but with more plugins out of the box)

http://audacious-media-player.org/Main_Page

[Stormy Eyes]

I recommend gmusicbrowser.

[FISHERMAN]

I prefer Rhythmbox(very easy to make the switch if you used iTunes on Win). But the best thing is to try them all and see which one is best for you.

[christhemonkey]

I second boyofdestiny with audacious, much better (imho) than bmp and xmms.



(although i did dpkg -i --force-all audacious.deb whilst installing it because im on breezy and could only find a .deb for dapper)

[guine]

Juk was my favorite back when I used suse but it hasnt been to happy in ubuntu. I now use xmms which I have been fairly happy with.

[graabein]

I like XMMS and Banshee but I'm open for suggestions. 8)

[mostwanted]

I'm a Muine lover.

http://muine-player.org/wiki/Main_Page

[mcduck]

MPD. It's fast, it's smooth, it's lightweight. And I can use it with CLI interface (ncmpc) or GTK2 interface (gmpc). And it plays music even when I log out or restart my machine. It has fastes database I've ever seen in a music player, it supports seamless playing of mp3 files (and crossfading, if you want)..

Most of the time I use it with ncmpc, even while in Gnome. It's just so easy and fast to use.. :)

I have also tried rhythmbox, beep, xmms, amarok, quod libet, listen, banshee and so many others that I can't even remember them all, but in the end I always find myself using MPD..

[aktiwers]

Nice post!

I have tried Muine and really like it. I wanted to try MPD too, but doesnt it have a UI?

EDIT:

Ahh got it working with gmpc now.. cool one thanks! :)

[DoktorSeven]

xmms, since nothing else seems to work well for me :/

[christhemonkey]

I think you'v just made a mpd convert McDuck.....
:D

[Sheinar]

Definately MPD. Audacious is nice and I keep it on my computer, but I mainly just keep it for my nephew.

[mcduck]

I think you'v just made a mpd convert McDuck.....
:D
Good for you :)

It doesn't display song lyrics or album covers, but it does all the important things so well that I'd feel like a bad person if I didn't tell other people about it...

Oh, I almost forgot: I like how I can leave it playing when I shut down my machine, and then it continues playing even before I get to log in.. (Besides, I like the idea that I have a demon living in my machine and playing music for me :twisted: )

[lazyd2]

Listen, amarok and rhythmbox are my favorites...

[Wolki]

I second (or third) Muine.If you like playing albums it's a dream, it's interface is really clean and uncluttered, and if you spiff it up with some extras like muine-shell it becomes really efficient to use.

[Mathias-K]

My recommendations would be:
Rhythmbox for Ubuntu
AmaroK for Kubuntu

[bonzodog]

After mulling around for a long while,trying to find a more recent update to Xmms, I tried MPD,but it was too much for me. Audacious wouldn't compile, (I reckon it was 64 bit specific, as make exited with a code error), neither would bmpx, bmp from the repos broke on my machine, so i tried Quod Libet. I haven't looked back. Quod Libet is simply brilliant, and does everything I need.

[christhemonkey]

ok i cant get mpd to work, and have managed to screw up my whole alsa configuration.
Ah well, looks like its time to do a dapper upgrade!

[the_tiger]

For me in gnome Listen and in KDE amarok .

[cptjaben]

sweet, Thanks for all the input

[khr1z]

Mine would be Rhythmbox because is similar to itunes.

[drfalkor]

beep-media-player, and XMMS :cool:

[TeeAhr1]

gmusicbrowser (http://squentin.free.fr/gmusicbrowser/gmusicbrowser.html)

[zenwhen]

Mpd

[RavenOfOdin]

Amarok, definitely.

[Stormy Eyes]

Amarok, definitely.

I used to like Amarok as well, until I reinstalled and decided to stick with straight GNOME for a while. I think I'll use Amarok again, and install MySQL to handle the collection DB.

[pulp]

People who like the functionality of mpd and the appearance of Rhythmbox might also like http://pympd.sourceforge.net/

[dugan]

Depending on the situation, either xmms (plays anything) with the Winamp 5 Classified (http://www.winamp.com/skins/details.php?id=143266) skin, Amarok (for podcasts and for large music collections), or MP3Blaster (linux.com special (http://applications.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/03/23/191237&tid=39) on mp3blaster).

[n3tfury]

foobar :(

[visions97]

Amarok. Best player ever :)

[biarritz]

:D my favourite is xmms with its to die for winamp skins.

[somuchfortheafter]

banshee anyone?

[Protostar]

Amarok. Best player ever :)


Agreed. I wish there was a Windows port. I'd definitely tell all my friends about it. Oh well, guess they're stuck w/ iTunes and WIMP.

[Onyros]

Agreed. I wish there was a Windows port. I'd definitely tell all my friends about it. Oh well, guess they're stuck w/ iTunes and WIMP.I love amaroK... but it gobbles, gobbles and then gobbles some more RAM.

My favourite music player, ever, without a shadow of a doubt, is foobar2000.
I swear it's the only thing I miss from using Windows.

I've managed to install it through WINE... but it's just not the same thing. I wish there was a convolver plugin for amaroK, as well... ;)

[woedend]

xmms
wish it had a gtk2 style.
and i dont understand why everyone says screw xmms use bmp, bmp is harder to navigate, rather featureless, and doesnt have as many plugins as far as I can tell.

[groggyboy]

amaroK.

tried others (rhythmbox, muine, banshee, listen, alsaplayer) but only xmms/bmp came close to achieving the total awesomeness of amaroK. it's great, even if it is a kde app.

i haven't tried it, but winamp 3 has a linux port. its still just in the alpha stage. check it out here (http://www.afterdawn.com/software/alternative_platforms/linux_software/winamp_for_linux.cfm) if you like being on the bleeding edge.

cheers, groggyboy

[RavenOfOdin]

Agreed. I wish there was a Windows port. I'd definitely tell all my friends about it. Oh well, guess they're stuck w/ iTunes and WIMP.

