SubscribeGNOME Audio Player Shootout Revisited
It’s been close to two years since I wrote GNOME Audio Player Shootout, a visual and textual comparison of some the best available audio players for the GNOME desktop.
As is usually the case in the world of free software, a lot has happened since then (and yet, in a strange way, things have stayed exactly the same). I decided to revisit some of those players and see how they’ve progressed. Some of them listed last time haven’t seen any appreciable development, and have been left off.
I realize that I am totally ignoring the daemon-based players (read: Music Player Daemon, XMMS2); this is by design, since those players open up a whole new can of worms. Suffice it to say that if you’ve decided on and XMMS2 or MPD-based player and successfully configured it, you probably don’t need any advice on choosing software.
The following programs will be covered in this review (development versions):
- BMPx (0.40.14)
- Rhythmbox (0.11.6)
- Exaile (2.99.1-svn)
- Banshee (1.4.1)
- Quod Libet (2.0)
- Decibel (1.00)
- Songbird (1.0)
- Listen (0.6~svn1044)
All of the testing was done on a fresh install (and update) of Ubuntu 8.10 in VirtualBox, using a small representative sample of my music collection (some modern, some classical, in Vorbis, MP3, and FLAC).
GNOME audio player shootout
It might be of interest to read this article’s follow-up, GNOME Audio Player Shootout Revisited
The search for the perfect audio player on the Linux desktop seems to be on par with finding the Holy Grail. The problem is that everyone has features they have to have, especially if they’re migrating over from Windows. Gone are the days when XMMS, a simple WinAmp clone, sufficed for just about everyone in Linux. In the past two years, we’ve seen more whizbang audio players and media managers than I could easily count, and all of them racing desperately to (a) tie into media devices like iPods and (b) tie into social network constructs like podcasts, listen.fm, and whathaveyou.
Historically, my player of choice has been Amarok, which arguably leads the way in all these features, as well as having a stunning interface. For some people, however, it’s too bulky. Others dislike the fact that it’s a KDE application, meaning those who use an different desktop like GNOME—I include myself in this group—have a great application that doesn’t really match or integrate.
Slowly but surely, though, the GNOME/Gtk+ players are catching up. I’ve experimented in the past, only to find them inconsistent. There was no single player that provided everything; rather, each had a few strong points and a few weak points. Many are based on Python, which make them slower than a native application like Amarok. Others had clunky interfaces—I have yet to find one that provides a tree-based library viewer like Amarok. I also have yet to find one that can hook into a database like MySQL or PostgreSQL instead of using a slower SQLite (which is arguably fine for small media libraries, but not so quick once it gets up to 250GB….)
What follows is a brief look at the major players in the GNOME player market, though limited in scope to audio players, and not general media players which can play audio.
Recent Comments
-
Nice review, Ben. I actually hadn’t heard of this book, but I might have to look for it. True SF...
-
If you mean the current, theme, I can’t take the credit for that. It’s Renegade, by...
-
I’ve just stumbled upon your site and wanted to tell you how great I think your...
-
just found out about the other book myself, waiting for it to be delivered. i dont blame you for...
-
It’s interesting that the filmmakers (or the screenwriter) made the decision to approach the...
-
