MX Linux Forum

There are a few great music players for KDE... which music player do you prefer to use and would like to see in MX KDE?

Music Player for my terminal. Been using moc forever

GUI Music Player been using Clementine forever

A heavily modified cmus for me. Other users of the same install (coming from FB2K) prefer DeaDBeeF.

+1 Clementine

I prefer it over Strawberry for the Internet Podcast stuff.

Clementine has not been updated for ages. Strawberry is a fork that is maintained.

Even then, Sayonara is a better choice for an average user:
https://sayonara-player.com/

Any help on how to get internet radio stations, and podcasts on Strawberry?

I am totally for an updated and maintained app/fork, but I just don't see options in Strawberry for finding internet radio stations, nor for downloading podcasts; in Clementine, on the left-hand sidebar, the "Internet" tab has a button for "Icecast", which has a plethora of radio stations, which can be searched by genre. It also has a button for"Podcasts", which provides a number of ways to search for a particular podcast.

I have not been successful on Strawberry in finding neither internet radio stations, nor podcasts.

I see that Strawberry has a "Radios" button, but it's nothing like "Icecast", which has thousands of internet radio stations.

Again, I'm not arguing for one platform or another; if there is a way to configure Strawberry for internet radio and podcast searches, please let me know!!!

BTW: I also use Strawberry, but just for playing a little music, and some of the provided radio channels.

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 10:50 am Any help on how to get internet radio stations, and podcasts on Strawberry?

I am totally for an updated and maintained app/fork, but I just don't see options in Strawberry for finding internet radio stations, nor for downloading podcasts; in Clementine, on the left-hand sidebar, the "Internet" tab has a button for "Icecast", which has a plethora of radio stations, which can be searched by genre. It also has a button for"Podcasts", which provides a number of ways to search for a particular podcast.

I have not been successful on Strawberry in finding neither internet radio stations, nor podcasts.

I see that Strawberry has a "Radios" button, but it's nothing like "Icecast", which has thousands of internet radio stations.

Again, I'm not arguing for one platform or another; if there is a way to configure Strawberry for internet radio and podcast searches, please let me know!!!

BTW: I also use Strawberry, but just for playing a little music, and some of the provided radio channels.

I have added radio stations using the Playlist | Add Stream, then save that to your playlists.

@CharlesV Thanks, for that! I now see how I can add them, once I have the URLs.

Am I correct in saying that there is no "search" in Strawberry for internet radio stations or podcasts?

I frequently like to search for internet radio stations, like, "70s", or, you guessed it, "opera"; I also like to search for podcasts, e.g. "Sean Carroll".

Is there any way to do that in Strawberry?

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:36 pm @CharlesV Thanks, for that! I now see how I can add them, once I have the URLs.

Am I correct in saying that there is no "search" in Strawberry for internet radio stations or podcasts?

I frequently like to search for internet radio stations, like, "70s", or, you guessed it, "opera"; I also like to search for podcasts, e.g. "Sean Carroll".

Is there any way to do that in Strawberry?

I do not believe there is a search for stations. If I attempt to search it only searches my library.

CharlesV wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:49 pm

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:36 pm @CharlesV Thanks, for that! I now see how I can add them, once I have the URLs.

Am I correct in saying that there is no "search" in Strawberry for internet radio stations or podcasts?

I frequently like to search for internet radio stations, like, "70s", or, you guessed it, "opera"; I also like to search for podcasts, e.g. "Sean Carroll".

Is there any way to do that in Strawberry?

I do not believe there is a search for stations. If I attempt to search it only searches my library.

That's what I feared.

This is why my vote is for Clementine, even though it's not updated/maintained.

Still works like a charm, though!

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 2:48 pm

CharlesV wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:49 pm

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:36 pm @CharlesV Thanks, for that! I now see how I can add them, once I have the URLs.

Am I correct in saying that there is no "search" in Strawberry for internet radio stations or podcasts?

I frequently like to search for internet radio stations, like, "70s", or, you guessed it, "opera"; I also like to search for podcasts, e.g. "Sean Carroll".