There IS an Amarok plugin for Winamp, but its cheesy and depends upon the Winamp playlist for functionality.

[Harold P]

amaroK's the best.

[Wallakoala]

definetly Banshee.

If you have an ipod...banshee is definetly the way to go. It syncs with the ipod better than any other linux program does.

But besides that it is a very nice music player, but since it is early in development it doesn't have a whole lot of features :(

[jazzgossen]

gmusicbrowser is quite good. My only gripe now is that there's no intuitive way to handle playlists or the queue. (Or maybe I've just missed it).

I mean, if I browse my library, I would like to be able to pick a few songs by a few different artists and put them in a playlist. But it seems that the player is more focused on filtering on a specific artist or on a certain word in the song title, etc.

[TeeAhr1]

gmusicbrowser is quite good. My only gripe now is that there's no intuitive way to handle playlists or the queue. (Or maybe I've just missed it).

I mean, if I browse my library, I would like to be able to pick a few songs by a few different artists and put them in a playlist. But it seems that the player is more focused on filtering on a specific artist or on a certain word in the song title, etc.
I don't use playlists (I just have my whole library in there all the time), but the queue is fantastic. Just right-click a song and "add to queue" (or something similar, I'm at work). If there are queued songs already, it'll put it at the end of the line. You can view the queue either as a seperate window or as a pane in the browser (see the view options in Preferences, I think the option is "Browser and Queue").

Does anyone know if there are keyboard shortcuts for gmusicbrowser? That is one thing I feel is lacking...

[Gustav]

I like Rhythmbox, I have no use for the extra features that comes with amarok or listen and I love the ITunes style library view.

[GarethMB]

ive not found anything i like as much as musik cube from windows.

So i use them all depending on how im feeling. Fancy looking at my housemates music: Rhythmbox. Want a nice, improving fast player: Listen. Don't want to gobble system resources: XMMS. Want to have the best overall experience but still have some annoying niggles: Amarok.

All in all NONE of the Linux media players ive come across have suited me perfectly.

I want:
-A fast music library. That keeps itself up to date and imports everything no questions asked.
-An EQ with Pre-amp (ive yet to find a gtk music player that incorporates these first two demands)
-If, album art is included then all album covers need to be fetched at once a la Amarok. Otherwise i don't want this feature.
-DAAP share, for when i fancy a change.
-A play list thats easy to clear and add stuff to by double click / enter.

-Not a resource hog

[jazzgossen]

I don't use playlists (I just have my whole library in there all the time), but the queue is fantastic. Just right-click a song and "add to queue" (or something similar, I'm at work). If there are queued songs already, it'll put it at the end of the line. You can view the queue either as a seperate window or as a pane in the browser (see the view options in Preferences, I think the option is "Browser and Queue").

Sure, queuing songs is nice. I just miss being able to shuffle the order of the queue. I like to select a bunch of songs to play from, and then play them in random order. Oh well, maybe in the next version...

[BoyOfDestiny]

xmms
wish it had a gtk2 style.
and i dont understand why everyone says screw xmms use bmp, bmp is harder to navigate, rather featureless, and doesnt have as many plugins as far as I can tell.

http://audacious-media-player.org/Main_Page

Audacious is what you want (I can no longer recommend beep since this came out)

Anyway, has plenty of plugins out of the box, wav, mp3, flac, ogg, etc. And esoteric plugins too (like adplug, spc/nsf/gym/etc, and supports uade too)

P.S. I modified a skin based on winamp3, not the default skin there =)

[ComplexNumber]

for those that are interested, there is a review of amorak 1.4 in this months Linux Format (issue 80, pp20), where they conclude:

Amorak epitomises the difference in design between KDE and Gnome. Its bloated with features that most people will never use, and its a shame this gets in the way of running on older hardware - our 650Mhz test machine ground to a halt with the latest release, and we think its gone too far.

Features 9/10
performance 5/10
Ease of use 6/10
Documentatioon 7/10

Rating 7/10

[Seaman]

After using bmp, bmpx, xmms, banshee, quod libet, rhytmbox and amarok, I find amarok to suit me best. Tough, untill recentley I used xmms and was quite happy with it.

[Orunitia]

amaroK - As long as your computer isn't too old, amarok is great. Though if your computer is that old you shouldn't be using KDE in the first place. :P

Second favorite is rhythmbox.

[GarethMB]

im using gmusicbrowser now.

Its quite nice, sometimes the windows can get a bit wrong sized but otherwise seems good.

[Loffe_]

I'm just wondering what media player all you people use.

I've used Listen for a while and like it. I also would like to try other ones and maybe find the perfect one :D

[Half-Left]

Banshee, cvs version is awesome.

[Lord Illidan]

AmaroK all the way!

[barbarian]

100% Amarok meet my requirements.

[eqisow]

AmaroK for music, Kaffeine for everything else, and MPlayer when nothing else will play the file.

[BitTorrentBuddha]

Totem for movies, Listen for music.

[ayoli]

Also listen for music, and VLC for videos, but i like mplayer too.
Last banshee looks great i have to test it someday.

[lazyd2]

Amarok(with kubuntu)
rhythmbox(with ubuntu)

But my favorite is amarok...

[mduran]

Amarok for Musica
Mplayer (from sources) for All videos

[yteh]

Amarok...regardless of whether I'm on my ubuntu or kubuntu machine

[FredB]

Audio : Rythmbox.

Video : depends. For crappy wmv = xine ; others : vlc + Mplayer

[Loffe_]

Banshee, cvs version is awesome.

Sorry, I forgot Banshee in the options

[Neo Ex]

amaroK for music and Kaffeine for videos.

[rai4shu2]

I use xine for all video, audacious for audio.

