I'm a sometime Linux user who's like to make the switch once and for all. I've done some browsing and came up with a long list of audio apps, (Rhytmbox, Banshee, Exaile, etc.) some more promising than others.
While trying to figure out which ones are worth the download, I decided to ask the readers of this forum this question: What Linux audio player do you use and why?
Feel free to mention any problems or compatibility issues you've came across as well.
-- Vir
Amarok.
1) last.fm integration
2) stores collection and play stats in a database
3) uses xine as a backend, which at this point is much more stable and configurable that gstreamer
4) based on qt/kde which is way better than gnome imho
5) has a great vibrant and active community, very active development squad (10 active committers with author level status)
6) smart playlists
7) dcop control
8) script support for extending the functioanlity of the app
9) eye-candy
10) wikipedia integration
11) lyric fetching
12) tag editing is easy
13) libvisual integration (got to have ProjectM)
14) easy cover art management
15) integrated support for my ifp-799 (also supports mtp, ipod and generic vfat devices)
16) daap support
17) automatic scoring system which has given me insight into my musicla tastes
18) 5 star user rating system
19) cover art fetching
20) great podcast support
oh, and did I say it can run on gnome with just qt and kdelibs installed, no kde is necessary.
Amarok.
I second this one.
If you don't like Amarok, then Quod Libet is an excellent choice, too. While it lacks many of Amarok's more advanced features, it's tag editing and library are very good indeed. You should give Quod Libet and Amarok a try and see which you like more.
MPD (http://musicpd.org) (Music Player Daemon)
- Gapless playback (and for LAME mp3 files).
- ReplayGain support (and for ID3v2 tagged MP3).
- MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC/MP4, Musepack, FLAC, Wav, MOD formats support.
- Small memory requirements (has no UI at all because of 'daemon' nature).
- Many frontends (from command-line to Gnome/KDE apps).
- Last.FM support throught 3rd paty program (like lastfmsubmitd).
MPD (http://musicpd.org) (Music Player Daemon)
- Gapless playback (and for LAME mp3 files).
- ReplayGain support (and for ID3v2 tagged MP3).
- MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC/MP4, Musepack, FLAC, Wav, MOD formats support.
- Small memory requirements (has no UI at all because of 'daemon' nature).
- Many frontends (from command-line to Gnome/KDE apps).
- Last.FM support throught 3rd paty program (like lastfmsubmitd).
I second this, MPD is fantastic. Amarok is nice but it's no good if you're sat away from the PC like on a home theatre PC because it requires lots of mousing around. I can control MPD from my PDA, laptop or even a Windows PC.
If only MPD supported embedded cue sheets and selectable outputs / playlists at once i'd be a happy camper.
Funnily enough though no matter how nice the different clients for MPD are I always go back to using the command line ncmpc instead as it's sooooo fast. I even use it on my Windows laptop through putty.
Nice. Thanks guys. I'd never heard of either Quod Libet or MPD before this. Quod Libet is looking particularly nice since there is a rumor that it supports cue-sheets?
I guess my main problem is that as a Foobar lover I'm a bit dismayed by the iTunes-iness of all the newer players. I guess I'm just gonna have to suck it up and find one I like.
-- Vir
I guess my main problem is that as a Foobar lover I'm a bit dismayed by the iTunes-iness of all the newer players. I guess I'm just gonna have to suck it up and find one I like.
foobar runs perfectly using wine on linux.
i have very little experience w/ wine, and little interest in it honestly. but i did give foobar2000 a shot via wine, and it ran. it wasn't very stable for me, and had quite a few quirks/bugs, but i've heard from people that know what they're doing w/ wine (like gkmeyer, apparently) that they can get fb2k running properly.
meh. its not for me. i'd rather change my ways alittle and use a native app.
edit: on a positive note, i think the continued maturation of gstreamer will bring us quite a few acceptable players. i really like the idea of gstreamer, and someday soon it will be a great thing, but its not quite ready yet. additionally, as i said somewhere else, i'm excited about watching the development of lamip. it still has a ways to go till its foobar2000 caliber, but from the looks of it, its certainly on the right track, and i'm hoping with the pending release of 1.0.0, it will be ready for regular use, for me at least.
For me the main disadvantage of current GStreamer is an absence of gapless playback by design. You will hear a big gap even for Vorbis or lossless codecs and for any mp3 (and latest LAME encoded) it will be even more. Maybe later it will be added but I didnt' read anything about such TODO yet.