Is there any way to do that in Strawberry?

I do not believe there is a search for stations. If I attempt to search it only searches my library.

That's what I feared.

This is why my vote is for Clementine, even though it's not updated/maintained.

Still works like a charm, though!

That's why I'm with Clementine to. If it ain't broken, I stick to them. I have over dozen, non-maintain applications. Most were built to do one thing well. If well still stands, I'm stick with it until it don't have two legs to stand on.

IMHO, having abandoned/unmaintained apps as defaults is generally not the best practice.

Especially when there are maintained alternatives.

Dearth wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 3:23 pm IMHO, having abandoned/unmaintained apps as defaults is generally not the best practice.

Especially when there are maintained alternatives.

OK, but not an "alternative" for me, since it doesn't provide the functionality I want.

Just my personal preference. Maybe others aren't into the whole internet radio thing, and, "there's nothing wrong with that", to quote a famous 90s sitcom.

Also, I know I'm in the very clear minority, given that I don't do most "apps", e.g. Spotify, just because I don't have to, and, I'm "retrograde".

I see that in this post I have become one of those very annoying people who constantly is using the air-quotes-gesticulation-thing

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:36 pm @CharlesV Thanks, for that! I now see how I can add them, once I have the URLs.

Am I correct in saying that there is no "search" in Strawberry for internet radio stations or podcasts?

I frequently like to search for internet radio stations, like, "70s", or, you guessed it, "opera"; I also like to search for podcasts, e.g. "Sean Carroll".

Is there any way to do that in Strawberry?

I like Strawberry for managing my music library and also its smart playlists.

However, for internet radio [and also extracting music/video files from youtube videos], I use qmplay2, which @Stevo takes upon himself to package the updates regularly. It has a nice search function for radio stations, though I have to admit nothing turned up when searching for "Sean Carroll". "Opera" and "70s" got search hits.

VLC is an excellent player, and can also do simple transcoding and such.

But what about the KDE app Dragon Player: https://apps.kde.org/dragonplayer/

asqwerth wrote: Thu Jan 30, 2025 4:20 am

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:36 pm @CharlesV Thanks, for that! I now see how I can add them, once I have the URLs.

Am I correct in saying that there is no "search" in Strawberry for internet radio stations or podcasts?

I frequently like to search for internet radio stations, like, "70s", or, you guessed it, "opera"; I also like to search for podcasts, e.g. "Sean Carroll".

Is there any way to do that in Strawberry?

I like Strawberry for managing my music library and also its smart playlists.

However, for internet radio [and also extracting music/video files from youtube videos], I use qmplay2, which @Stevo takes upon himself to package the updates regularly. It has a nice search function for radio stations, though I have to admit nothing turned up when searching for "Sean Carroll". "Opera" and "70s" got search hits.

ksnip_20250130-171632.png

Thanks! and thanks to @Stevo for maintaining QMPlay2

I totally forgot that I delved into this a while back, and already have some stuff set-up on it!



I was able to find Sean Carroll's "Mindscape" podcast by using the YouTube search func:



It looks like it can search for internet radio stations, and get podcasts, but only if they are on YouTube. However, it won't give me a link to an entire podcast channel, just individual episodes. What I am really interested in for the Podcasts, is to basically use an RSS feed, so that I can subscribe to a given podcast, and then update and download current episodes. This functionality exists with Clementine (using gpodder.net and/or iTunes), but I can't find it, neither with Strawberry, nor with QMPlay2. Oh, well...

Yeah, I really do like QMPlay2, but haven't been using it, since Clementine just does everything I want.

Although, I gotta say that having the built-in YouTube functionality is a major plus

Maybe I'll just use both...

@operadude and others

qmplay2 does not appear to have podcast by master link...agreed but can play individual feed agreed

vlc is what you are after

https://itsfoss.com/vlc-tricks/

https://imgur.com/a/LDSBPFo

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:36 pm ... "opera"; I also like to search for podcasts, e.g. "Sean Carroll".