[Hairy_Palms]

for video i use VLC, for music ive fallen in love with listen , i used to swear blind that i hated library players till i found listen, and the lyrics function is immense, it meas i can sing along like a **** to the latest cheesey metal ive bought instead of humming :)
although i discovered exaile today im gonna give that a fair try.

[StormBlast]

ive fallen in love with listen , i used to swear blind that i hated library players till i found listenSame story... :) Listen for music, MPlayer for video. I can't find a reason for using xine - MPlayer can use win32 codecs if needed.
BTW, I recommend to check out Amarok-like player called Exaile, developed under GTK+. It's in beta-state right now but looks very interesting. Link: http://www.exaile.org/. Also check this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=159879

[taurus]

Xmms for audio because it's fast and simple (and boring too but I just want something to play my mp3s. Who cares about all those bells and whistles) and mplayer for all the videos.

[reyfer]

Amarok for music, VLC for everything else :D

[testube_babies]

Amarok and VLC...both in GNOME. No questions about it.

[reyfer]

By the way, how can I get this listen you are talking about? Just to try it

[Brachabre]

I hate rhythmbox! always have! grrr amarok for moi

[mlind]

I voted Rhythmbox because it works most of the time. I won't try amaroK again any
time soon, it ate my ipod's playlists and song count went down to magic number 255.
Sounds like a decent bug.

How does Listen compare to Rhythmbox ? Current version of RB is litlle too simple
for my needs, I just wish foobar2000 would have a linux version too..
One of the best players I've used.

(vlc for video media)

[StormBlast]

By the way, how can I get this listen you are talking about? Just to try itHere you can find debs: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=156547

[peebly]

hi

i use mplayer, cannot see it in the poll though.

[reyfer]

Here you can find debs: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=156547
thanks, trying it now, seems like a mix amarok/itunes to me at first, but seem s ok

[skymt]

I use Quod Libet for music, but it isn't in the poll. I'm currently downloading Listen, to see if I like it.

For video, I start with Totem (Xine engine), because of the superb user experience. If that doesn't work, I try MPlayer. Then I try VLC. If none of those work, the video must be broken.

[disturbed1]

Rhythmbox for music.

Out of all of the above listed, it's the only one to handle my somewhat large (6987 songs) music library that spans local, nfs, and cifs drivers. Also works with my hotkeys out of the box. The others either crash, use high resources, have issues with multiple mounted fs, or require the QT library which is forbidden on my systems ;)

Though Banshee was close, it just seems more like a Rhythmbox clone, than a stand alone app.

I used to use XMMS for quick previews and one song listens, but it has issues with some ogg id3v2 tags, so I use VLC for those.

VLC for video. It just works.

[Varth]

Quod Libet for music, because it has an insane amount of features. Rhythmbox is my second favorite and the one I usually use, since it recognizes the media keys on my keyboard, but Rhythmbox hasn't worked on my box since I installed Dapper.

VLC for video.

[Toontwnca]

audio=rythmbox
video=vlc

[robenroute]

Music: Quod Libet, definitely! (but like someone before me said: if foobar2000 were available under Linux (can't get it to run with wine....), I'd vote for fb2k)
Video: generally mplayer, and occasionally vlc

[dom02]

AmaroK is my favorite for music at the moment. Just started using it though but so far I love it.

[digimars]

What audio player (if any) supports audio books from audible?

[T313C0mun1s7]

What about Exaile!

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=159879 (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=159879)

:KSI now use this instead of Listen:KS

[jnev]

even though I use gnome... amarok FTW

[ekuliak]

Music - amaroK

Video - VLC or Kaffine (usually VLC)

[ayoli]

What about Exaile!

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=159879 (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=159879)

[/I]
yeah, it looks promising, i'll try this one :)

[ericesque]

I'm looking for your favorite music app and why you use it over the runner up. Also, what plugins do you use with your fav?

[raffytaffy]

If by music app u mean a media player..then id have to say XMMS. I was a Amarok user for a long time ( under gnome) but i switched to xmms..i dont really have a reason why..i guess i wanted to try a new app...i have also used Listen Music Player .

[maagimies]

Since I discovered Amarok, I haven't looked back.

I did try Rhythmbox today, because I am currently 'trying' gnome, and wanted the gnome experience, but I didn't even got to listening many songs before the damm thing crashed :mad:

So Amarok for me, even in Gnome ;)

[woedend]

xmms is by far the best written. bmp and audacious are basically just ports of xmms, but cant beat the original.
supports every filetype known to man(with plugins)
can even play videos with the right plugin
tiny design like winamp...its perfect for us old time users. I find the newer generation of users like the full size viewers/managers/players(itunes, wmp) and detest winamp/xmms.

[aysiu]

I have no favorite, but here are some of the things I like about the following players:

Banshee:
Has a DAAP plugin that allows it to see iTunes shares and share with iTunes.

Rhythmbox:
Allows me to use the multimedia keys on my keyboard and is just generally easier to use (for me) than Banshee. For more details about why it's easier for me, read this thread (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=198909)

Those are the two I use in Gnome. Yes, you can use "Gnome apps" in KDE and "KDE apps" in Gnome, but I find I like to use the native apps for music playing . Don't ask me why.

AmaroK:
Lyrics fetching and some very advanced playlist features.

JuK:
Global keyboard shortcuts and onscreen display of song changes. It's very fast... everything--scanning, playback, song changes. It's slim but works.

Those are the two I use in KDE.

[Jucato]

What a coincidence! I'm also "trying out" GNOME right now, and got to the point of using Rhythmbox. So far, I've only tried 3 music players: Amarok, Rhythmbox, and Juk. And I have to say that I have to go with Amarok, even if it's probably the biggest one, in terms of resource consumption.

