Skip to Content

Free TUAW iPhone app -- try it now!
AOL Tech

amarok posts

Filed under: Linux, Analysis

3 Linux Apps That Make Me Hate Windows


I'm a Windows user, and it has served me well. That being said, I play with a lot of Linux distributions and there are some applications that are just so much better than anything Windows can offer that I find myself wondering how long it'll be until I make the switch.

For starters, there's the APT and the Synaptic Package Manager. Microsoft has been promising updates and installs without reboots for years, yet Windows Vista still can't seem to deliver the goods. The Linux Mint beta I installed on my laptop recently, however, located well over a hundred updates to various packages upon completion and quietly downloaded and installed them while I finished tweaking Firefox and tooled around on some websites.

And unlike Windows' Automatic Updates, APT actually handles all the software on your machine, not just updates to the OS. What I wouldn't give for a Windows app that did this - and I know there are various apps that try, like Sumo, but none of them really work all that well. Rebooting to complete updates is crap. Get that trash off my PC.

Read more →

Filed under: Audio, Utilities, Windows, Linux, Open Source

Amarok music player tech preview released for Windows

Amarok 2 on Windows
Fed up with Windows Media Player, iTunes, Foobar, MediaMonkey, and every other free music player for Windows you can get your hands on? Amarok is an excellent iTunes replacement. It has all sorts of features for managing, organizing, and playing your audio files and streaming audio channels. You can even use Amarok to sync playlists with an iPod or other MP3 player. The only problem is that Amarok is designed to run on Linux, not Windows.

But there's hope. As we told you a few weeks ago, there's a project in development that lets you run KDE Linux desktop applications under Windows. And Amarok happens to be a KDE application. When we first looked at KDE on Windows, Amarok wasn't available. But now there are binaries for a technical preview of Amarok 2.

All you need to do to install Amarok on Windows is visit the KDE on Windows project page and follow the instructions. Since you have to install a bunch of KDE components and not just Amarok, be prepared to download and install a lot of files. Like 268MB worth of files, even though Amarok itself takes up less than 20MB.

This is still a technical preview, and as such it's rather buggy. In fact the developers have asked users not to submit any bug reports, because they're busy working on the obvious ones. So don't expect miracles. In fact, don't expect Amarok not to crash. But for the most part, Amarok works on Windows exactly the same way it does on Linux, which is pretty cool. When it works.

[via Digg]

Filed under: Linux, Freeware, Unix, Beta

Tech preview of Amarok 2 released: Codename "Kutie"

Amarok has just released a preview of its new version 2, codenamed "Kutie." In case you didn't know, Amarok is the free music player for Linux and Unix, with support for album art, lyrics, and Wikipedia and last.fm integration.

A word of warning: this is a very early release and a technical preview only (it's called a pre-alpha release; if you've ever wondered what came before alpha, this is your chance to find out). The developers admit that many things are broken or not feature complete, though it does play music; which is, upon deeper reflection, a nice thing to have in a music player.

So why release such an early version? Call it an inspiration, a call to arms. They need developers and artists to help finish Amarok 2.0. If you hear that siren song, you can join them in their IRC channel #amarok on freenode or let them know via email.

Filed under: Audio, Features, Open Source

Flipping the Linux switch: Amarok

Wikipedia Entry for Current Song and ArtistMaybe you've got older hardware. Maybe you've had enough of restrictive EULAs. Maybe you've just received a teeny tiny Eee for Christmas (thanks Mom!). Or maybe you've been thinking about making the switch to Linux, but you wonder how you'll live without certain applications.

A major obstacle in making the transition from Windows to Linux for many is music. Does Linux even play media files? While Linux can't play DRM-laden files, it handles unencrypted mp3s, and, with the proper codecs, Windows media files.

"So what?" you say, looking at your ripped mp3s, organized into perfect play lists on your iPod, "There's no iTunes in Linux!"

Enter Amarok. Sure, there are countless other music players in Linux. They do the job, and most do it quite well. Why single out Amarok?

Read more →

Filed under: Audio, Features, Windows, Macintosh, Linux

iTunes Alternatives

iTunes Alternatives
As the comment section from our recent post about the latest iTunes update shows, not everyone is in love with iTunes. Especially for Windows users, the program can be buggy, hog memory/system resources and it tries to force users to organize and store their music in a certain way (hey, some of us have very specific, if a bit arcane, organizational methods and we don't want iTunes to force us to put everything in "My Music" in artist/album folders).

The program's strength lies with its perfect integration with the iPod and the iTunes Store (which for all intents and purposes, IS iTunes the application). So what do you do if you don't like iTunes - but still want a program that will easily (and reliably) work with your iPod? We've scoured the web and found the best iTunes alternatives, both for music and iPod management for Windows, Linux, and yes, even some OS X alternatives.

Here at DownloadSquad, we like software to be free - especially if it is replacing another free program - and almost every utility or program we mention is free or has a free version available.

Read more →

Filed under: Hardware, Linux, Apple, Open Source

Apple kills Linux compatibility with new iPods

iPod NanoPart of what makes the iPod so popular is the way it seamless integrates with iTunes. You can rip your CD collection or download movies and music onto your PC and quickly synchronize them with your iPod for when you're on the go. But while the iPod is certainly the most popular portable media player on the market, not everyone is a huge fan of iTunes. And some folks, like say, Linux users, couldn't use the software if they wanted to.

In the past, those clever Linux developers figured out a way around this and managed to get open source software like Amarok and gtkpod to synchronize with iPods.

But it turns out that Apple has locked down the song database file on its latest generation of iPods including the iPod Nano, Classic, and touch. The change means that there's no way to transfer music between a new iPod and a Linux PC.

Given enough time, we suspect Linux developers will find a way around this limitation. But what made Apple lock down the new devices in the first place? Conspiracy theorists (who may very well be right) will surely suggest that Apple wants to lock people into using just their hardware and software. But seriously, what Linux user is going to switch to OS X or Windows just to use an iPod? Essentially Apple is just convincing open source advocates to stop buying iPods. We're betting Steve Jobs isn't that dumb, so we wonder if there might be some other advantage to adding security measures to the song database.

[via Slashdot]

Filed under: Audio, Linux, Open Source

Amarok open source media player adds music store

AmarokBeloved Linux media player Amarok made news today to become the first open source player to include an online digital music store. Amarok has struck a deal with Magnatune to offer music store purchases within the player starting with version 1.4.4, just released. The music store features DRM-free downloads and full-length MP3 previews. The new version of Amarok also features over 100 bugfixes and expanded support for portable devices. The Amarok site is getting pounded right now, but you can see a mirror of the announcement here. A working download link might be harder to come by.

[Via Boing Boing]

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio

Joystiq

TUAW

Daily Finance

Autoblog

Urlesque

Engadget

WoW

Switched.com

FanHouse