+1

My music player is Quod Libet, mainly because of the music library capabilities it provides.

I haven't yet used it for podcasts and internet radio, but:
It can subscribe to podcasts, I don't know whether it provides a directory
https://quodlibet.readthedocs.io/en/lat ... casts.html

And it can browse internet radio
https://quodlibet.readthedocs.io/en/lat ... radio.html

ghunter wrote: Thu Jan 30, 2025 8:29 pm @operadude and others

qmplay2 does not appear to have podcast by master link...agreed but can play individual feed agreed

vlc is what you are after

https://itsfoss.com/vlc-tricks/

https://imgur.com/a/LDSBPFo

Thanks for the tip on getting icecast on vlc.

For podcasts on vlc, I will already need the url for the podcast, and then it.

Doesn't look like there's any search for podcasts.

Both of the above are built-in, and clearly visible on the sidebar of Clementine.

Thanks, anyway...always good to have more tools in the toolbox

dings wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 1:13 am

operadude wrote: Wed Jan 29, 2025 1:36 pm ... "opera"; I also like to search for podcasts, e.g. "Sean Carroll".

+1

My music player is Quod Libet, mainly because of the music library capabilities it provides.

I haven't yet used it for podcasts and internet radio, but:
It can subscribe to podcasts, I don't know whether it provides a directory
https://quodlibet.readthedocs.io/en/lat ... casts.html

And it can browse internet radio
https://quodlibet.readthedocs.io/en/lat ... radio.html

Thanks for that...will take a look.

From the docs from your link, re: internet radio stations:

If you don’t know any good stations, the Stations… button will let you select some.

Not sure about the Podcast "browser"; unclear from the docs if it provides a robust search for podcasts.

Will take a look.

In lieu of all my "blah, blah, blah"...a picture (or 2) is worth a thousand words Ignore the right-hand-side: just what I happen to be listening to right now...

This is what I like about Clementine, and which I haven't (yet) seen with other players:

Regarding Internet Radio search, using Icecast, see left-hand sidebar, where I have entered "70s" in the search bar at the top left. An empty search field says "search icecast". Handy!



And, now, the Podcast search, using gpodder.net:



Clicking "Add Podcast" will subscribe me to the podcast, and will be in the list of podcasts on the left-hand sidebar (my podcast list not shown in picture). I can search other locations, such as iTunes, and, of course, I could simply enter the URL, if I have it.

It's just that easy!

No need to change settings, first finding the URL, etc.

Maybe I'm just lazy, but I love it, and it works for my old-school needs

Post-Script:

Just saw the poll (at the top of the page for this thread).

Well...it's like what I've been telling my family for years:

" I am an Anomaly "



No, Not "The Anomaly" -- name that movie!

I don't like music libraries, so Audacious for me :)

Sayonara. It accommodates 2 libraries - one for me and one for my partner.

Cheers.

KDE apps like Elisa and Amarok be part of list. They are good. But VLC yes is my first choice

Audacious for most, Strawberry for CD's.

I would say Foobar2k but actually getting the devs to release to Linux is an uphill battle.

I've already voted for Strawberry, as I have extensive collections of music files and I really like their smart playlists [same as clementine's], esp the dynamic [random] playlist for playing my music, while it's also no issue to play by album or artist.

I already have qmplay2 for my internet radio searches and youtube downloader, so I don't miss the radio functions in strawberry, which were not carried over from clementine.

But I have another rather quirky reason for liking strawberry, which probably no one else will bother with.

I have conkies that display the music info and album covers of currently playing tracks, using a script that's been provided with MX conkies for a long time. Having tested quite a few MPRIS-compliant media players [in some of my other distros I have pragha, audacious, guayadeque, quodlibet installed, and every distro has VLC as well for videos], and while they all work with the said script to display music info in the conkies, none of them can work with the script to display the album art in the conkies.

The only 3 - out of those I've tested - that do are clementine, strawberry and qmplay2. I've tried web searches but haven't found any answers. To be honest, no one else has asked the question!

