I’ve been keeping my eyes on Lubuntu, the newest version of Ubuntu built ground up to run on older, less able machines (supposedly has a much, much smaller RAM footprint than Ubuntu, Kubuntu, or even Xubuntu). OMG Ubuntu noted that they decided to change to a new music player for their 10.10 release in the fall. They chose DeaDBeeF.

Weird name if you ask me.

If you want to check it out, use these commands to add the repo and then install (for 9.10 and 10.04):

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:alexy-smirnov/deadbeef

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install deadbeef

yep, check it out and lemme know what you think! I think I’ll stick with Guayadeque as my player of choice, but this isn’t too shabby…

Ubuntu Geek pointed this program out to me. I haven’t tried it with my iPod, but if I like the way it works with that, I may have found myself a new media player. The player itself is pretty slick, I enjoyed the layout, though I think some people might find it too busy or overwhelming. It runs off Java, so it is actually compatible with any system that can run Java (if I understand it correctly)

You can download an installation file here. If you want to install it in Ubuntu, grab the ‘Deb Package’. As a warning, my installation failed because I hadn’t installed Java in my system, so I would suggest using Synaptic or the Ubuntu Software Center to install Java first and then try to install the Deb Package.

The only drawback I can find in the player is that, (I believe) since it runs in Java, it really doesn’t interact with the OS, so any widgets which might allow you to view/control any media you might be playing won’t detect it. Overall, though, very nice player.

Okay, I’m just slightly addicted to music. I started collecting CDs as a young teenager (while I am not old – and am not telling my age here…I’ve spent more of my life collecting music than I have not….), and my present collection weighs in at just over 22 Gb. To make that amount of music a little more understandable: I could listen to my library for a little over two weeks and two days without repeating a single song. While Banshee and Rhythmbox and Exaile and Amarok are great music players, they all get a little slow working with all that music. And slow gets me a little frustrated.

But then I discovered Guayadeque. Wacky name but awesome, awesome little player. It is really light on the resources. And when I’m doing a search for an artist or an album it is freaky, freaky fast. I do highly suggest this player. Unfortunately it doesn’t have iPod support at this time, which means I’m stuck using Banshee for the time being – which isn’t bad, because Banshee is a pretty solid player. But I just love how Guayadeque works. It’s just stinking awesome.

It does do Last.fm scrobbling, which I like to use. And it’s lyric search function is pretty solid, though I’ve been unsuccessful writing those lyrics to the files of the mp3s, for the present time at least.

Anyways, to install:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:anonbeat/guayadeque

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install guayadeque

And that’s it! Enjoy – and let me know what you think!

(originally discovered here)

My laptop is pretty crappy as far as specs go, so finding a lightweight music player is essential if I want to enjoy some tunes while I do…anything…on it. Muine is about as simple as you can get. I think it scanned my entire 15GB collection in mere minutes. Then all I did was point it to an album and tell it to start playing. Nothing fancy, but it works!

to install:

sudo apt-get install muine

yep, that’s it! enjoy!