Amarok : Awesome music player for Linux!

  17 Dec 2007 by ReviewSaurus | , , ,

Amarok is free audio player for Linux and an impressive one too! Amarok comes with KDE and I used it while using Kubuntu. I loved the audio player so much that even though, I shifted to Ubuntu and that I’m using Gnome desktop enviorment, I decided that I’ll install Amarok for playing the audio files.

Interface :

The interface is a bit complicated but after spending 4-5 min with it, it felt like breeze. As seen, in the screenshot, it has got a two pane interface, on the left it maintains the media library and on the right hand side, it maintains the Playlist.

Features :

What made me fan of Amarok is the list of some useful features and how customizable it is. Here are some of the features which I loved :

1. Database which maintains our stats, our listening habits and on top of it, with the help of that database, it suggests us the music too.

2. Integration with Wikipedia and Last.FM helps in finding information about the artists and lets you listen to the Last.FM channels without going on Last.FM.

3. Supports other music devices and if you connect any other media player, then it lets you sync music with those devices without any problems.

4. Lets you make use of the Window key as the global shortcuts support understands that key. (well, I know its not a new feature but as I said, while using Linux, I’m also looking at the usability of the software and this software gives me that for sure).

5. Support for scripts is also a cool feature as lots of scripts help in expanding its features and you’ll realize that all these features are not available in other audio players.

Overall review and thoughts :

After using Amarok for sometime, I literally became fan of this software and I believe that users of Windows deserve this software too. Amarok is certainly a must have software for all Linux users.

Small tip : If you are using Ubuntu and if you want to install this great piece of software then just follow this steps :

1. Open Terminal.
2. type : sudo apt-get install amarok
3. type the password and say Y when it asks for the confirmation.
4. Run the program from Applications->Sound & Video->Amarok

4 Responses so far

  1. Shankar Ganesh December 18, 2007 7:56 am

    I’ve heard a lot on Amarok, and I’d love to use it.

    But the problem is my sound card is not supported in the distros I’ve tried, so nothing much to say on it.

    I’m waiting eagerly for the Windows version of Amarok. And I think it’ll replace every other media player I’m using now.

  2. ReviewSaurus December 18, 2007 10:03 pm

    @ Shankar : Well, it’s kinda strange that your sound card isn’t supported by all the distors you’ve tried. I’m sure there will be a work around for that, even I had a bit of a problem as the sound was coming really low but I made small tweaks, through sound manager and it is sounding better than windows :)

  3. Madhur Kapoor December 18, 2007 10:43 pm

    I used Linux once but i tried mplayer at that time.

  4. sindhu December 25, 2007 6:45 am

    mplayer plays all sorts of audio, although may not have management like amarok .. mplayer is teh best. amarok supports only some of the audio formats. vlc is close enough

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