I have recently settled on a Linux set-up that works very well for my music needs. I thought I’d post up what I have been running in hopes it helps folks still exploring all the various solutions for managing music available on Linux.

I’m using Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbons”

By default this came set-up with Rhythmbox as the default audio player and music manager. There are other popular choices like Amarok (default with Kubuntu), Totem and Banshee. openSUSE defaults with Banshee. I’m not sure what Fedora is using. Rhythmbox and Banshee are more or less iTunes clones. Both work mostly well, but I’ve had problems with both, mostly with my iPod, and beyond that I find them very bland. Amarok is cool, innovative, and has a huge following with skins, customizations, plug-ins etc… but in my own personal taste, find the interface messy, bloated, and why they can’t just auto-mount devices is f*****g annoying. They have an explanation on their FAQ website that seems good when you read it, but OK whatever, all the other apps just do it. So just do it. Anyway, I digress…

Ok ok… I’ll cut to the chase, on Ubuntu 7.10, here’s what I find works well:

Preparation:

I used the synaptic package manager to install a few pieces of additional software that were needed beyond the default install.  The main ones for this posting are: Listen (my choice of audio player), gstreamer-plugins-bad (for m4a, other odd-ball media support), wincodecs (for .wmv/.wma support), lame for good mp3 encoder support and libraries, libgpod (enables iPod device support in most apps), grip (for audio ripping), and gtkpod (as an iPod manager).

Music player and library management:

I have found that all players including Listen, Amarok, Banshee, and Rhythmbox all have quirks or bugs with my iPod which is a black 30Gig Video model. Listen is written in python, and the python-gpod support is a bit behind the more widely used libgpod, and it flat out just doesn’t work. Banshee and Rhythmbox both actually work fairly well, both for the iPod and tagging. However I found that if I do too much at once Banshee will hang and do weird things, and Rhythmbox has one bad bug where removing files from your iPod deletes the entry from the iPod database but fails to actually delete the file and free up space… screwing your pod. From what I could find, this is specific to the 30G video model and a few others, but not all iPods, and all this should be fixed in the next distro releases.

So, the truth is there currently is no one perfect application on Linux to do all your music management… you have to try them all and use what works, and you may be like me and choose what you like. What I like are small, non-bloated, simple apps that work and are good at what they do…

Music Player:

I like and use Listen as my music player, I think it’s rad…. its an app developed from some French guy: www.listen-project.org

I think Listen is the f*****g bomb, and I have no idea why it hasn’t caught more wind. Frankly I dig the interface, the flow of playlist and album cover management on the left, sources like podcasts, your local library, devices like your iPod or CD, as well as Lyrics, Wikipedia sources in the middle, and then on the right you have your iTunes like browsing. It has a fantastic dynamic playlist mode that incorporates LastFM data, your preferences and playing history into a freaking awesome running DJ. You just seed it with a few tracks and let it go. Everything is at your touch on the main screen, no tabs or bloat, and its all drag-and-drop-able.

I’ll stop gushing about this player, and just say try it. Besides the fact that my iPod model in particular doesn’t work with Listen yet, it is a simple, effective, and brilliant music explorer.

Audio ripper and decoder:

I use GRIP, I think its awesome at the only thing it does, rip and encode CD’s. I have it configured with the default gstreamer ripper, and the switched it to the lame encoder with bit rate set to 192kb for mp3′s. (I just use mp3′s, they are universal between devices and players, and yes I’m kind of an audiophile so I like a high bit rate). Simple, effective, and it works.

iPod manager:

I use gtkpod. To date, out of all the players… none of them work entirely with my iPod, or have some quirk. Gtkpod however, is not a player, but rather a small app and all it does is you point it at your media collection, and it drags and drops stuff without issues to any iPod. Simple, effective, and it works for everything I’ve tried.

So there you have it…. hope that puts someone on the right track.

-e