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Amarok is regarded by most to be one of the best (if not THE best) audio players for Linux. It has support for MP3, FLAC, OGG, WAV, WMA, etc in addition to built-in access to various streaming Internet radio resources. Amarok currently exists in two versions: The original “classic” amarok and the new Amarok2 that ships with KDE4. Either version will suffice for those who want a powerful audio player with close KDE integration.
Like Kaffeine, Amarok uses Xine as a backend. Ogg Vorbis and FLAC are supported out of the box, and MP3 playback can be enabled by installing the libxine1-ffmpeg package, as previously stated. Unlike other players, amarok is heavily dependent on the KDE architecture due to its integration; installing Amarok requires that large portions of KDE be installed as well. Basically, if you are going to install the player, you may as well install the whole desktop environment along with it.
To install Amarok in Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install amarok” (messy way, since you're installing an incomplete KDE) or run “sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop”. (clean way)
Audacious is designed for those who prefer a more minimalistic media player. Audacious has its own codec pack, which means that it can support MP3, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, etc. out of the box and has various visualization and effects as well. Audacious is the latest incarnation of a whole series of media players: Audacious was derived from Beep Audio Player while Beep was derived from XMMS while XMMS was a clone of the original Winamp 2.x for Windows. As such, Audacious is virtually identical in function to its predecessors; even skins originally written for Winamp 2 “Classic” (and there are plenty of those) are fully compatible with Audacious.
To install Audacious in Ubuntu, run “sudo apt-get install audacious”.
Rhythmbox is GNOME's answer to Amarok, with one of the key differences being that Rhythmbox is built on Gstreamer rather than Xine. Rhythmbox has most of Amarok's features, including audio disc ripping/burning, internet radio (including last.fm), support for MP3/FLAC/OGG Vorbis, automatic podcast retrieval, etc. In addition to that, Rhythmbox has built-in Ipod support and integration with Jamendo and Magnatune.
If you're using the GNOME desktop environment, Rhythmbox is probably already installed on your system. Pure Kubuntu users should run “sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop” to get Rhythmbox, since it depends on most of GNOME and you may as well install the whole thing.
Comments are closed on this article
Devo85x
July 20, 2009 at 6:23pm
sudo apt-get -y install vlc
&
sudo apt-get -y install flashplugin-nonfree
:)
damiananderson
July 18, 2009 at 3:03pm
so no one has ever heard of Linux mint or sabayon linux ? damn there
are so many distros
out there stop using one, 99% of them are free and almost all of them
use live CD environment or can be boot from usb drives. dont be afraid
go to these sites , http://distrowatch.com/ and
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ and have some free fun with other linux
distros other than ubuntu
Gadwil
July 18, 2009 at 10:57am
You could just use the PerfectBuntu script to automatically install media codecs and allow DVD playback.
PerfectBuntu found here.
http://www.category5.tv/content/blogcategory/15/77/
Just download and go to whereever it is saved and just ./perfectbuntu and it runs just fine. Works I believe from 8.04 and up.
PhynaeusClaw
July 17, 2009 at 10:32pm
Thanks for the article. I've been using Ubuntu for almost a year now and didn't realize that I could actually play windows media files at all. Then again, I never really had an interest... In any case, it is a useful article and I have updated some of my libraries because of it. Thanks!
I want to add that I like Songbird as a music player. It's still rough around the edges but it gets the job done. It works with Last.fm and ShoutCast. And it integrates web content very nicely by pulling up album info, news, photos, lyrics, and purchase opportunites from the web automatically for you. It's a young application that will definitely grow into a great media player someday.
BTW, it is available for Windows, Linux (32 & 64 bit), and (GASP!!) OS X.
http://getsongbird.com/
For Debian install package that works on Ubuntu go here:
http://www.getdeb.net/app/Songbird
Vegan
July 16, 2009 at 5:31pm
This is why I can't take the people who suggest that the entire world switch to Linux seriously. Can you imagine your mom figuring any of this stuff out? Absolutely not. Windows may not be the most efficient thing in the world, but at least it's easy.
ETNPNYS
July 17, 2009 at 7:36am
EXACTLY. Just to play DVDs and WMA?
Now, I'm a pretty savvy user with a lot of technical knowledge, and I only recently was able to use Ubuntu enough to run it as my main OS in my office. ...And that doesn't mean that it doesn't have its quirks - it's just ridiculously faster than Windows XP on my office PC's hardware (and prettier).
However, there are a few things that this article completely fails to mention, like the ability to [easily] configure your Ubuntu box to play your audio files stored somewhere else on a Windows PC. None of the above audio programs supports configuring it so that your music library is stored on a network drive. ...So you have to mount the network drive as a local drive, make sure that it's mounted every time at startup, and THEN you can tell your audio player where to look for files as if they're on your same machine. In retrospect it sounds easy enough, right? But why on earth can't you just tell it to use the folder located at \\HTPC\Music that has been shared for eons?
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Deanjo
July 16, 2009 at 5:06pm
Seriously guys, stop using Linux as a synonym for Ubuntu and vise versa. This guide only applies to the *buntu crap and does no good for any other real distro. If your gonna write a buntu article then label it as such and don't use a bloody "How to in Linux" title. In openSUSE for example all the above is done with one-click and the installer installs all the restricted packages and adds the needed repos. This guide doesn't do jack shit for Fedora or Mandriva users as well.
ETNPNYS
July 17, 2009 at 8:25am
I agree that "Linux" and "Ubuntu" should not be used synonymously - but you have to understand that as far as desktop users go, Ubuntu has the majority of the installed base. To call them all "*buntu crap" is an injustice to the teams that spend countless hours developing what has become the most mainstream Linux distro ever... Sure, YOU think they're crap because you've gotten Billix to run well on your hardware, but that doesn't even scratch the surface. Don't spread your distate for the most adopted because you're a fanboy of one of the others.
When I moved to Linux on my office PC, Ubuntu was the last one that I wanted to try out, but I ended up resting on it because the community is so much larger that the odds are so much greater that somebody has your issue in Ubuntu than any other distro. I mowed through multiple installations of Mandriva 2009.1, Xubuntu, and Kubuntu trying to find one that will work well, and finally rested on Ubuntu. Even the other *buntu distros didn't compare in the amount of resources available to Ubuntu users.
<><
Deanjo
July 20, 2009 at 6:17am
Sorry but Ubuntu does not have the majority of installed desktop linux share, majority = 50% +1. Yes it does have the largest percentage of installed desktop users but it does not by any means come close to being a majority even if you were to combine all the *buntu derivatives together. OpenSUSE, Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, PCLinuxOS, Gentoo etc all have huge followings as well. Canical itself contributes next to NOTHING back to linux in development. It's one of the poorest contributors back to mainline projects. Even Sony for brying out loud commits back to the kernel then Canical does. Your testing of 4 distro's before settling on ubuntu is a bit of a joke. 3 of them are the same thing except for the desktop environement. That's hardly a sampling with enough variety to declare ubuntu as king.
For someone that says "pretty savvy user with a lot of technical knowledge" but you can't even figure out how to access smb shares through media programs with out mounting it as a drive speaks volumes about your choice of distro and your level of knowledge in *nix OS's. Hint: SMB:// goes a long way.
ETNPNYS
August 10, 2009 at 12:59pm
Dude the projects themselves say that they do not support this feature. I'm not being an idiot.
laynlow200
July 16, 2009 at 4:58pm
I've always found: apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras a lot easier all in one.
installs:
including MP3, DVD, Flash, Quicktime, WMA and WMV, including both
standalone files and content embedded in web pages.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