I use http://aqualung.sourceforge.net/ (http://aqualung.sourceforge.net/), it suits my purposes, although it's not flawless (it has one or two bugs that affect me).
It's simple: if you're using Gnome, Quod Libet or Rhythmbox will do nicely. If you're using Kde, Amarok is beyond any doubt the very best. If I mix the programs with the other desktop environment, colours and 'feel' often disturbs me.
Make sure you use a distribution with mp3 out of the box, it will prevent a lot of trouble on your system. Another option is using exclusively vorbis and flac. They're supported on virtually every distribution as they're not patent encumbered.
I just use foobar2000 for audio file conversion as I can just download the latest .exe of audio format x, y, or z than encode plus keep a archive of lossless image file with embedded cuesheet.
For actual playing of files on Nix, I am torn between Aqualung and MPD. The thing to do though is to try each suggested one out and see if it is to your liking.
MPD (Music Player Daemon)
- Gapless playback (and for LAME mp3 files).
- ReplayGain support (and for ID3v2 tagged MP3).
- MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC/MP4, Musepack, FLAC, Wav, MOD formats support.
- Small memory requirements (has no UI at all because of 'daemon' nature).
- Many frontends (from command-line to Gnome/KDE apps).
- Last.FM support throught 3rd paty program (like lastfmsubmitd).
I use MPD but I'm not getting gapless playback of LAME mp3s. Anything special you're doing?
I've tried most linux players and none compare to foobar. Amarok's nice but lacks customizability and LAME gapless playback, as does quod libet. Still, both of those are certainly useable.
I'd really like to set up aqualung but I'm rather new to linux and haven't managed so far
Although not having tried it (barely use mp3), aqualung (aqualung.sf.net) has recently added gapless (lame) mp3 support.
Gapless LAME mp3 playback was added only in version 0.12.0 (and ReplayGain support for mp3 with ID3v2 tags), see MPD ChangeLog (http://svn.musicpd.org/filedetails.php?repname=MPD&path=%2Fmpd%2Ftags%2Frelease-0.12.0%2FChangeLog&rev=0&sc=0)
If mp3 has LAME tag with delay/padding info then mpd plays this file gapless for me.
Personally, I switch between using Amarok and Audacious (http://audacious-media-player.org/Main_Page). Audacious seems to be a great fork off of XMMS. Hey, it even has GEP, PSF, Timidity, ALSA MIDI and SID input plugins. (I'm somewhat big into old-skool console music.) I still do use Foobar via Wine to do converting, tagging, etc. (When Wine decides not to break that is.)
Gapless LAME mp3 playback was added only in version 0.12.0 (and ReplayGain support for mp3 with ID3v2 tags), see MPD ChangeLog (http://svn.musicpd.org/filedetails.php?repname=MPD&path=%2Fmpd%2Ftags%2Frelease-0.12.0%2FChangeLog&rev=0&sc=0)
If mp3 has LAME tag with delay/padding info then mpd plays this file gapless for me.
oh yeah, cheers. It seems that 0.12.0 isn't in the debian repositories yet. I guess I'll compile it when I have time.
Amarok's nice but lacks customizability and LAME gapless playback, as does quod libet
It's not quite Foobar2000, but I was impressed with a lot of it's features and the fact that it supports CSS customization layouts. It has it's own ABX comperator too.
MPD (http://musicpd.org) (Music Player Daemon)
- Gapless playback (and for LAME mp3 files).
- ReplayGain support (and for ID3v2 tagged MP3).
- MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC/MP4, Musepack, FLAC, Wav, MOD formats support.
- Small memory requirements (has no UI at all because of 'daemon' nature).
- Many frontends (from command-line to Gnome/KDE apps).
- Last.FM support throught 3rd paty program (like lastfmsubmitd).
mpd sounds and looks really nice, and i'm interested it trying it out, but apparently i'm missing something very simple. i can't firgure out how to play
local files with it. i'm not interested in playing files streamed over a network, that that appears to be what all the settings and commands are geared toward. is there a way to simply have a local library or database defined by, for instance, ~/music/ ?
is there a way to simply have a local library or database defined by, for instance, ~/music/ ?
Of course! Setup in your mpd config file (I'm using ~/.mpdconf, or it may be system wide in /etc/mpd.conf) the
music_directory option:
music_directory "~/music"
There is mpdconf.example in mpd sources, try to use is as a template for your config.
sorry for this noob question but: how do you install foobar in ubuntu? I mean how do you get it to work using wine actually.
