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Topic: Linux Port (Read 9728 times) previous topic - next topic
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Linux Port

Hello everyone,

I thought this question would have been asked countless times before, but after searching the forums I didn't find a single post about it. So far i managed my music from my laptop, which runs windows but my PC runs Arch Linux and recently i wanted to install Arch on my laptop as well and move my library to my PC. I looked at all the different alternatives to Foobar I could find, and while a lot of them a really nice none of them are quite as feature-rich or customizable as foobar is. This is a problem since I organize my music in a somewhat inconventional way any I want my library to be perfect. So I wondered, will there ever be a linux port? Since this software is relatively old I'm sure someone must have thought about this before and I guess if it was decided foobar would not be ported to linux there are good reasons.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #1
Look into WINE.

People on this forum seemed to have decent success using foobar with it.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #2
I have done that and besides the issues with the GUI and window style being different I see no point in using Linux when I end up emulating windows programs anyway. Foobar seems to follow the Linux mindset rather than that of windows anyway.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #3
I thought this question would have been asked countless times before, but after searching the forums I didn't find a single post about it.

Search in foobar2000 subforums (General, Support) - you'll find plenty of threads about Linux.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #4
Ah, apparently i have been looking in the wrong section. Why will there be no port then? It seems to be one of the most requested things. And considering how many people would use it on linux since hardly any other music player/manager could compete with it, it seems quite illogical not to port it. I read that one reason is the huge amount of work required, especially since foobar's source will not be published. But it would definitely be a step in the right direction, a very big one. I'm sure there are developers willing to help porting it.


Re: Linux Port

Reply #6
I have already become a multi platform coding cyborg, dealing with Android, iOS, Mac and UWP - apart from Windows desktop which I sorely miss as it's the only thing I feel really competent at.

Mac port happened because I've become halfway competent at making Mac UI while working on unrelated commercial projects. With Linux I'd have to learn from scratch.

Anyway, I'm not outright declining Linux port, but it's not happening during forseeable future.
Microsoft Windows: We can't script here, this is bat country.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #7
I have already become a multi platform coding cyborg, dealing with Android, iOS, Mac and UWP - apart from Windows desktop which I sorely miss as it's the only thing I feel really competent at.

Mac port happened because I've become halfway competent at making Mac UI while working on unrelated commercial projects. With Linux I'd have to learn from scratch.

Anyway, I'm not outright declining Linux port, but it's not happening during forseeable future.

I'm sure it will be excellently received in the linux community. There's a lot of music players but nothing as complete as foobar2000 and 
although it works pretty well through wine a native application is always better and less problematic.

And you can take it like a personal challenge, exploring new fields :P



Re: Linux Port

Reply #9
I have already become a multi platform coding cyborg, dealing with Android, iOS, Mac and UWP

Anyway, I'm not outright declining Linux port, but it's not happening during forseeable future.

That is understandable, but I hope it will happen someday. Maybe you can find someone who can take on developing a linux version.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #10
I'm sure it will be excellently received in the linux community.
A closed-source program? Not so sure.


Why not?

One can be a fan of open source and respect the good software although it be closed source.

Not everybody is a Zealot.

Even the FSF has celebrate the buy of github from Microsoft.

And microsoft itself has become one of the most actives actors in open soft world.

The times has changed a lot my friend.

And foobar2000 is a very loved piece of software and longed for a lot of people that miss it a lot when change to linux from his windows boxes.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #11
Had you considered using Qt for the desktop version(s)? (Mac or otherwise)
a fan of AutoEq + Meier Crossfeed

Re: Linux Port

Reply #12
And make fb2k 100mb or more thanks to Qt bloat?

 

Re: Linux Port

Reply #13
That is understandable, but I hope it will happen someday. Maybe you can find someone who can take on developing a linux version.

I gave Linux Mint a test drive a few months ago in anticipation of XP becoming impractical and switching to Linux, and fb2k was one of the programs I tested.

I can't remember details as I didn't have it installed for long, but Mint has some sort of installer for Windows programs that run under Wine. I'm pretty sure fb2k was in the list of applications, so you'd run the Wine installer thingy, give it the fb2k installer exe and it does the rest. I copied the command line encoders I use over to where fb2k was installed and the ones I tested worked fine.

I was reasonably impressed with Linux Mint. Not that I've played with any other distros in a while but I was happy enough to not bother and Mint will be the OS for my new PC, whenever I get around to building it. It's reasonably Windows-like. Well, it's reasonably XP-like, at least.

Oh.... and if something won't run in WINE it's easy enough to install some flavour of Windows as a virtual OS. I vaguely remember that working fairly seamlessly. You start a Windows program from the start menu the same way you'd start any other program and all the Virtual stuff fires up behind the scenes. At least that's how I remember it.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #14
@lvqcl
Yes. http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
But be precise.
At least mention that that is rough numbers.

If we really get facts straight:

That is a Desktop userbase market share metric gathered by the network of StatCounter.

