I have to be honest: I have hated pretty much every OSS audio player I’ve come across. I thought we might find a fix with Songbird- but then they dropped Linux support and pretty much crushed any chance of me using it again. I’m happy to say that I found an app that I am 90% in love with.
Let’s stop messing around and just say it: what people really want is an iTunes alternative. iTunes is bloated as all get-out (especially the PC version), locked-down, and propreitary. But darn it all, it’s beautiful, easy to use, and leaves you with a feeling that every feature you want it has (for the most part).
Here we get to the winner: Banshee. I used Banshee about a year-and-a-half ago, and it has come a long way in that time (much like the Linux world itself). I feel that we finally have a decent alternative to iTunes that actually does the same things that iTunes does.
Here’s my largest turn-off: it’s set to automatically download a crap-ton of album art. And, if you have it set to embed information, it embeds it into the files- and a lot of it is incorrect. Please, for the love of Indiana Jones, follow my advice is you already have all your album art: go to Edit > Preferences > Extensions > Cover Art Fetching and un-check that box. You’ll also have to tinker with library settings if you do it strangely like I do (I have my media on a separate HDD).
Here’s either a bug or a pain in the butt: you have to play the audio file before it loads the cover art for it. In another con, it simple has some prettifying to do- the interface is great, and typical in our world, but it could be better (for example, the way Miro looks would be nice).
That’s the 10% gripe that I have. From here, it’s nothing but a disgusting love-fest. The first thing that made me giddy: the equalizers. Good ones, too. No more tinkering around the internet for a poorly-written plug-in that makes you tinker with the bands yourself. It does podcasts, and does them well. It can also be a library for your videos. Basically, it has all the features of iTunes, but with a simple interface and no bloat. I love it.
But, when you look at an iTunes alternative, you have to look at device support. It supports the types of Apple devices (and standard, non-Appley devices) that is normally compatible with open source players: Classic, Shuffle, Nano- I don’t know them all, you’ll have to look it up on the website to be certain of compatibility. Really, this is what you want to know: no iPhone/iPod Touch support. If you want to get around that in the Linux world, you will have to use Rhythmbox.
Banshee, despite its flaws, is simply a powerful media player, and a fantastic iTunes alternative.
[Downloads]
