Back From the Dead: Amarok 3.0 Music Player Released (kde.org) 56
"Aamrok 3.0, ported to Qt5/KDE Frameworks 5, has been released," writes Slashdot reader serafean. "With the heavy lifting being done, the Qt6/KF6 version is expected later in the year." Originally developed for Linux as part of the KDE desktop environment, Amarok is a free, cross-platform music player that supports various audio formats and a user interface that can be tailored to individual preferences. These are the main features/changes, as highlighted in a KDE blog post: FEATURES:
- Added a visual hint that context view applets can be resized in edit mode.
- Display missing metadata errors in Wikipedia applet UI.
- Add a button to stop automatic Wikipedia page updating. (BR 485813)
CHANGES:
- Replace defunct lyricwiki with lyrics.ovh as lyrics provider for now. (BR 455937)
- Show only relevant items in wikipedia applet right click menu (BR 323941), use monobook skin for opened links and silently ignore non-wikipedia links.
- Don't show non-functional play mode controls in dynamic mode (BR 287055) The changelog is available here. You can find the package on download.kde.org.
- Added a visual hint that context view applets can be resized in edit mode.
- Display missing metadata errors in Wikipedia applet UI.
- Add a button to stop automatic Wikipedia page updating. (BR 485813)
CHANGES:
- Replace defunct lyricwiki with lyrics.ovh as lyrics provider for now. (BR 455937)
- Show only relevant items in wikipedia applet right click menu (BR 323941), use monobook skin for opened links and silently ignore non-wikipedia links.
- Don't show non-functional play mode controls in dynamic mode (BR 287055) The changelog is available here. You can find the package on download.kde.org.
Nostalgia (Score:4, Interesting)
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It really whips the llama’s *ss?
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You're thinking of WinAmp.
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You're thinking of DosAmp.
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Which one do you like best now? Clementine was petty good when I went looking last.
Integration and sync with KDEConnect would be the bee's knees.
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Pretty much any media player integrates with KDEConnect: the requirement is for the player to support MPRIS, which even firefox does (with the plasma-integration addon)
Re:Nostalgia (Score:4, Informative)
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Customer: Gee, I was wondering if you could play --blank--
Me: Sure thing...
**pulls out phone
Now I have to run foobar on a tablet at the counter that people keep spilling things all over
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Who gives a shit?
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Re:Nostalgia (Score:4, Interesting)
I really liked amarok.
Of all the music players, it was the only one that seemed to properly support various artists.
Specifically I could have a soundtrack album that was under various artists, but the individual tracks would still have an artist.
Every other player I tried on Windows and Linux did not handle this the way I expected.
They also basically created what became plasma which I thought was pretty cool.
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iTunes was bad at this for a long time. ID3v2 supports tags for "Artist" and "Album Artist." Any songs with the same Album Artist and Album Title should be grouped as an album. For a long time, even with Album Artist set as "Various Artists" iTunes would not combine every track into the same album unless you flagged the "part of a collection" checkmark. Which was not stored in an ID3 tag, I don't think. Just in the library file.
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I'm pretty sure the amarok that introduced plasma did it wrong too (that was 14ish ?! Years ago though, so I'm not sure).
The gnome2 music player handled it wrong too, but I did like it's 3 column filter interface that I think was modelled on iTunes.
I really liked amarok of that era though (forget if it was 1 or 2). In general I think it was the only KDE app I preferred over gnome (I was/am a huge gnome2 fan).
Those were the days, I'm still convinced Ubuntu 7.10 was peak Linux desktop. Everyone got cocky afte
Does it whip the Llama's ass? (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, didn't think so.
Re: It's dead, Jim (Score:5, Interesting)
Not here. We have music sharing from a DAAP server in the house, and I'm not interested at all in Spotify.
If I want a radio-station-like experience, I'll go with Radio Paradise and it's human-curated music any day.
Re: It's dead, Jim (Score:3)
The vast majority of people might like frozen shit on a stick on a hot summer day. No, thanks; you enjoy that. I got my own.
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Re: It's dead, Jim (Score:2)
Used to be "iTunes Music sharing" before they introduced "home sharing". I stream with OwnTone server from a Raspberry Pi, not a Mac. This kind of server is built into most home NAS servers, at least as an option.
And fwiw, I prefer to own my (all legally purchased) music, not rent it. I don't rent software either.
Re: It's dead, Jim (Score:2)
BTW, Amarok supports (or used to, at least; haven't tried this version yet) DAAP sharing. Looking forward to giving the new build a shot!
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Since you're an advanced user, can I use it to easily keep collections synced with android phones over wifi; easily meaning without *too much* work, like compiling stuff that won't compile on debian stable or scripting in lisp, LOLcode or Whitespace?
Re: It's dead, Jim (Score:2)
It's basically a local streaming server of my own library, so doesn't do that.
However, I use rsync to keep that library and my SD card for my android phone in sync with my master library disc.
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Ok, I see, thanks. I have something done with rsync, but the "management" is manual, I guess I'll keep looking.
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.... when mp3 is considered the audiophile option.
That's sad.
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Yes, but that's only if you have access to the original source. Most commercial MP3's were compressed within an inch of their lives-- eventually, people started using variable bit rate, but in the early days of MP3 collecting, 128kb/s was common. And awful.
Personally, all of the stuff I've ripped over the years is FLAC.
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"Streaming services have killed local music players unfortunately."
I prefer to buy music and download it to my device(s)
In the case of the track the player is named after, I had ripped the CD to an mp3 file before I migrated to the US
but I think you can buy it from Amazon.
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What killed my use of local music is the effort and difficulty of managing a large collection of music files, mostly ripped from CDs, mostly on Macintosh with its supposed music-awareness superiority, Linux offerings were worse (sorry I don't do Windows).