If you include all the platforms and remember that Android is technically Linux: http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share

Then Linux userbase already is more than Windows.

====

Also Linux users, Open Source, Free Software users and IT professionals - use a lot of ad-blocking/removing of trackers.

So that Statcounter cannot see.

I used to use BluHel firewall, Ublock Origin, Ghostly, Disconnect, partly NoScript, Carma Blocker, Lightbeam - most of this all at the same time. And with https://someonewhocares.org/ and later with
https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts on top.

As so I had all sites working normally, while trackers/bad quality/slow ad-counter scripts removed.
Bandwith saved, load time saved, RAM saved, and I am calm.

====

Also let's not forget that from 98% of Windows users - the majority is simple OS users. Office workers, families.
While the majority of Linux users are IT professionals/enthusiasts. That have English as primary, or as I - learned English, just to be a professional.

It is a huge difference in a userbase.

And in most cases gaining that Linux user base - results in a quiite a bit boost in IT professionals, good bug-reporting and descriptive/thoughtful feature ideas, for a closed source project.

In case if project is open - of course, it is a completely different game, the project gets drive-by commits&ideas, and maintainers&developers community around it.

====

Also let's not forget that because Linux users are mostly IT professionals, or tech-savvy people - they are looking the stuff on the internet (blogs, RSS feeds, GitHub, GitLab, distro resources, Phoronix, Hacker News, Medium, Habr, Open News, Linux.org.ru) - those in most cases do not have StatCounter trackers, also because both sides (hoster and reader) respect(/or forced to respect) the privacy of readers.

Linux users are known to be concerned to be in control of their information.

So StatCounter does not see that Linux IT crowd browsing their daily life and interests.

====

And let's not forget.

1. Also, let's say (a fact) that most of the servers (even Microsoft Azure has 40% in 2016, 50% from 2017 MS presentations info, and approaching 70% of instances - are Linux servers).
Especially big services and services with high-load are almost exclusively Linux.

2. And so, let's say that 90% of sites you browse and services you use are using - operate on infrastructures of Linux servers.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, SnapChat, Reddit, and all others.

3. "Microsoft loves Linux":
Just yesterday:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/powershell/2018/07/20/powershell-core-now-available-as-a-snap-package/

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/linux/sql-server-linux-setup?view=sql-server-linux-2017
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-2017

Microsoft themselves integrate their stack to Linux and Open Source. And eventually, at last, - use ideas from.
And don't forget the Free Software (Linux and main tools are GPL) - that can not be conquered/submerged by Microsoft or any other company in any shape or form.

They also make Linux distributions themselves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Linux_distributions

I would reference my older post of arguments here: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/41448#issuecomment-394398724

Microsoft merged Windows department and already expects Windows OS - to be a supplementary product.

At current Microsoft action - it is perceived and expected that Microsoft would rebase Windows on Linux kernel in next several years, making Windows - a distribution of Linux. So they would not need to write their own kernel, and would make supporting of OS easier.

Windows had:
* Microsoft POSIX subsystem
* Windows Services for UNIX
* now - Windows subsystem for Linux (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about)

, so Windows really has architectural predisposition to make migration much easier then most people expect.

That is also probably why they migrating their tools to Linux one-by-one.

VS Code, .Net

Re: Linux Port

Reply #15
"Bloated and heavy Qt" - how many years would I see that people say that old myth.

Qt.

I used to write some simple GUIes for different needs, in GTK and Qt.

I would just refer to this post: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/41797
I got triggered, because guy called KDE - a legacy system. People should pick words and make research before trying to midlessly convert last of the Linux dirstribuions from KDE to GNOME.

====

Yes, in Windows, because of it's distribution design - in the most cases application needs to bundle and drag with itself most of the stack and libraries it uses, and so also Qt. It is Windows design and distribution flaw, they outsourced to users to search and check and download and install software, and to programmers to distribute it. And then tried to solve it with forcing people to use Metro all the time everywhere from the Microsoft Store.

In Linux you have a distributions official, maintained systems that have all software in one place. And it automatically downloads software from official sites, and check-sums that files are right, and goes through official toolchain, and installs software and dependencies for you.

In Linux - if you install KDE, and see that 300 dependencies and 400 Mbytes would be installed.
That is the same Mb size as for GNOME, but much more dependencies.

But in Linux - it is one time 400 Mbytes - that reused forever by all applications.

In Windows - resulting Desktop with all application&updates gets easily to 120-200 Gbytes.

While I have an old system that lives on 120 system partition - it is Arch Linux that has software-rich AUR system. It had/has 5-6 years worth of tools and applications installed for (DevOps) usage and experiments. That system holds probably roughly 3 times more libraries/tools/applications than Windows person uses. And Arch Linux system is 70 Gbytes, so it always fitted, and I never got concerned with space on the system partition. Because software in Linux reuses bits that are already installed.

Ok - KDE installs all that 300 packages. But you need to understand that KDE is not just by words is "feature-rich" - it is in fact "feature-rich", so it uses many modules and their features.
And more modular and future-rich then most but not all GNOME applications.