Why I like Amarok:
- Lyrics fetching (like what aysiu said)
- OSD (On Screen Display), I find it a welcome "visual" break. If it gets too intrusive, I can just turn it off. EDIT: Rhythmbox has this, too. But I'm not sure if it can moved to other areas of the desktop other than the notification area.
- system tray option. one less window to occupy my desktop. EDIT: Rhythmbox has this, too.
- Collections: I find the organization, not to mention the "tree" view, a bit easier to manage.
- EDIT: I forgot two more features, integration with other KDE apps, like the "Now Playing" feature for Kopete, and global shortcuts, something like Winamp's n Windows.

Although, Rhythmbox's interface looks cleaner.

I never really got into XMMS that much. It looks too much like winamp, and the interface just doesn't look good (not just the skins, but the whole thing).

[jISh]

I like Rhythmbox. Simple, clean interface, can search your playlist easily, built-in AudioScrobbler plugin, displays song info in system tray...

Don't need much more than that, personally.

[mcduck]

MPD. It's lightweight, it's fast, it's easy to use and it can be used from both CLI & GUI. It has fastest library I've ever seen and it keeps on playing music even if I log out or reboot :D

I mostly use it with NCMPC, even from Gnome, as it's has very easy and fast-to-use interface. GMPC is nice client too, and I use it when I have some friends around who refuse to use keyboard to control a music player :)

Listen! is also very nice, much like Amarok but fits better in Gnome.

And having one winamp clone is always a good idea, as most people are already familiar with it's UI.. So I have BMP too..

[rko618]

I use Listen. It's not in the repos but it runs a lot better in gnome then amarok does.

[FISHERMAN]

I use Quod Libet But Exaile is a good second.
Why?
-QL can import a huge library very fast
-Tag editing support
-Plugins

[bluenova]

I use XMMS for playing individual sound clips cause it's quick, and Amorok for managing my whole collection and play lists cause it's so diverse.

[Simian]

I've been using Listen (http://listengnome.free.fr/) for a while now and I really like it. It reminds me of Amarok but uses GTK2. It's still early days for listen but surprisingly it never crashes on me.

[zenwhen]

I use MPD (http://www.musicpd.org/) along with the best GTK2 front end, GMPC (http://cms.qballcow.nl/index.php?page=Gnome_Music_Player_Client).

Why?

Extensibility, remote accessibility, and interface.

Screen shot (click to enlarge):
http://zenwhen.com/webdav/gmpc-svn-small.png (http://zenwhen.com/webdav/gmpc-svn.png)

MPD can import gigantic libraries and never ever choke, and can play almost any format you can think of. GMPC is constantly being improved and runs on OSX, Linux, and Windows. You can control your music from anywhere in the house, and have many different choices for front ends on various platforms. It is a totally different kind of music management/playback system.

Plus, Qball also develops gtodo, and hangs out in #ubuntuforums on freenode. I've been using GMPC with MPD since my early Slackware days. It just never crashes. I cant say the same for RB, Muine, Quod, Listen, Exaile, or Amarok. That could just be my system though. I am not one to project my experiences as fact. :)

[skatedawe]

xmms + gxmms (gnome applet)

[raldz]

I used to use Amarok, but when I placed my music files over the network, Amarok keeps crashing but Rhythmbox could play the files over the network.. I like Amarok better than Rhythmbox.. maybe someone here could help me out..

[Adrenal]

I use banshee - syncs nicely with my iPod, still under active development and...just cool. Keyboard plugins work and the new plugins look interesting.

[mcduck]

I use MPD (http://www.musicpd.org/) along with the best GTK2 front end, GMPC (http://cms.qballcow.nl/index.php?page=Gnome_Music_Player_Client).

I see that you have the album art plugin in use.. Would you mind attaching the compiled plugin somewhere? (I'm too lazy to install everything I need to compile it, as I don't even have build-essentials installed now.. )

[bom28]

I use gmusicbrowser (http://squentin.free.fr/gmusicbrowser/gmusicbrowser.html), very different from other players, very customizable, and very stable. On the downside it doesn't do radio or ipods.
My favorite feature is how you can click on the song title to see other songs from the album, and middle-click on one to enqueue it. :)

[GarethMB]

I use Amarok as i've gone for a pure KDE and none of the alternatives work properly.

If i was using gnome i'd use gmusicbrowser. Without doubt the best media player on ANY platform at the moment in my opinion. The tray icon lets you control your whole library, how awesome is that. Though sometimes it screws up on playing FLAC files. Still, if you've yet to try it give it a go.

[fuscia]

xmms. it does everything i need it to do and none of the stuff i don't need it to. using some of those others is like getting a drink of water out of a fire hose.

[Jucato]

After a few hours of using Ubuntu, Listen and Rhythmbox, I had to use Amarok again. Here are some of the things I liked and didn't like about the 3.

Listen
- OSD, a pretty UI.
- Can't play any stream (www.di.fm (http://www.di.fm) and www.japanaradio.com (http://www.japanaradio.com))

Rhythmbox
- can play www.di.fm (http://www.di.fm) streams, very simple UI
- except for the Library UI, can't play www.japanaradio.com (http://www.japanaradio.com) streams (which I absolutely need/want to listen to)


Amarok
- can play all the streams I want, complete UI, nice handling of tags and collections/libraries
- UI sometimes tends to be cluttered, but can be customized to be minimal/barebones.

(The streams I'm trying to play come in various formats: mp3, aac)

EDIT: I'm having a bit of a problem with XMMS in both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. It seems that it's not able to play any of the streams at all. Which is weird considering I was able to do so before in Breezy. Maybe I just have some packages missing...

[ericesque]

hm. Everybody seems to have different tastes. I was half hoping there'd be a solid majority for one player so that the decision would be easy. haha.

MPD sounds interesting. It's one I've never heard of. I've used (albeit briefly) amarok and banshee. I liked amarok quite a bit, but it felt even heavier than itunes did in windows-- and as far as I can tell that doesn't include any kind of video playback.