The music apps notions about things should be organized were problematic, but much of the problem was the file identification information supplied (or not supplied on the CD). Collections of anything were a disaster, even by the same artist. And Apple thoug
Why Qt6? (Score:3)
Honest question.
Why move a perfectly functional program that uses Qt5 to Qt6?
What does Qt6 that is so essential that you would release another version just for it, and also cut it from working on any Windows 7 or below?
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Re:Why Qt6? (Score:5, Insightful)
His comment answered the 'why not port it?' by mentioning Windows 7. Going to Qt6 prevents it from going with Windows 7.
On one hand, I get it, Windows 7 was the last edition before the platform agenda shifted to be all about cloud accounts, telemetry, and being an ad platform. So if you are a Windows die-hard but can't get on board with that BS, then Windows 7 is it.
On the other hand, Windows 7 is being left behind by Microsoft and a bunch of applications. Chrome has left it behind. Firefox has mostly left it behind, and ESR will finally leave it behind by end of this year. Many games left Windows 7 behind (Vulkan and DirectX 12 are generally non-starters in Windows 7). One music player won't balance out the fact you will not be able to run most new games and can't run new versions of browsers.
So ultimately, it's time to leave Windows 7 behind. If you can't get behind the new Windows, then buy a Mac or run Linux. At this point, Wine on Linux might be able to run a broader number of Windows applications than Windows 7, since it does support DirectX 12 and implements other Windows APIs up through Windows 11.
Re: Why Qt6? (Score:2)
Vulkan works fine on Windows 7 with Nvidia, up to a certain version anyway when they stopped support. There is no technological reason why it couldn't continue working, only logistical.
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when they stopped support
So it doesn't work fine.
here is no technological reason why it couldn't continue working, only logistical.
The reason doesn't matter, what matters is that applications that use DX12 and Vulkan generally can't work in Windows 7 (with some select exceptions). From a technology standpoint, they could have given Windows 7 all the features, but logistically, they didn't.
Re:Why Qt6? (Score:5, Informative)
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Because Windows 7 and below are unsupported and folks should not use them because they are a security risk. Also, this is a. KDE program and if you didn't know it, we're on Qt6 with KDE 6.0.4 (currently) so yeah, let's come to 2024 and stop screaming at clouds.
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Why move a perfectly functional program that uses Qt5 to Qt6?
Amarok is a KDE software project. Since inception, KDE syncs to the current Qt version. Major KDE release numbers refer to the Qt release number it compiles with (KDE3 used Qt3... currently it's KDE Plasma 6 and it uses Qt6). KDE e.V. even has a special deal with Qt Group that guarantees an open source Qt version every 6 months just for KDE to not be blocked even if Qt changes its licensing model.
It's also possible they have not considered much the question of Windows (7). KDE is primarily intended to Linux
Dynamic playlists FTW (Score:5, Interesting)
Those are really unique to Amarok: ...
* play me songs that have at least 4 stars AND are from [genre x OR y] AND haven't been played the last 6 months
* play me songs that were added the last 3 months and haven't been rated yet
* play me albums that I haven't played for 3 years but whose play count is over 10
*
As an alternative, I've used mpd https://musicpd.org/ [musicpd.org] since Amarok got neglected, but I'm really looking forward to apt install amarok again, already digging up my old dB's :D ;) though personally I use either a mobile or console frontend for mpd.
Cantata, one of mpd's frontends that I give to visitors, looks a lot like Amarok
Yes, I still have all my music stored locally.
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I would hope it does, it's a fork of a fork of Amarok 1.4 ;)
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I've also set up MALP on the family's Android devices, so they don't have to connect to the server VNC session with Cantata to change the music. BTW I recently got bitten by an mpd update that doesn't allow spaces in playlist URLs anymore - "losing" most of my music stations since the descriptions typically had spaces...
My big beef with most players (including many alternatives on Linux) is that gapless playback is (nowadays? Used
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As far as I know, the software you'd want is 'Audacious', which has a 'Winamp Classic Interface' mode that can load the skins.
Unfortunately, in Winamp classic interface, it's all bitmap based so with high DPI displays it's either tiny or very awkwardly scaled. I'd also love something honoring the "Winamp form factor" but with more modern UI design, maybe with vector instead of bitmap if wanting to do the skins.
I appreciate the "library management" sort of view when actively dealing with the music in interes
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LOL, I still load and use Audacious on EVERY system I have. And with the "Refugee" skin :)
It JUST WORKS. I don't want a database or "auto scanning" or anything else complicated and annoying. All my music is local and I point Audacious at it and use random and I am happy.
Music players, so much choice... (Score:1)
I remember using Clementine years ago when I was on Windows, then switching to Foobar2000 with its simple tagging features and ReplayGain plugin.
After switching to the Unix-like world, I was lost due to the number of audio players available. I tried a lot of them before staying with deadbeef - it seems to be inspired by Foobar2000.
This comment seems to be a bit off-topic but I'm confounded by the number of music players in the Unix-like world. Anyway, it's great that an old project still gets some love from
Just what we need (Score:1)
Yet another music player.
Unless it adds cowbell...
x11amp (Score:2)
I just want an updated build of x11amp. Yes I know it became xmms but that's a bit dead too. Then someone wrote xmms2 which turned into some convoluted client/server model that no one uses or understands.
I still remember when I'm Amarok ... (Score:2)
... was the new kid on the block and people were still debating wether to ditch XMMS for that newfangled hipster compliant Songbird thing. ... Holy cow, I'm getting old.
Stay dead (Score:2)
>"Back From the Dead: Amarok 3.0 Music Player Released "
It should stay dead. All of us moved over to Clementine when Amarok design went "stupid."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]