Music players and iPods

[egorgry]

I hope this isn't too redundant as I see a lot of questions and answers but I was hoping to start a more round table type of discussion about preferred music players and how they operate with iPods.

I'm in love with listen but I can't sync my iPod with it, I can sync in banshee but I'm not a huge fan of the UI, and, I haven't found anything that I like to sync podcasts. Perhaps I'm a bit of a pain but I'd love to get all this stuff in one app. I'm curious about what other people think/use and what are the pros and cons in their honest opinion.

I've been using some flavor of linux for over 8 years now and I love the OS and I love the community but I find that most linux users turn a blind eye to certain issues. Maybe most are an optimistic bunch ;)

So comments like amarock is awesome are welcome but please provide some evidence of it's awesomeness and please share any cons no matter how small you may think they are. Remember maybe it's something you can live with but it might drive another user utterly mad. Thanks and I look forward to any comments.

[ghandi69_]

I love Amarok(use it in Gnome without ever having a problem)... mainly because I love the look/feel and the wiki/lyrics/content tab seems to work better for me than in other music players I have tried...

However.. I have worked on the following issues, but have never been alble to do the following in Amarok

- Get .flac files to work, they play in every other media player, but not amarok. This seems to be a known problem with the one in Dapper, and I havent found a fix yet.

- I have never been able to my ipod nano to sync up with any media player EVER!... My ipod has pretty much been collecting dust ever since I've made the switch to Linux over a year ago.

- Get my "collectoin" to display my music by directory structure instead of Tags.. My music folder is very organized, and I organized just the way I like it.. I wish I could just view it that way instead by the tag.
--note-- I can just click on files view in amarok, and it is close to the same, except the navigation controls in the 'file' view are not as friendly as they are in 'collection'

[coxy]

I am another Amarok fan but use it in Kubuntu. I have never had any problems either and use it to sync my 2nd generation iPod nano without an issue. It covers my podcasts and music without any problems.

I am running Feisty.

[gnomeuser]

I use Banshee, it's not perfect but it's by far the best available on the GNOME desktop (I don't know about amarok, it's UI gives me nightmares so I tend to avoid it).

There are also other 3rd party apps available, something like Floola (http://www.floola.com/modules/wiwimod/) comes highly recommended though that is closed source (yet available at zero cost). I haven't tested that personally as I try to avoid non-FLOSS software.

[gradedcheese]

I use Banshee with my iPod Nano (2nd gen, the uh... blue one). It works perfectly for all music listening and iPod-related tasks. All you have to do is 'windows' format the iPod, and encode your music as MP3 (since that's the only thing the iPod plays beside Apple's format). After that, it's just plug in and go... I'm not sure that formatting is even required since Linux ships with HFS drivers, but that's what I did anyway.

[egorgry]

Has anyone looked at exhail? It's looks like a gtk amarock. I have a gen5 video iPod I can get all my music on it aac and mp3 work great in linux it's gen 5 so it's already fat32 since apple doesn't ship hfs formated iPods anymore. Like I said everything works but I'd love to get one app to do it all. I think I might give exhail a try unless someone jumps in and says it will eat my dogs and punch my cat. I think I have every other media player installed now anyway so what another. :)

One more thing. How is songbird shaping up? I used it back when it was a crashfest of epic proportions and have been scared off ever since.

[thegoodsteer]

yes, Amarok is my favorite media player on any OS platform...