With the exception of XMMS, do any of the apps support video? I know there's the whole unix philosophy of one app for one purpose, but I really liked the convenience of playing my video podcasts in itunes alongside my music.

Oh well. Thanks guys. The comments helped quite a lot. Feel free to keep ideas coming.

Things to do:

Compile Banshee CVS
Give Amarok a bit more extensive sampling
Try MPD with GMPC
Take another look at Exaile

[raptros-v76]

amarok. 'tis a sexy beast. seriously though, amarok is the best legal fun one can have with pants still on. lyrics, artist info, album art, everything, all built in.

[zenwhen]

mcduck:

WARNING!!!!!

I created this with checkinstall and it will only work with 0.13.2, as far as I know. I compiled all my mpd stuff from SVN.

http://zenwhen.com/webdav/gmpc-album-art_svn-pre-01-1_i386.deb

If this breaks your system, it is not my fault.

I'll be creating bleeding edge proper debs for MPD soon, so look out for that.

[Wallakoala]

I love banshee. I would say that if you have an ipod, banshee is the only way to go. The ipod syncing works beautifully, and it is fairly easy to use.

In the upcoming version, I think podcasting support is being added.

[djsroknrol]

I use Listen...I like the features...

[mcduck]

mcduck:

WARNING!!!!!

I created this with checkinstall and it will only work with 0.13.2, as far as I know. I compiled all my mpd stuff from SVN.

http://zenwhen.com/webdav/gmpc-album-art_svn-pre-01-1_i386.deb

If this breaks your system, it is not my fault.

I'll be creating bleeding edge proper debs for MPD soon, so look out for that.
Thanks for the package :)

Sadly I have GMPC version 1.3.0, I tried the package anyway. No problems, only that it didn't do anything. But it didn't break my system \\:D/

I'll be waiting for those proper debs..

[.t.]

amaroK! God yeah! The visualisation selection; track queuing; lyrics; multimedia keys; wikipedia... Everything. Although Listen has most of these (and discounting the fact it's currently broken on my system), it's interface, and lack of track queuing makes it impossible to use for me, even though I don't have to load the QT libs when I want to use it. Banshee's nice, but it doesn't have the playlist selection of even Rhythmbox, which is pretty minimalist feature-wise.

[manicka]

I use Listen. It's not in the repos but it runs a lot better in gnome then amarok does.

How so? amaroK runs seemlessly in gnome even though it's a kde app, what more could you ask for?

I use amarok mostly, but check in from time to time with Listen. There is a lot to like about Listen and it just gets better and better :)

[richbarna]

hm. Everybody seems to have different tastes. I was half hoping there'd be a solid majority for one player so that the decision would be easy. haha.


You should've done a poll ;)

I use amarok,
It finds my files, album art, Lyrics (so that I can sing loudly and annoy my Spanish neighbours :))

[AndyCooll]

With the exception of XMMS, do any of the apps support video?

Though they haven't been mentioned yet ...Totem, mplayer and VLC do.

:cool:

[tennyis]

hey guys, I am new to linux and have just been trying out a few things. I tried
Amarok and it looks great, however I cannot get it to import into my collection files off my networked windows PC. I have connected to the windows server and can it to work no problem with a few other players. Anyway of doing it in
Amarok?

[souled]

I'm using Exaile right now, but I might have to switch back to amaroK. I would prefer not to use amaroK under GNOME, but it now has Last.fm streaming! Who can resist that?

[grte]

I use rhythmbox because it's the only one that reads the id3 tags on my flac files. I'd prefer to use Listen or Exaile if it weren't for that.

[Hop-Frog]

I use Totem, because it handles both audio and video and it has a simple interface and a playlist. Rhythmbox is just too complicated and XMMS has buttons that are too small. If Totem could play SHOUTcast, it would be perfect!

[ericesque]

At the suggestion of richbarna, I figured it was worth making this a poll. I didn't before hand because I knew I'd hear of apps I've never heard of.

[ericesque]

You should've done a poll ;)


poll-ified (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=208682)

[doris.houng]

Quod Libet for me, it worked the best with all the foreign characters I have in the ID3 tags of my music files. :D Plus I love Ex Falso, and the support for multiple tag values.

[Skye]

Amarok, far and away. It's one of the reasons I've embraced linux as much as I have.

[Wallakoala]

Banshee because it was the only app that worked well with my ipod. It has a nice and simple interface and it can burn/rip cds easily also.

[G Morgan]

Amarok rules on my desktop.

[Jucato]

Amarok. It does everything I want/need, whether I'm on KDE or in GNOME. Now if only I could use it in Windows... :D

(I'm also using Rhythmbox as a second option in GNOME. Clean and simple)

[woedend]

come on fellow xmmsers, lets take this poll from these inferior players.

[mackinax]

I hate all music apps for Linux, except for xmms which I only moderately dislike.

[ using xmms & gxmms & madman & qbble ]

[bleaked]

I seriously cannot belive that anyone would choose anything other than amaroK.

It is by far the premier music application out there -- geared for the album listener and focused on music (why bring video capabilities in that might cause bloat? -- also, video wouldn't exactly organize well within amaroK's lovely music library feature)

Here is why I love amaroK:


Playlist-centric style -- no need to create a playlist prior to playing if you intend on changing the tracks mid-playlist (a huge annoyance in iTunes when playing directly from music library -- since iTunes is library-centric)

Gapless playback -- though technically a feature of xine, it still counts, amaroK is 'Dark Side' ready.

Crossfading -- especially with the manual track change feature: perfect for when a friend suddenly wants you to change the song, you're now able to do it in smooth style.

Well organized music library -- complete with quick and 'sticky' filters, tree view, alphabetized, handles 'Various Artists' albums with elegance, and of course sexy album-art decorated drag 'n' drop to playlist eyecandy.

Media device support -- flawless ipod support, and more importantly (for me) great vfat transfer features like dumping songs into folder by specified parameters (nice for organzing files by artist and album on my nano running rockbox).

