Recommended Posts

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Hi, everyone.

I'm quite happy with Amarok 1.* and Kaffeine.

Kaffeine plays video, while Amarok is only audio. Prefer Amarok for audio, though. Why so? Well, because of its better looks and a smart set of features.

One important thing to add. As a playback library I choose XINE-lib, and xine only.

GStreamer's main idea and features all sound great, which can not be said about the sound it produces from the speakers. So, I'll have to wait until all the planned features their good enough realization. Yes, I know: for its makers GStreamer is the most beautiful child; but this with regard to its POTENTIAL, not its present state.

...OK, just tried Songbird. Seems great!

  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Just installed Songbird. I've used Rhythmbox on my new install, and I dislike it. I love Winamp, always have and always will. I keep my files well organized, so I never needed library functions, and they were never good before 5.5 came out. Which was simply the perfect audio player for me. Of all the audio players on Linux, I can't seem to find the proper equvalent. Either they're too spartan, or they rely on library/online features too much, have a busy UI and remind me of WMP/iTunes bloatware, while there's always a few options I miss. So far, Songbirld looks nice. But I have few issues. It doesn't read my folder.jpg files (which remained since my Ubuntu transition). And is there a proper album view. The add-ons feature is good, and overall the player seems promising. I think I'll stick with it. If anyone has good add-ons/tweaks/skins etc, post.

Sorry for the double post.

I definitely gave up on both Songbird and Rhythmbox and I'm back with Exaile. It really proves that sometimes less is more. The most usable user interface, the library is nicely made, no fancy artwork, but searching it takes a second, incredibly easy playlist manipulation, the tabbed interface made me reallly happy, an equalizer for Christ's sake, and a nice plugin support. Me likes. I do miss some features from both Rhythmbox and Songbird (songbird probably has the best last.fm and lyrics integration I have ever seen), but they are miles away from being usable, at least for a Winamp fan. The playlists in both are horrible. The most annoying thing in Songbird was that if you start playing an album, and then browse other albums, it would continue playing the previously selected one, but Now playing list was nowhere to be found. Plus it's quite slow and unstable.

  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
Songbird!!! I love the fact that it's really easy to customise, organises my library quite well and looks good. It really sucks on Windows though, it's really laggy but on Linux it runs *almost* like a dream.

I may have to give Songbird another try. :)

A little off-topic, but I have twice had to write applications on UNIX (one on an embedded FreeBSD client, another on Redhat) where I needed a program to simply play a mp3 file.

I used a program called mpg123 (available at http://www.mpg123.de/). If anyone has a need to script a file to play, this could be a good lightweight solution.

In the Redhat case, I packaged up my own RPM with the binaries into a customized Redhat OS build, and that was all I needed.

  • 3 months later...
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Qwen 3.6 is better value per dollar, and you can run it locally for free.
    • I don't believe them that anyone using threads, at least meaningfully. It's the same thing for Facebook, people just don't engage with Meta platforms like they are thinking. This isn't 2006.
    • Not taking AI slop on the go with me, hard pass for me.
    • Same Internet Archive seemed to grab the new version https://web.archive.org/web/20...d/Setup_MakeMKV_v1.18.4.exe Here's the link to an additional file it periodically downloads https://web.archive.org/web/20260213092148/https://www.makemkv.com/sdf.bin I think update's keys, etc. To manually trigger this update, put the sdf.bin file in the root of where the program is installed. When you launch the program it will pick up the file and import it. Typically put it here: C:\Program Files (x86)\MakeMKV\sdf.bin
    • Windows 11 KB5094126, KB5093998 bugging out Office apps but it may not be Microsoft's fault by Sayan Sen Microsoft last week released Windows 11 KB5094126 and KB5093998 as the latest Patch Tuesday updates. Following that the company also published the accompanying dynamic updates under KB5094149, KB5095971, and KB5094156. Although the tech giant did not acknowledge any major problems, some users online reported various issues ranging from OneDrive and Dropbox access problems, BitLocker recovery lockouts, to blue screens and BSODs. You can read about them in this dedicated piece. While there is still no confirmation about those problems from Microsoft the company has admitted to another bug which we did not report on. The tech giant has confirmed it has received reports of an issue in which certain third-party applications may be unable to launch Microsoft Office apps or open Office documents after installing the Patch Tuesday. This affects both Windows 11 as well as Windows 10. The company says the problem impacts a subset of applications that rely on OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) automation to communicate with Microsoft Office programs. According to Microsoft, affected scenarios involve third-party software attempting to open Office applications or documents from within their own interface. In such cases, the Office program may fail to launch altogether, or the requested document may not open. Oddly there may not be any error message, which probably makes the issue difficult to diagnose. The bug affects several Office products, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and other apps in the Microsoft Office suite when they are launched through the affected software. These include tax and accounting software such as CCH Engagement and Workpaper Manager, dental practice management solutions like Dentrix and Softdent, as well as the popular research and reference management tool Zotero. Microsoft adds that other applications using similar Office integration methods could also experience the same problematic behavior. To understand the issue it is important to look at OLE, the Microsoft technology involved. OLE allows different applications to work together and share data, while its Automation feature lets one program control another. Thus this enables third-party software to launch Microsoft Office apps, open documents, and perform tasks automatically without requiring users to switch between programs. Because many accounting, healthcare, research, and business applications rely on OLE automation to interact with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other Office apps, any disruption can break those workflows. As a result, affected software may be unable to open Office documents or launch Office applications even though the programs themselves continue to work normally. At the moment the company has not provided a permanent fix though it has confirmed that engineers are actively working on a resolution, which will be delivered through a future Windows update. As such additional details will be shared once more information becomes available. In the meantime, Microsoft recommends a simple workaround for affected users whic is to open the Office application or document directly rather than launching it through the third-party program. For enterprise customers and organizations managing larger deployments, Microsoft says an additional mitigation is available. Admins experiencing the problem on their managed devices are advised to contact Microsoft Support for business to obtain and apply the workaround.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Reacting Well
      Dys Topia earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Conversation Starter
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • One Year In
      Console General earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Twozo Technologies earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Twozo Technologies earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      517
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      184
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      106
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      88
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      68
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!