For these 3 players, album art will even be displayed for internet radio streams if the art is included in the stream. So even though strawberry and qmplay2 are already my favourites for music management, playlists, radio streams and youtube extraction, the conky abilities put them above the rest, for me.

rambo919 wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 7:10 amI would say Foobar2k but actually getting the devs to release to Linux is an uphill battle.

Hm... does that mean that Peter might be persuaded to do a Linux version? My impression has always been that he's just not interested in that though since I'm Linux-only I've not really followed FB2K.
FWIW a couple of people whom I've "converted" to MX and who were FB2K fans before are pretty happy w/ deadbeef.

1) Not sure why this topic matters, since people can install whatever player they prefer. I guess you're asking about a single default player, so that people new to Linux who might not know anything about all the specialty Linux players would have something functional immediately after install....

2) Is a default music player supposed to be different from a separate default video player? (I did a very quick search here and didn't find any similar thread called: "What video player would you like to see in MX KDE?"

3) I personally think it's just silly to use a player that can ONLY play one thing, like audio, and then requires others to play other things. I use many types, constantly, and even simultaneously (podcast on one, background music on another, skimming through some muted webinar video on third, doing file conversions on a fourth. Thus, I want ONE player that can play ANYTHING I throw at it: audio, video, streams, pics, whatever. As well as do conversions between them too. Thus, is there anything that beats VLC? That's always my default. And I can have 10 of them open at once. Multi-tool. The rest of these apps are just little single forks and spoons.

Plus, people coming over from Windoze (and maybe crApple too) may already have experience with VLC, and lower their learning curve since that will already be familiar.

4) Why not just offer the user a choice of any/all at the install? Ever check out how Garuda does an install? It's awesome because they break down apps into a number of categories and then allow the user to pick which individual ones will get installed. I LEARNED about a ton of apps that I didn't know existed because of that process a few years ago. (I haven't checked it recently though, after moving over to MX)

Later I was pleased to see similar optionality structure now in the MX Package Installer. So why not just make that similar capability (selecting from a group of apps, per category) available immediately (at installation)? Unless I'm just not comprehending something here...?

thomasl wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 10:02 am

rambo919 wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 7:10 amI would say Foobar2k but actually getting the devs to release to Linux is an uphill battle.

Hm... does that mean that Peter might be persuaded to do a Linux version? My impression has always been that he's just not interested in that though since I'm Linux-only I've not really followed FB2K.
FWIW a couple of people whom I've "converted" to MX and who were FB2K fans before are pretty happy w/ deadbeef.

I remember someone expressing passing interest in making a linux version once or twice but nothing ever coming of it. Just no incentive I guess, just really annoying that they don't just open source the thing already because then someone would have done it already most likely.

deadbeef is absolutely no F2k replacement... nothing is but Audacious comes close enough for me.... as if I have any choice hahaha Now if only someone makes an undo function for the playlist....

The funny thing is F2k works fine in wine BUT keyboard media keys only works if it's in focus

rambo919 wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2025 1:22 pmdeadbeef is absolutely no F2k replacement...

Very true... for power users. But the folks I was talking about are just happy that DB (after I massaged the UI and added a couple of plugins) feels more or less like FB2K. I still have (and occasionally use) FB2K in my Windows VM, mostly because I have a "library" of conversions ready for use. I should really convert them to shell scripts

Re :Foobar2K
There is a new audio-player Fooyin which seems to bring some Foobar2K features to Linux.

LinuxNews (German) just had a review about it.

dings wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 5:01 pm Re :Foobar2K
There is a new audio-player Fooyin which seems to bring some Foobar2K features to Linux.

LinuxNews (German) just had a review about it.

I dunno if this is passive aggressive but the dev even copied foobars logo.... and the alien looks p-d off now hahaha

rambo919 wrote: Wed Feb 19, 2025 12:36 am I dunno if this is passive aggressive but the dev even copied foobars logo

Well, it's similar but not identical... So perhaps an occasion to wheel out Oscar Wilde: 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.'