Eye-candy -- personally, I think amaroK looks and feels great: configurable OSD, visualizations including project-m, and as of 1.4 there is the 'moodbar' in place of the track progress (hard to explain, you really just have to see it..but unfortunately someone in #amarok told me it's discontinued due to lack of maintainer)

Importing and Tagging -- one can specify the folder and file format for all imported files based on the id3 tags: so say you have an unorganized album, browse the files from the internal file browser, highlight all, edit universal tags (artist/album/year), then click into individual track mode, edit those, then move or copy files into your collection. amaroK then moves/copies your files to your pre-configured folder, organized by your pre-defined settings. (and if you use the move option, it will even delete the folder if it's empty! brilliant!

Album covers -- complete with a cover manager, ability to use custom images or search from various amazon sites. Having album covers is really nice for..

The Context tab -- displaying detailed statistics about your albums and listening habits. Includes tabs for lyrics and wikipedia. The wikipedia tab has nice buttons for quick jumping to the current album page or artist page.

Playlists, Smart Playlists, and Podcast (rss) support -- 'nuff said.

Scripts and Skins -- support for scripts including ruby! What more does one need?

Multiple engine support -- though you really don't need anything other than xine, gstreamer and Helix are also supported. (I believe a couple others are as well)


And the list goes on..

So before you decide to go with an alternative for petty reasons like GTK, consider what you're all missing. (Sorry, not to undermine the alternatives -- it's just I really have not found anything that even comes close to amaroK)

.:bleaked

[yabbadabbadont]

I would use Audacious if it were in the Ubuntu repos. I don't feel like building it myself and don't want it off of someone else's system. (and before you comment, yes, I am slightly paranoid about it) :) However, since it isn't, I've gone with the most tested and used player available. XMMS. ;)

[Brando569]

i chose amarok cuz its the only one ive used besides xmms

[DoktorSeven]

xmms by far.

amaroK seems to work against how I want to play music, and every other player seems to hate my computer and randomly crashes.

[Simian]

Listen

[mcduck]

MPD. All the others are good too, but not this good ;)

[elomire678]

Banshee CVS for the win! Good interface trumps useless features any day!

[elomire678]

Playlist-centric style -- no need to create a playlist prior to playing if you intend on changing the tracks mid-playlist (a huge annoyance in iTunes when playing directly from music library -- since iTunes is library-centric)

That's my main problem with amaroK, it's way too playlist centric and its interface for reaching those playlists requires way too many clicks and is way too cluttered. There's a reason why iTunes is the #1 music player on Windows and Macintosh, its easy to use interface. In it I can easily make any number of playlists, and reach them all with a single click. amaroK requires usually at least 3 to leave a playlist and reach another one. To me, amaroK is the bastard child of iTunes and Winamp, and its mostly taking the wrong lessons from both.

With that in mind, Banshee is by far the best media library style music player on Linux. Well at least the CVS versions are, you'd be insane to use the stable version over those. It has all the necessary functions that amaroK does, while having a single click interface like iTunes and all decent modern media players (WMP11, Foobar). It has in the CVS gotten Podcasting support, last.fm recommendations, a mini mode, internet streaming support and smart playlists. The stable version already had last.fm reporting, iTunes DAAP support, iPod support and of course cover art.

My main problem with Banshee comes up with smart playlists and its tagging support. Its smart playlists are still fairly dumb and don't always follow the rules you set for them. Hopefully that gets fixed before 0.11 gets released. When tagging within the program it only writes the changes to the banshee library database and not the files themselves. So hopefully that will change as well, but since I do my tagging when I rip or with Cowbell, it doesn't really matter to me. Banshee does read ID3 tags on FLAC though. If Novell can get smart playlists as well as iTunes has them, it'd be the perfect music program. On the other hand if the amaroK people get their heads out of the sand and get someone who knows how to design an interface, then all the other players are in trouble.

[lapsey]

xmms is nice because it isn't obtrusive and takes no time to start up

if i didn't already have a well-organised library, i'd use exaile. Shoot, out of any of the 'library' players, exaile is one of the best I've seen.

[FISHERMAN]

Quod Libet.

-Can Import a HUGE Library without Problems
-Is a GTK-player
-Plays streams
-Tag editing
-Has a Library

[Wolki]

Muine (and thus, Other). Its interface seems streamlined to the way I play my music.

[MethodOne]

I use XMMS because it's fast and has some chiptune plugins available. I would use Audacious if there was a package compatible with Ubuntu, even though I built it from source.

[bonzodog]

Quod Libet. Definately the best player I have come across in a long while, and the Ex-Falso tag Editor leaves all the others in the dust.

[RAV TUX]

I choose "Other", you left off my two favorite apps for playing music:

1. Quark
http://quark.sunsite.dk/

http://img485.imageshack.us/img485/4201/quark7qv.gif (http://imageshack.us)

A quark is a very small, almost virtual, particle that combines with other quarks to create something useful.

Quark is an audio player, for geeks, by geeks. It runs in the background with access provided via a FIFO in the filesystem. It uses Xine-lib (http://xinehq.de/) for playing music, and can therefore play any file format supported by Xine (http://xinehq.de/index.php/features).
Quark comes with a couple front-ends to make it more useful.
charm-quark - a CLI interface
strange-quark - a GTK System Tray interface2. gmusicbrowser
http://squentin.free.fr/gmusicbrowser/gmusicbrowser.html

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/4226/icon1qr.png (http://imageshack.us)gmusicbrowser
gmusicbrowser : An open-source jukebox for large collections of mp3/ogg/flac files, written in perl.