Sebastian
I have separate repositary for wine in my ubuntu, instruction how to add it you may read at wine download page (http://winehq.com/site/download-deb). So I have latest packed wine anytime, this also may help sometimes. Install wine package using you favorite package manager (eg. Synaptic or aptitude in terminal).
Then associate /usr/bin/wine as default application for .exe files and just doubleclick to foobar installer. It will be installed in ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/foobar2000 by default. To get converter working it's need to put lame.exe/oggenc.exe/wavpack.exe/<anyother.exe> in this dir. winecfg (command line tool) can help you configure your wine installation.
I vote for aqualung too. It seems to be the most promising player of all in linux. It currently has most of the functionality I need and the developers are open to feature requests. It supports gapless playback and replaygain in vorbis, flac and mp3 with id3v2. I'm going to send them some example mp3s with replaygain info in apev2 tags, they said they will most probably add support for it if I do.
I can't understand why mpd hasn't got support for wavpack O_o
It's like the only thing missing to be complete
Foobar2000 raised the bar so high that every linux audio app I try -- and I've tried most of them -- leaves me underwhelmed.
I'm currently using MPD w/ Pygmy and ncmpc clients for my properly tagged and sorted library. For stray files, fresh rips or downloads, and streams I like Audacious.
foobar raised the bar for every audio app (linux/macosx/win32/etc.). it is one of few programs not emulated well.
i use healthy doses of lamip and xmms most of the time
i play with most of the players, but i always go back to xmms/lamip.
i should note that i don't use tags, so that minimizes the effectiveness of most tag/library based players.
later
i should note that i don't use tags
Thats pretty unusual. Any particular reason why?
I have recently fallen in love with Exaile (exaile.org). It's kinda like Amarok for gnome. It's still in some pretty active develoment, but it is finally so much better than the other players I have used before. Yes amarok rocks, but it crashes after only one song on a bunch of my comps, so I refused to use it.
Does anyone know about a linux player with Matroska/WavPack support? So far I found nothing on the net...
I don't know about Matroska, but for WavPack...
Several Linux distributions now have pre-compiled WavPack packages available and there is a working GStreamer plugin. These players now support Wavpack:
* Quod Libet - A GTK+-based audio player written in Python (using the GStreamer plugin)
* LAMIP - Linux Audio Multiple Interface Player (using an official plugin)
* XMMS (beta version plugin available here)
(from WavPack.com)
I think i mentioned elsewhere but i'm using Foobar2000 0.8.3 with wine just fine (Ubuntu Edgy Eft).
Wine configured in w2k (default) mode and esd for audio output; foobar2000 configured to use wave out and 8000ms buffer. No skips whatsoever, while browsing hydrogenaudio forum in Firefox and compressing a 500mb tar into bz2.
I just need to find an unicode font and tell wine to use it (otherwise i get blankspaces but files work just fine).
Foobar2000 0.9.4.1 was unusable under wine (heavy audio problems).
Machine: AMD Duron 1300, 1GiB DDR333 ram, mbchipset via kt333, oboard audio RT alc650, 250gb 7200rpm Maxtor HD pata100.
just a comment...
i just successfully compiled my first program. well, that may not be quite true, i may have compiled something small at some point, but never something that required work and thought for sorting out dependencies...
regardless, it was aqualung! so far, i like it. i've just played with it for a few minutes, and its time for me to go to bed (around 3 am), so i'll look more tomorrow.
but so far, i'm happy with it. its user interface is more "spartan" than other players i've tried; its definitely not yet-another-itunes-clone, which is a good thing imho. if you don't mind putting the work into compiling it, i'd definitely recommend giving it a swing.
i'm not completely sold on it though. i still want to check out mpd again (last time i tried, i ran into some difficulties, and gave up). i still haven't tried beep media player/xmms, but plan to, based on xmixahlx's recommendation. and as always, i'm looking forward to lamip's development.
so far, here are my opinions on the available players...
rhythmbox is nice, just because it's very simple and functional
banshee as well, is good, a few more features, *prettier* ui; great for new/itunes converts
exaile is very good. alittle more creative ui (well, its a direct copy of amarok, but still). some nice features and framework. very good developer; friendly, attentive, and active.
aqualung is definitely worth more looking into. seems to have a very nice set of features (for a native linux player, at least). spartan interface (take it or leave it). must be complied though.
music player daemon still needs to be tried
beep media player still needs to be tried
xmms still needs to be tried
lamip; the new version is coming. the lamip page says it's "cool on work," whatever the heck that means. i'll try it again when its out.
well, thats my take so far. any thoughts, opinions, or questions are welcome, as always. i'm off to bed.
edit: typo's, and the addition of lamip to the list (duh).
I certainly don't need much from the ui as long as unicode works; and in general for me visual aspect goes last (players are mostly minimized so who cares?)
I really don't like the current trend of "media libraries", this sorting of songs based in tags is ok as long as its optional; which rhythmbox and others don't get. Besides it takes ages to build their databases.
Xmms is being replaced by xmms2 which isn't done yet. It simply feels like winamp2 but misses gtk2 which beep has. Beep is being replaced by Audacious and/or BMPx.
Lamip and MPD both look promising.
Quod Libet needs APEv2 and we are done
Aqualung in local, mpd on the headless box that's connected to the stereo. Both of them do gapless just fine, as mentioned before on this thread.
On a side note, it really bugs me that the supposedly major frameworks for multimedia on linux don't take this issue seriously. Especially since we now have at least three GPL'ed gapless engines they could re-use the code of (aqualung, mpd, and the rockbox firmware, which all play lame mp3 gaplessly). From this point of view, Rhythmbox is in a sad state and Xine doesn't do much better: the 1.1.1 xine-lib release did suppress the gaps between songs, but effectively chewed half a second off the following track...
I really like the Amarok interface, but the program crashes much too often for me. I'd pay for an aqualung back-end for Amarok...
I guess you mistyped "rythmbox firmware" instead of "rockbox firmware" there eh?
Thanks. Must have been drunk...
it really bugs me that the supposedly major frameworks for multimedia on linux don't take this issue seriously. Especially since we now have at least three GPL'ed gapless engines
Totally agree with you. And also since major windows/mac os players begin to support gapless (Winamp 5.3, latest iTunes). There are many players in linux based on gstreamer, so we need to vote for adding gapless support in it. For now we must listen even gapless by the nature ogg vorbis files with gaps in the default ubuntu/gnome player - rhythmbox
How should we go about submitting features requests for gapless playback on GStreamer?
Also,is it GStreamer's fault that most applications don't support images with cuesheets, and that when encoding to mp3's from GStreamer powered applications, little to no encoding options are offered. GStreamer needs to support LAME 3.97, with a decent settings configuration (http://lame.sourceforge.net/lame_ui_example.php) (ability to use the "-V" switches should be added to that linked recommendation).
How should we go about submitting features requests for gapless playback on GStreamer?
Gstreamer developers have stated that it should be possible for players to support gapless now. The just need to really attack the problem. You might probe this rumour by asking on IRC first.
Also,is it GStreamer's fault that most applications don't support images with cuesheets, and that when encoding to mp3's from GStreamer powered applications, little to no encoding options are offered. GStreamer needs to support LAME 3.97, with a decent settings configuration (http://lame.sourceforge.net/lame_ui_example.php) (ability to use the "-V" switches should be added to that linked recommendation).
The version of lame (and liblame) depends on which package you install. There is a package for Lame 3.97.
You might find the following interesting:
gst-inspect-0.10 lame
gnome-audio-profiles-properties
audio/x-raw-int,rate=44100,channels=2 ! lame name=enc vbr=4 vbr-quality=2
Wow. That's pretty simple, and I feel pretty simple-minded right now. lol. I really should have been able to figure that out on my own... Oh well. Thanks towolf.
In other news... I tried to get mpd working again today. I decided to try qmpdclient this time, and I think I like it, I just wish it was GTK+ instead, but oh well. I'm still having trouble getting it to play local files though. I sucessfully edited my configuration file, giving it the location of where I kept my music folder, but I'm having trouble w/ my permissions.
I learned that I need to use the command, "mpd --create-db" before I can use it, but should I use sudo with that, and then should I use sudo everytime I launch the player? Or will I need to use the user-specific configuration file to avoid having to use sudo? Should I move my music folder out of my home folder? I don't know, and I'm sorry if these questions are overly basic, but I haven't quite mastered the usage of permissions and different users...
Thanks.
should I use sudo with that, and then should I use sudo everytime I launch the player? Or will I need to use the user-specific configuration file to avoid having to use sudo?
I disabled system wide mpd startup in my Ubuntu by changing START_MPD to false in /etc/default/mpd and now start it as regular user while Gnome starting. So I use ~/.mpd/ directory for database/logs/etc.
Should I move my music folder out of my home folder?
The directory tree with your music must be readable by you (and by mpd running with your uid if you will run it in your session, not system wide). But for easy managing (tagging/renaming) of collection it's better to have write permission also. So just use something like ~/music/ as a root for your music (and setup mpd accordingly).
Wow. That's pretty simple, and I feel pretty simple-minded right now. lol. I really should have been able to figure that out on my own... Oh well. Thanks towolf.
You contradict yourself. Why do you hang out on this board and ask for technical configuration options and then deride the way it’s done? Why do you use Linux?
There are default presets for new and frugal users. If you don’t like them then jump. I held the hoop for you.
I didn't mean to deride anything, I was just not aware that GStreamer could be configured. I am now much happier about it, and will be more likely to use GStreamer applications.
Regarding why I use linux, there are many reasons. Most basically though, I like the added control it gives the user over his system, whereas under Windows, I often felt that Microsoft had more control over my system than I did. Also, in principal, I prefer to support and use "Free" software. I don't claim to have a completely "Free" system; things like Adobe Flash and certain non-Free formats can be hard to avoid, but when I have options, I try to use "Free" and open-source products.
There are also countless details of linux, and Ubuntu specifically, that I have fallen in love with; I don't see myself ever going back to Windows...
There is clearly still alot I need to learn, but thus far, I have thoroughly enjoyed the learning process, making use of many sites and forums (like our deceased Non-Windows User Forum).
You contradict yourself. Why do you hang out on this board and ask for technical configuration options and then deride the way it’s done? Why do you use Linux?
There are default presets for new and frugal users. If you don’t like them then jump. I held the hoop for you
I think that's the problem with the Linux community they are too snappy about things when somebody asks how to do a simple task like configuring a shell script, etc. They need to tone it down a little. Albeit I agree with you the fact that people use open source software under Windows is like a slap in the face and a waste of time. It's understanable why Linux people get annoyed over it in that regard. The point overall Linux developers need to make it easier for Windows user to migrate over or else they should stop complaining about why more folks won't use it.
There's a sweet new mpd client out called Sonata (http://sonata.berlios.de/). It's a fork of Pygmy which adds cover art support and improves usability.
I didn't mean to deride anything, I was just not aware that GStreamer could be configured. I am now much happier about it, and will be more likely to use GStreamer applications.
Uh lala, I was reading some smacking sarcasm into your reply.
Anyway, my point would be that a lot of the stuff that is extensively discussed on this board is not even necessary on Linux. When you install Ubuntu you get a fairly good ripper with a fairly good codec pre-installed and pre-configured. For example. Compare that with Windows. I just didn’t need to pound assorted websites to get format support working. I did need to install semi- and non-official packages through system means though. Stuff is just working differently on this platform. It works by different principles. HA regulars qua power-users have a hard time to adapt to that.
If you want the extra edge of configuration you’ll get your hands dirty anwhere. I was snappy with respect to the sarcasm I “sensed”.
Then, I just cannot get what you mean with using free software on Windows. What’s the problem with that?
If you want library management, then Amarok's your ticket.
If simple playback is your goal, then VLC should do the trick.
Both are found in most mainstream distros' repositories and should be easy to install via native package management tools.
I use Foobar2000 0.9.4 with wine and my issues so far are :
-sound crackling under heavy load. It's a known alsa output bug, related to buffering. The bug does not exists under foobar2000 0.8.x (the others do)
-strange utf-8 support. I cannot get to access files named with asian characters and tags are not displayed properly. Could be related to the fact that I use iso-8859-15 on gnome
-cannot use outputs different from 44100/16.
-crash when I use my mouse wheel on the playlist.
Most of these issues are not really critical for me. The only really annoying one is the heavy cpu usage stuff.
But, even with these problems, I keep using foobar2000. I really do need the customizable album list, the custom tags support, wavpack and the transcoding ability.
The point overall Linux developers need to make it easier for Windows user to migrate over or else they should stop complaining about why more folks won't use it.
Not for Windows user but for all users. There are of course many complications that might not be solved quite easily (like binary drivers for example), but in time these things get solved properly. We just have to wait, and if possible, keep trying to give our own input to the development.
I wonder whether the foobar devs would be open to compiling under linux using Winelib. It would be very cool to have a native version of foobar on Linux.
I very much doubt it.
Yeah, me too. It would be nice, though.
I wonder whether the foobar devs would be open to compiling under linux using Winelib. It would be very cool to have a native version of foobar on Linux.
It's a waste of time with Windows developers. It would probably just be better to focus on something like Amarok and get it up to snuff or somewhat on par with things. It works out better this way, because it's Linux I mean it should have some of it's own native apps, there are some exceptions like commercial video games, etc which absolutely need Wine.
