Most of us listen to music when usingour computers, be it to pass the time,motivateus, or even help us concentrate (no, really) ― but what isthe best music app for Ubuntu?
That’s a question that I see new (and not so new) users ask all the time. Answering it is not an easy, but not through a lack of choice!
Findinga music player for Ubuntu is far fromdifficult. A veritable orchestra of options exist, some new, some old, some in tune with modern trends, others riffing totheir own beat.
There’s a good chanceyou’ve already spun through a chorusofplayers over the years, and so have we. In this post we present 6 music players for Ubuntu that we think all stand up on their own.
1. Rhythmbox
Rhythmbox is the default music player in Ubuntu, and as such meritsa place in this list. Widely used, Rhythmbox is a reliable, dependable, and extensible GTK music player that uses the Gstreamer backend.
The standard layout of the appis straightforward to navigate, and it’s easy to filter through your music using the column browser or thesearch box.
Not that you have to settle for this look as avariety of Rhythmbox plugins can be added to customise, rearrange and transform the look and feel of the player into something else entirely.
Rhythmbox can automatically watch for newmusic files stored in the ~/Music folder. You can also point the app tolook atother sources orfolders should you have them.
The app lets you do more than just play, manage and sort music and create playlists. It can scrobble to Last.fm, and ithas built-in support for podcasts and internetradio stations. The playeralso boasts integration with online music service SoundCloud.
2. Clementine
Clementine is a cross-platform music player written in Qt andis particularly popular with peoplewho manage largemusic collections.
This is because the playerofferstree view navigation instead of a column or “artwork” browser. If you’re the sort of person who tend to navigate (and manage) yourmusic from a ‘ files and folders ‘ POV, you’ll appreciate Clementine’s approach tolibrary management.
But there are other reasons to use Clementine, too.
The playerhides a ripe amount ofadvanced options under its (often unwieldy) peel. Poke around the menus and you’ll find everything from a music equalizer to a built-in format conversion tool, from visualizers to support for WiiMotes, and integration with an (optional) ‘Android app’ remote control app.
Music aficionados also getbuilt-support for viewing artist and song info, seeingsong lyrics, SoundCloud integration, and… Well, you get the idea!
Install Clementine from Ubuntu Software
3. DeaDBeeF
DeaDBeeF is billedas the ‘ultimate music player’, and it goes a fair way to matching the claim.
It’s generally talked of in terms of being a linux versionof the popular freeware windows app Foobar2000 , but a) I’m not familiar with that player and b) DeaDBeeF (finicky capitalisation aside) more than stands on its own.
It is very much a music player though. It eschews theoverblown featuresets you’ll see inother apps and insteads favours a stripped back focus on just playing music. The app also ships without any major dependencies on GNOME or KDE, and doesn’t use a common media backend like GStreamer .
Think of it as the Punk Goes Acoustic to other player’s full studio version.
As such you won’t find built-in music management features. Instead, DeaDBeeF pivots aroundplaylist-based listening. Other DeaDBeeFfeatures including support forcustom playlist generations, plugin support, a live ‘design mode’, some basicmetadata editing, command lineplayback, and (a whole lot) more.
4.CMUS
There are a stack of really cool command line music players available on Linux ― the hard part is trying to pick justone to highlight here.
I could’ve gone with the(rather well known and very popular) MPD, but instead will give a shout-out to CMUS .
Cmus music player, styled ‘C* music player’, is described as a ‘small, fast and powerful console music player for Unix-like operating systems’ on its website.
And it is.
Cmus can handle most media formats you throw at it, and can be configured to work with a number of output sound systems, including PulseAudio, ALSA,and JACK.
The interface is pretty simple to navigateonce you know a few of the core commands (see man cmus for a full intro to the app). As you’d expect, Cmus is very keyboard-centric, relying on shortcuts and text commands entirely
Other features include support for gapless playback (always a must for me), play queue and playlist filters, and even last.fm scrobbling support. Better yet it’s incredibly lightweight, using just 6MB of RAM during our hands-on.
Install CMUS from Ubuntu Software
5. Spotify
Naturally, as one of the biggest music streaming services in the world (and one which I know a great many of you use daily) wecouldn’t not give a spot toSpotify.
A little known fact is that, while yes it’s a big a memory hungry, is Spotify can also play your local media files. It’s not the most perfect feature as ― big, big warning so please take notice ― it can totally screw up your track metadata without so much as a prompt or a whistle.
But, even for free account users, you get access to a much bigger array of music than that you (likely) have locally. Plus the Linux app is decent enough, integrates well into the Ubuntu desktop (yep, sound menu support is present) and so on.
How to install Spotify on Ubuntu
6. Audacious
Audacious music player is part way between DeaDBeeF and Rhythmox, merging the ‘lightweight’ ethic of the former with the more management-orientated focus of the latter
It’s a player well worth poking around in, too as a number of included plugins allow you to enable additional features such as lyric fetching, equalizer, and so on.
Install Audacious from Ubuntu Software
Honourable Mentions This list isn’t intended to be comprehensive rundown, more a roundup to act as a spring board for