main features
fast even with 10,000s of songs (developped with over 17000 songs on a duron800)
powerful browser which doesn't interfere with the playlist
artist/album lock : easily restrict playlist to current artist/album
easy access to songs related to the currently playing song
songs from the same album
album(s) from the same artist(s)
songs with same title (other versions, covers, ...)
support ogg vorbis, mp3 and flac files (and mpc with gstreamer)
fully featured tag editor (support all id3 versions, limited support for APE & lyrics3 tags)
simple mass-tagging and mass-renaming
support multiple genres for a song
support multiple artists for each song by separating them with '&'
customizable named 'flags' can be set for each song (ex : bootleg, live, -'s favorites, ...)
filter history in the browser window
filters with unlimited nesting of conditions
customizable weighted random mode (based on rating, last time played, flag, ...)
tray icon, with customizable tip window
customizable window layouts (layout documentation draft (http://squentin.free.fr/gmusicbrowser/layout_doc.txt))
plugin system (experimental), included plugins :
nowplaying (to update an external program when the playing song changes)
last.fm (http://www.last.fm/)
fetch cover from google image
simple lyrics
MozEmbed : use the mozilla engine to display wikipedia artist page and search lyrics with google

[Johnsie]

Sadly I'm yet to find a multimedia player I'm happy with.

Things i want from a media player include:

A nice GUI - The XMMS clones and Amarok have nice GUIs. A lot of the others are ugly. I want to show off Linux so it has to look nice. Problem is, they don't play video

The ability to play video too - Totem can but totem doesn't manage large collections well

A decent directory of streaming radio stations - bmpx is good for that but it is VERY buggy. Streamtuner is good but it's annoying having to use two programs.

Those are my essentials but I can't find a player which supports all three.

[zenwhen]

I use MPD for the reasons you can read if you click this link. (http://www.zenwhen.com/?p=7)

[carl13]

My vote is for Amarok but Listen is a close second.

[richbarna]

At the suggestion of richbarna, I figured it was worth making this a poll. I didn't before hand because I knew I'd hear of apps I've never heard of.

I am honoured :D ( I do love a good poll !)

I went for Amarok, (please see my previous post about singing loudly and annoying my Spanish neighbours \\:D/ )

The lyrics/artist info/album covers/collection search.........
well the list goes on.


woedend: come on fellow xmmsers, lets take this poll from these inferior players.

Oooooh! That sounds like a challenge.
This forum is (Ama)Rockin', so don't bother knockin' !! :)

Stats at moment of posting :-
Amarok 27 Yay!
Xmms 15 Boo!

[ShanghaiTeej]

I voted for Amarok because My Ipod and I like it a lot.

But I am constantly checking out Listen and Exaile. Really cool projects that are getting developed FAST.

[wmcbrine]

I voted "other": mainly grip, VLC, and mpg123.

[anodizer]

That's my main problem with amaroK, it's way too playlist centric and its interface for reaching those playlists requires way too many clicks and is way too cluttered.

This is one of my main problems with amarok too. It's interface sucks too, it's slow and it crashes sometimes. It has some neat features as the mySQL support, but after the encoding option dissapeared in version 1.4 I decided to use Banshee instead.

[DemensMagnet]

Amarok is the best imo :)

[Mr.Auer]

I use Audacious mostly and sometimes XMMS too.

[.t.]

But the interface is my favourite thing about amaroK. Woo! And I don't need encoding, as there are other, better, programs for that.

[calx]

Thanks for suggesting gmusicbrowser bom28!!.

I found Amarok great to look at, and fun to use as long as it was taking up my entire screen, works well on its own desktop I guess. But didnt quite work the way I wanted it to and was prone to crashing. I thought XMMS was awesome at first, mostly for how lightweight it seemed to be, and with the groovy winampmodern skin I had it almost seemed like the real thing (I agree, that yes WinAMP really whips the llamas a$$). But the lack of a decent media library/manager makes XMMS a bit of a letdown, and it seemed to behave strangley sometimes especially when try trying to edit the playlist, frustrating.

gmusicbrowser though adds a few cool tricks to the stadard player and seems to be significantly more responsive than Amarok, and so far noticably more stable on my system than most of the other players I have tried. The nifty lock to artist or album with one click on the standad playing window is ingenious. The media library and playlist operation is superior, and seems to handle my large music collection with ease. The windows of which can also be setup in a dozen different preset configurations to suit your various needs and moods, excellent. :)

Highly recommended, gmusicbrowser (http://squentin.free.fr/gmusicbrowser/gmusicbrowser.html) check it out!!



I use gmusicbrowser (http://squentin.free.fr/gmusicbrowser/gmusicbrowser.html), very different from other players, very customizable, and very stable. On the downside it doesn't do radio or ipods.
My favorite feature is how you can click on the song title to see other songs from the album, and middle-click on one to enqueue it. :)

[3rdalbum]

At the moment, I'm impressed with Exaile and that's what I'm using... but let it be said that I mostly listen to music on my portable MP3 player.

(BTW, does AmaroK transfer songs to Teac HDD MP3 players?)

[leeyee]

Well, for me, I think AmaroK should be the most beautiful music player. But I don't like its performance, because it is very slow which may caused by KDE's slow.
The most player I used before is XMMS, quite similar to WinAmp, neat and easy, I like it!
Now, I'm using both rhythmbox and xmms, and rhythmbox more ofthen, because it's helpful for my music management.

[Adamant1988]

I like banshees interface more but it just doesn't give me the features that AmoroK does. when banshee offers more options for managing my music library I'll use it.

[hawko]

I have been using beep but decided to try amaroK due to all the fuss. I do like it a lot but would prefer to stick with Gnome. What I am after is a Gnome player that has a Winamp style player but with the extra features (lyrics, cover art, OSD). What is the best Gnome option? I have tried a few and not found something as nice as amoroK.

EDIT - I mainly listen to streaming music

[gruvsyco]

On XP, I use SongBird (http://www.songbirdnest.com/), unfortunately, the Linux version does not yet actually play anything. But, as soon as it does, without hesitation, that will be my app. Until then, I'm still experimenting right now it's kind of a toss up between AmaroK, RhythmBox and Banshee. I prefer Banshee but since I reinstalled, I can't seem to get it to play radio.

