Ubuntu and Media Players
As any of you who have had a conversation with me in the last couple of years (or have read my Livejournal in the last couple of hours) know, I dislike windows and Mac OS, harbor a seething disdain for itunes and ipods, and consider a hefty chunk of proprietary technologies to be a minimum of 90% bullshit.
So, now i've got Linux running on both of my computers - Ubuntu on the Frigatebird (desktop) and Xubuntu (Ubuntu with lightweight Xfce desktop) on the Grackle (laptop). I can't do as much with Xubuntu as I might like, just because the Grackle can't really handle anything more than the basics, but I've been having a pretty good time checking out the customization options available with Ubuntu on the Frigatebird.
I'm pretty proud of my desktop setup...no icons, the top panel is hidden until you touch the top of the screen, and an Avant Window Manager (AWN) dock at the bottom, like the one used in recent Mac OSes, which hides when windows are open near it. In short, as far as I can get from the cluttery-ass old family computer. Feels good.
My most recent project has been finding a suitable music player. The default program, Rhythmbox, wasn't all that great and couldn't play the radio shows I recorded on my old mp3 player (yes, you can do that with non-ipods).
So basically, I downloaded (almost) all of the media players in the Package Manager, and tested all of them. Whooof. So here are some highlights!
VLC skipped -- SKIPPED! -- at the beginning of every mp3. Skipped, I say!
Quark apparently gets a lot of geek love, but has NO visible song list. No visible components at all, really.
Listen is a very special program. Every time I clicked on a new song, it would open a new instance of the program. And would NOT close the old one OR stop playing. And simply closing the window would not quit the program. I ended up with three or four different songs seemingly playing out of nowhere...
Second runner-up was Audacious. Basically Win-amp for Linux. irritating, but functional.
First runner-up was Banshee. Basically itunes with ever so slightly less bullshit. And capable of playing videos! Fun. Until it started stalking my sister...Yeah, i know. It somehow took a picture of her out of my pictures folder (wearing an old blue flower-print dress with cream trim, and some professional custom-made vampire fangs), and made it the default album cover image for ALL unknown albums. How does that even happen?
Special mention goes to herrie, for being the one i wanted to love most...smooth and clean, with extra geek points for being command-line-based. But it wouldn't actually play any songs. I guess it's not fully compatible with Ubuntu...? :(
Finally decided to go with Exaile, which is very nice, actually! you can scroll though your bloated music collection by song or album or artist, like itunes, OR you can look through songs by their containing folders, and drag-and-drop them into a playlist. FROM WITHIN THE PROGRAM. That's right - no switching back and forth between windows to do your dragging/dropping. And no need to right-click and select "add to playlist" for every single song. Plus the '100 random songs' playlist is giving me a surprisingly high percentage of things that I really wanted to hear! I definitely recommend it. Unless you LIKE itunes, and don't have a sister. Then give Banshee a try, too.
So, now i've got Linux running on both of my computers - Ubuntu on the Frigatebird (desktop) and Xubuntu (Ubuntu with lightweight Xfce desktop) on the Grackle (laptop). I can't do as much with Xubuntu as I might like, just because the Grackle can't really handle anything more than the basics, but I've been having a pretty good time checking out the customization options available with Ubuntu on the Frigatebird.
I'm pretty proud of my desktop setup...no icons, the top panel is hidden until you touch the top of the screen, and an Avant Window Manager (AWN) dock at the bottom, like the one used in recent Mac OSes, which hides when windows are open near it. In short, as far as I can get from the cluttery-ass old family computer. Feels good.
My most recent project has been finding a suitable music player. The default program, Rhythmbox, wasn't all that great and couldn't play the radio shows I recorded on my old mp3 player (yes, you can do that with non-ipods).
So basically, I downloaded (almost) all of the media players in the Package Manager, and tested all of them. Whooof. So here are some highlights!
VLC skipped -- SKIPPED! -- at the beginning of every mp3. Skipped, I say!
Quark apparently gets a lot of geek love, but has NO visible song list. No visible components at all, really.
Listen is a very special program. Every time I clicked on a new song, it would open a new instance of the program. And would NOT close the old one OR stop playing. And simply closing the window would not quit the program. I ended up with three or four different songs seemingly playing out of nowhere...
Second runner-up was Audacious. Basically Win-amp for Linux. irritating, but functional.
First runner-up was Banshee. Basically itunes with ever so slightly less bullshit. And capable of playing videos! Fun. Until it started stalking my sister...Yeah, i know. It somehow took a picture of her out of my pictures folder (wearing an old blue flower-print dress with cream trim, and some professional custom-made vampire fangs), and made it the default album cover image for ALL unknown albums. How does that even happen?
Special mention goes to herrie, for being the one i wanted to love most...smooth and clean, with extra geek points for being command-line-based. But it wouldn't actually play any songs. I guess it's not fully compatible with Ubuntu...? :(
Finally decided to go with Exaile, which is very nice, actually! you can scroll though your bloated music collection by song or album or artist, like itunes, OR you can look through songs by their containing folders, and drag-and-drop them into a playlist. FROM WITHIN THE PROGRAM. That's right - no switching back and forth between windows to do your dragging/dropping. And no need to right-click and select "add to playlist" for every single song. Plus the '100 random songs' playlist is giving me a surprisingly high percentage of things that I really wanted to hear! I definitely recommend it. Unless you LIKE itunes, and don't have a sister. Then give Banshee a try, too.