In eyes of one people 300 KDE dependencies (from which 20-40 are Qt) - is a very flexible modular design.
In eyes of other that is "fat bloat", and so logically that people also think that those developers were stupid to use all that.

====

Qt even took more actions to be even more granular and made architecture possibility - Qt-Lite.
https://blog.qt.io/blog/2017/05/31/qt-lite-qt-5-9-lts/

That allows compile-in/bundle only functions that were used from modules. That is lightweight as it can be.
Already modular Qt - can be made 5 times leaner if leveraging Qt-Lite.

====

Abought is Qt lightweight.

Lightweight LXDE somehow got fully rewritten to Lightweight LXQt.
And Budgie GTK somehow wanted to be fully rewritten to Qt for Budgie v11.

Do you imagine what should happen, so developers decide desktop environment to be rewritten to other toolkit. How much work that is.

I did closed-source Docker image that serves LXQt Linux environment through noVNC (to be used from a browser). Why LXQt - because it is modern, good looking and lightweight on RAM and hard-drive, and great to run at many instances scale in container clusters.

====

A year ago I made reinstall to my godmother.
Pentium 4, Nvidia NV20 (the year 2001 of manufacturing).

Mainline Qt and KDE was the fastest modern GUIs on that 15 years old PC.
Qt and KDE folks worked hard to make the total system of fallbacks, so DE falls back and fully adjusts to possibilities of hardware it runs on. So that is why it works so great on that PC.

====

Do you imagine how lightweight toolkit must be to run on microcontrollers. It is not even Raspebby Pi Zero - it is microcontrollers. https://blog.qt.io/blog/2018/05/03/qt-microncontrollers-mcu/

====

Qt used in hardware, serious science, and automotive industry.
Look serious GUI and complex UI applications as QGIS and Krita.
Look at what KDAB is doing to understand the crazy possibilities of the toolkit:
https://www.kdab.com/development-resources/videos-webinars/


Re: Linux Port

Reply #16
I talk about Qt, because people that does not know, and just repeat old tropes and write stuff without arguments, in fact those people make a big damage to the reputation and community of KDE.

It result is echo-chamber and closed-loop systems, and the results are that Linux community underappreciates KDE and Qt devs work.
People use GTK, because they are using GTK. Writing in GTK, because we already started writing in GTK. Financing GNOME, because we use GNOME.

While KDE is really competitive and not funded work. Imagine would it was if was somewhat more encouraged and funded.

People fall into GTK, KDE camps. I want them to become co-represented and co-workers.

In Linux, for users, it is just the question to install 300 Mb of dependencies, and not any other resources - to use applications both GTK and Qt applications freely, and use from them those that have possibilities needed for you.

Re: Linux Port

Reply #17
I used Foobar2000 for many years.
And also migrated with it to the Linux systems.
So I was using it for ~10 years on Linux systems under Wine.

It is late at my UTC+3, I would write the main part - report on running Foobar2000 in Wine under Linux - in later days.
And would be a really happy report with useful info.


Re: Linux Port

Reply #19
While the majority of Linux users are IT professionals/enthusiasts.
And in most cases gaining that Linux user base - results in a quiite a bit boost in IT professionals, good bug-reporting and descriptive/thoughtful feature ideas, for a closed source project.
If they are such IT professionals, then why should they wait while someone create player for them?

Re: Linux Port

Reply #20
While the majority of Linux users are IT professionals/enthusiasts.
And in most cases gaining that Linux user base - results in a quiite a bit boost in IT professionals, good bug-reporting and descriptive/thoughtful feature ideas, for a closed source project.
If they are such IT professionals, then why should they wait while someone create player for them?

There's a lot of beautiful players, tagging programs and music converters program in linux.

I don't have any "need" of foobar in linux per se.

I just love the program from the time I used windows xp.

I don't have any problem running foobar in linux with the help of wine.

I just love to have a native version that have full use of the system resources without any translation layer.

And most important thing, I don't want to start the typical flame war between linux-windows.

So the tone is not absolutely necessary,


Re: Linux Port

Reply #21
report with useful info.
Does it imply that you wrote 4 posts filled with useless info?

Maybe was useless for you but I have enjoy his explanation.

huge amount of work required
+ Market share: ( http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide )
Windows: 81.8 %
Linux: 1.61 %

I'm sure it will be excellently received in the linux community.
A closed-source program? Not so sure.

Do you  consider that useful.....

If you aren't interested in the subjet is not necessary tring to start the typical flame war.

A little bit of respect


Re: Linux Port

Reply #23
So the tone is not absolutely necessary,
If you aren't interested in the subjet is not necessary tring to start the typical flame war.

You are not a moderator, so it's your tone that is not acceptable.  People here can and will question validity of arguments.

So I can and will question your lack of arguments.

I also have the right too I hope.

Until a moderator will say the opposite.

If you have something on topic you're welcome, otherwise this unpleasant exchanget is, by my side, over