[oskvaz]

At the moment I am proving different players but I am using Listen. I think that is the gnome application better developed. It works great with the lyrics (even of foreing or rare music), has wikipedia access , organizes my library and never crash. I believe that it is far better than amarok.

[Adamant1988]

At the moment I am proving different players but I am using Listen. I think that is the gnome application better developed. It works great with the lyrics (even of foreing or rare music), has wikipedia access , organizes my library and never crash. I believe that it is far better than amarok.
which one is???

[Polygon]

which one is???

the name of the app is called "listen"

and yes that is the music app that i am using right now. Ive tried rythmbox (works, good library, but kinda ugly), then Banshee and Exaile! (both work and have good library support) but right now im liking Listen, cause it has lyrics, wikipedia, and basically the same library support that all the others have.

i would use xmms, but it has horrible library support. i do use it however to play single music files.

[bluenova]

(BTW, does AmaroK transfer songs to Teac HDD MP3 players?)
Amarok can handle any genric music players (i.e ones which you can browse like a drive)

[ericesque]

Okay, so I started this thread with the intention of finding my favorite music app. I liked amarok, but its stability issues turned me off. Banshee seemed promising, but I had issues installing from CVS and thus continued my search. Never was a fan of the XMMS style music apps even before iTunes, I preferred musicmatch. I found Rhythmbox to be quite nice. The simple interface was pleasant, but I was hoping for iPod support.

I haven't given all the players a fair chance, but for the moment I am in love with Listen. Great interface with plenty of options to add/remove features that you may or may not want. It resolves the interface clutter issue that also plagues Amarok. I almost didn't give Listen enough time to figure out how to configure it to look/work the way I wanted. I'm very glad I did! I enjoy that the album art look-up is so straight forward and accurate. I spent too long looking for the correct cover in Amarok (tho it was a while back that I used amarok).

Anyway, for the time being, I'll be using Listen. Thanks to everyone for their time, advice, and suggestions. I'm heading over to the 'favorite music app poll-ified' thread to add my vote finally :)

[ericesque]

Finally added my vote for Listen. I have to wonder if more people would be using Listen if the default setup was a little simpler. I think a lot of people who use Amarok would find Listen to be a dream come true.

[Skia_42]

I have been using Rhythmbox for all my using needs because it works and it has a browser that displays the artist and album names. I am playing around with Amarok since so many people voted for it. I used to use iTunes when I was still running OS X and I love the browser feature that Rhythmbox (and hopefully Amarok) has.

[Polygon]

i like listen because it has everything that i want (i dont care about ipod cause i use itunes to do that in windows) and i really dig the audioscrobbler and wikipedia support.

[Jeconais]

Amarok at the moment, I'm just waiting for Listen to catch up a little more, and I'll use that.

As a side: Amarok is the first linux programme that my wife has looked at and admired - she played with it for some time last night putting together a play list, going through the options. That's the longest she's ever actually used linux.

[Max Roswell]

Does Listen have AudioScrobbler support? It looks gorgeous.

[ericesque]

Yes is does, sir. However, I have to admit I'm not even sure what AS is.

[Max Roswell]

AudioScrobbler sends data about what you're listening to to your user page at Last.fm (which is currently down pending a rollout). It's the kind of thing that starts off as a novelty, and then about two weeks later, you're addicted to it.

[jdriessen]

excuse me for asking, but I cannot find "Listen" anywhere, could someone post a link to the project website?

EDIT: I finally got rid of my windows OS in favour of linux Ubuntu which is really working for me, except I find that it really missing a program like media monkey wich can retrieve missing tag info, update album art, and organize my music collection.
I am really picky about my music collection being in good condition with as many of the files as possible having complete tag info (+Artwork of course!) any know anything that works as like this, I used to use a combination of iTunes and Mediamonkey to keep all my files in good shape...

[Wolki]

excuse me for asking, but I cannot find "Listen" anywhere, could someone post a link to the project website?

http://listengnome.free.fr/


EDIT: I finally got rid of my windows OS in favour of linux Ubuntu which is really working for me, except I find that it really missing a program like media monkey wich can retrieve missing tag info, update album art, and organize my music collection.

Automatic Tag editing can be done with Picard, using the information from MusicBrainz. ( www.musicbrainz.org ) It will also organize your stuff into directories (quite customizable). You'll still have to do manual sort for things it doesn't get correctly automatically, and it's a bit of a pain for things that aren't in the musicbrainz database, but I found myself able to tag large numbers of files rather quickly with it. Cowbell is a nice app for manually tagging files.

Unfortunately it will not save album art (though it displays it :-/ ). Album Cover Art Downloader ( http://louhi.kempele.fi/~skyostil/projects/albumart/ ) works pretty well, it's a KDE app though, so you'll need python-qt.

As for the thread topic, I've been using muine for about two years now, and while it's rather low-featured, it has a wonderfully clean interface allowing you to play your stuff with a minimum of hassle and keypresses; and both dbus support and a plugin system.

[AndyCooll]

excuse me for asking, but I cannot find "Listen" anywhere, could someone post a link to the project website?

EDIT: I finally got rid of my windows OS in favour of linux Ubuntu which is really working for me, except I find that it really missing a program like media monkey wich can retrieve missing tag info, update album art, and organize my music collection.
I am really picky about my music collection being in good condition with as many of the files as possible having complete tag info (+Artwork of course!) any know anything that works as like this, I used to use a combination of iTunes and Mediamonkey to keep all my files in good shape...

For a "pure" tagging editor Easytag is the best. It does absolutely everything you could wish for right down to completing tag info (it can search the FreeDB database) and creating playlists.

Amarok also has most of these features. Amongst it's features it too can retrieve missing tags (from Musicbrainz) and artwork.

:cool: