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Linux MP3 Music Library Managers

Looking for a good MP3 music manager is reoccurring task for me, because so far none has really convinced me, yet. After switching to a new distro recently, it was time to reevaluate the choices. Below is a list of library managers/players available through the Arch package manager.

I installed them all, tried to import my music library1) and tested a few common tasks. The list below is not an in depth feature comparison. It's just the features/non-features that caught my attention.

All tested players have an iTunes-like artist/album/song browser. I was most interested in their last.fm integration but also had a look at other features. My album cover images are stored as a file named folder.jpg, so I checked if the tools would find and display that correctly.


Amarok

Amarok

  • KDE based
  • Most feature rich player
  • Automatically rates songs based on your behavior
  • Great context browser showing Wikipedia info, last.fm related songs and artists, additional albums by the same artist, lyrics…
  • “smart” playlists
  • Last.fm scrobbling, neighbor and tag radio, love/tagging for radio only
  • Radio station browser, podcast support
  • Album cover support with cover manager to download from Amazon
  • Plugin system with browser/downloader
  • Customizable notification window

Banshee

Banshee

  • GTK+ based player
  • Ripping and burning support
  • Video player
  • Last.fm scrobbling and neighbor/recommended radio support, no love/tagging
  • “jump to playing song” didn't work for me
  • Notifications

BMPx

BMPx

  • GTK+ based
  • Somewhat slow loading
  • No way to play from all songs!?
  • Album covers didn't work for me
  • Full last.fm support with scrobbling, radio (including friends), play similar and love/tagging
  • Internet radio station browser
  • Podcast support
  • Notifications
  • No “smart” playlists

Exaile

Exaile

  • Written in Python/GTK+
  • Aims to be a GTK+ Amarok clone (but has less features, yet)
  • Internet radio and podcast bookmarks – no radio browser
  • Plugin support (with browser/downloader)
  • Last.fm scrobbling built in – no radio, suggestion or love/tagging support
  • Album cover support with automatic (Amazon based) collector
  • Customizable notification window

gmusicbrowser

gmusicbrowser

  • Written in Perl/GTK2
  • Layout can be configured in many different ways
  • Last.fm scrobbling only
  • Lyric support didn't work for me
  • Considers all files for playing, allows you to set filters – nice!
  • Manual song ratings
  • Album cover support, manual Google cover search
  • No podcast or internet radio support

Goggles Music Manager

Goggles

  • Uses the FOX GUI library – simple but fast
  • Couldn't get album cover support working
  • Gapless playback and volume normalization
  • No last.fm support
  • Not much more

Listen

Listen

  • Written in Python/GTK+
  • Freezes when trying to import my library
  • I previously used an older version which was quite nice, can't say much about the current one

Quod Libet

Quod Libet

  • Written in Python/GTL+
  • Different interface layouts
  • Internet radio station bookmarking
  • Plugin support – but none available in Arch
  • No last.fm support (maybe plugin somewhere?)
  • Cover art didn't work

Rhythmbox

Rhythmbox

  • A Gnome project
  • Last.fm scrobbling and neighbor radio support, send love for radio songs only
  • Podcast support, radio station bookmarks
  • smart playlists
  • Album cover support
  • Plugin support

Summary

None of the players is perfect. So far Amarok seems to have the biggest feature set and currently is my default player. What I like most is the automatic song rating based on my listening behavior. When I skip a song it gets a lower score than when I listen to it in full. KDE isn't my desktop environment of choice2) so it feels a bit foreign and I'd love to replace Amarok with a GTK based player someday.

Exaile and Rhythmbox made the best impression inteface/feeling wise so far. The best last.fm integration by far is to be found in BMPx – unfortunately it is missing other important features.

Do you know of any other Linux software I missed? What desktop MP3 player do you use? Let me know in the comments, please.

Tags:
mp3, linux, software, mp3player
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