DefaultMediaPlayer

Revision 7 as of 2015-03-26 01:59:40

Clear message

Desired Features

Here we do a simple comparison of some known and popular media players for linux, most of them are in the repos, the set of minimal desired functions are:

  • Having a functional media library
  • Having the ability to handle large libraries
  • Having a separated playlist (or queue) from the media library
  • Having the ability to search the media library without affecting the playing list
  • Having the ability to browse/play all albums by artist
  • Having the ability to browse/play all artists on album
  • Having a sensible default sort order (artist, album, disc, track)
  • Having the ability to search the playing list to rapidly jump to a song
  • Having the possibility to save playlist to share them or backup them
  • Having the possibility of playing podcasts or other streams formats
  • Having MPRIS support (for sound indicator integration)

Other considered characteristics are the installed size, toolkit and presence in the repos.

Software

Music library

Large libraries

Playlist separated from music library

Search without affecting playlist

Browse albums by artist

Browse artists by album

Sensible sort

Jump to song

Save playlist

Streams & Podcasts

MPRIS

Installed size

In repos

Toolkit

Note

gmusicbrowser

(./)

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(X)

?

(X) 1

(X)

(X)

(./)

?

(./)

Gtk+

Has many broken layouts. Has buttons and menu items which hide all your music with no obvious way to get it back.

Rhythmbox

(./)

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(./)

(./)

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?

(./)

Gtk+

Default in Ubuntu; strong support.

Banshee

(./)

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?

(./)

Gtk+

Brings Mono dependency.

Exaile

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(./)

(X)

(./)

(X) 2

(./)

(./) 3

(X)

?

(./)

Gtk+

Can't play without making a playlist.

Audacious

(./)

(./) 4

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(X) 5

(X)

(X)

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(X) 6

(./)

(X)

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?

(./)

Gtk+

Very fast, slick UI.

  1. Not available in Shimmer layout. (1)

  2. Has a menu item for this, but it doesn't work. (2)

  3. Radio streams only. (3)

  4. INCREDIBLY fast import. (4)

  5. Can only see artist/album results. Attempting to view individual song results changes current playing track. (5)

  6. Has menu option, but it doesn't work properly - jumps to the wrong song and changes the current playing song. (6)