Just started using Amarok on ubuntu Edgy. Very impressed.
Wonder if anyone can help. I presume it doesnt write anything to tags, and only to the database?
I use Foobar2000 0.9.4 with wine and my issues so far are :
-sound crackling under heavy load. It's a known alsa output bug, related to buffering. The bug does not exists under foobar2000 0.8.x (the others do)
-strange utf-8 support. I cannot get to access files named with asian characters and tags are not displayed properly. Could be related to the fact that I use iso-8859-15 on gnome
-cannot use outputs different from 44100/16.
-crash when I use my mouse wheel on the playlist.
Nothing of this occurs with Foobar2000 0.8.3, i see japanese chars properly in gnome apps like the taskbar and window title; Ubuntu defaults to utf-8. Wine is configured in w2k mode with audio using esd. Inside foobar2000 simply use a proper font (like kochi or AR PL).
For those of you interested, I've found a pretty nice looking frontend for MPD. It looks a little bit like Foobar w/ColumnsUI. This one's not listed on MPD's page as far as I can tell.
http://pympd.sourceforge.net/ (http://pympd.sourceforge.net/)
Vir
I really love Amarok. I have used it all my life
The excellent points are:
- Last.fm integration (submitting tracks and playing last.fm radio)
- Almost all radio streams can be played back
- Smart playlists! (random tracks, favourite tracks, genre, last played, most played, newest tracks, never played... and more)
- Dynamic playlists! (recommended tracks, random mix)
- Media device (like iPod, Creative Zen...) integration
- Collection interface which can be based on a simple integrated database (SQLite) or on something bigger like MySQL or PostgreSQL
- Automatic Lyrics search/view
- Wikipedia artist information integration
- Automatic Cover search
- Gives recommended tracks based on the song you are listening to (powered by last.fm)
- Very clean interface (I like it alot more than iTunes)
- Alot of scripts (extensions) are available to improve Amarok!!!
- Amarok can be controlled from another PC through ssh with dcop if you want or you can control it using one of the excellent scripts that are available...
The negative points are:
- it sure is no lightweight program, but it runs very smooth on a midrange pc
- designed for KDE, so it runs best on KDE - although other environments like GNOME or XFCE can run Amarok too [but it will require a little extra RAM and take a little more time to start up (because it has to load some Qt and KDE libraries)]
- only runs inside of X, i would like the GUI and the actual program seperated, like mpd... that would really rock..
- no JACK output afaik in xine-engine (default and only engine that is in development for Amarok afaik, gstreamer-engine isn't being developed anymore iirc)
That said, I also like to use MPD with NCMPC from time to time, when I am working in a console, or when I am working on something that crashes X alot
should I use sudo with that, and then should I use sudo everytime I launch the player? Or will I need to use the user-specific configuration file to avoid having to use sudo?
I disabled system wide mpd startup in my Ubuntu by changing START_MPD to false in /etc/default/mpd and now start it as regular user while Gnome starting. So I use ~/.mpd/ directory for database/logs/etc.
Should I move my music folder out of my home folder?
The directory tree with your music must be readable by you (and by mpd running with your uid if you will run it in your session, not system wide). But for easy managing (tagging/renaming) of collection it's better to have write permission also. So just use something like ~/music/ as a root for your music (and setup mpd accordingly).
ive gotten this far, but qmpdclient still won't load my local library. I find no help from qmpdclient's site, and the MPD wiki is primarily concerned with using the shell instead of clients (obvious why).
What do I need to do to "setup mpd accordingly"? I get as far as connecting to local host and the Root directory is listed.
If an mpd client requires any more use of the shell just to get it to play local files, I think I'll switch...
I like a basic player that does nothing but plays the music, shows the current time of the track, and allows me to make a basic queue of music for extended listening sessions. I organize my music logically on a server that is accessible by any computer on the LAN, which includes windows boxes and others. I don't rely on tagging of any kind, and instead keep filenames coherent and full of the information I commonly need (track number, artist, track title, then any extra pertinent information, etc).
Having said all that, I use whatever is small and works: xmms has been a long time favorite because it's easily compiled/available for every distro, has plugins for the audio formats I use that are easily installed, and is small. I use several different operating systems quite often, so this freedom is very important to me.
I've used amarok and banshee (whatever it is that comes with SLED10) and they're just too much for what I need them to do. I don't need a program to manage my music for me since I've already got it very well managed on disk Works for me, at least, and lets me be nimble with players.