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Just looked up Deadbeef and it looks pretty nice, thanks for the lead Germ.
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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You're welcome.
Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes
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More here,
It is useful. Thanks for sharing!
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Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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Interestingly, the bottom 2 are my top 2. In the past I would have given Clementine my vote but as time has gone by it hasn't been good as in days gone by for finding correct album art. I also miss ProjectM visualisation plugin. I've had to setup steam to access ProjectM but not sure it is working with my preferred audio application Audacious. Why Audacious? Well I have been having issues on a lot of GNU/Linux distributions not playing the audio from my AudigyRX card to my Logitech z506 speakers. I solved this by the Tutorial I have just posted, by installing most ALSA packages, and then using Audacious settings then choosing the Audio plug-in, ALSA Output! qmmp is my second favourite which does have visualisation!
ASUS X470-PRO, AMD Ryzen 7 1700X 8 Core, 16 Gb RAM, Asus GT440 1 Gb DDR-5 Q4OS 5.6
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You're using an Audigy card, been awhile with so many using onboard sound these days. Audacious indeed I find more compatible with a wider range of older hardware.
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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I've tried out many "music players" and I keep coming back to the best one, even if it isn't being maintained -- Cantata (with mpd, of course). It has more usable features to me than so many others, and it's a lot smaller in size. (For example, Clementine would show up as using 300+ MB RAM, while Cantata + mpd would be under 90 MB.)
I have a lot of local radio stations that I like to listen to and keep track of. I can find a lot of them in Cantata, but it can be a real PITA in others to either find the stations, or load a playlist with them. Strawberry was forked from Clementine, but it really sucks in the radio department. At least Clementine has the ability to search its radio sources, even if they ultimately don't find all the ones I want. (Plus, you can't save the URL to use in another player that doesn't have the same searchable source that Clementine has!)
Cantata also has a very good Podcasts discovery feature that I don't see in any other music player. It might not have a lot of cute plugins for light shows and such, but it is very capable. The main beefs (not Dead!) I have with it is that Mr. Drummond stopped working on it, so it's frozen. I used to see song lyrics show up in the "info" panel, but no more. Funny thing is, I haven't seen many other players with decent lyrics support either.
Besides Cantata, Clementine, Strawberry, and DeaDBeeF, I've tried, and rejected:
Sonata
Lollypop
Audacious (not bad)
Amberol
Museeks
Elisa
Tauon
Banshee
Streamtuner2
Quodlibet
Ario (really thought it had promise, but it wouldn't connect to mpd, didn't try to find out why)
vlc (just too much of a hassle to figure out, though I'm sure it can do the job with lots of extra time, plugins, etc.)
If this was Windows, I'd be using MusicBee, but it's not. (But I DID manage to use Cantata and mpd on Windows before I trashed Windows!)
Anyway, just my $0.03 worth (adjusted for inflation).
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I pick music players entirely on what features I need and how easy it is to use. Memory usage doesnt concern me but certainly if I spot an app misbehaving, Ill deal with it, but honestly browsers are the biggest offenders.
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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I pick music players entirely on what features I need and how easy it is to use. Memory usage doesnt concern me but certainly if I spot an app misbehaving, Ill deal with it, but honestly browsers are the biggest offenders.
Well, that's pretty much why I chose Cantata over the rest, if you read my post. The fact that it takes less RAM to be better is just icing on the cake.
I tested out a slew of browsers for being both light in weight and full-featured and wrote it up on the MX Linux forum. The point of this and other such quests that might seem Quixotic to you were done to get a decently running Linux setup on a severely constrained environment -- an HP Stream 13 notebook, with a 2 core Celeron/Atom processor set, 2 GB RAM (soldered in, no upgrade possible), and a 32 (hah!) GB "SSD-like" device. So a lot of the things I do now are in keeping, even if not absolutely needed.
Anyway, it turns out that the best browser is Brave. It has good memory management, it has built-in ad-blocking so you don't even need uBlockOrigin or Adguard (and the ad-blocker is written in Rust, for what it's worth), and it has other cool features, at least one built in that I make use of, which is a "Brave News" news/RSS aggregator sorta like Google News but can be enhanced with your own rss feeds. It also has a built-in "Zoom" feature that's free to use for up to 4 connections.
None of the other browsers (Chromium, Firefox, Waterfox, LibreWolf, Zen, etc.) came close. The little ones were really really laughably limited.
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Now I can definitely understand why you were trying to run lean with that system. What system are you running right now?
Im not trying to be pointed. Its just that hardware has improved hugely and you can get used systems for dirt cheap, so being able to run whatever you like is definitely not a problem these days. I agree as anytime you can use a full featured app that uses less memory is a win/win.
Brave has become very popular as a browser.
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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Now I can definitely understand why you were trying to run lean with that system. What system are you running right now?
Im not trying to be pointed. Its just that hardware has improved hugely and you can get used systems for dirt cheap, so being able to run whatever you like is definitely not a problem these days. I agree as anytime you can use a full featured app that uses less memory is a win/win.
Brave has become very popular as a browser.
On THIS box (Samsung RF711 -- you're everywhere so you can check out the hardware in the other post! ), RIGHT NOW, I'm on Q4OS Wayland. I also have my old standby, MX 21.3 Xfce edition, plus MX 23.5 Xfce, all on the internal SSD. I also have a bootable external SSD with MX 23.5 Fluxbox edition that I can boot up here or on the HP or other places.
On the HP Stream 13, I'm running MX 23.5 Fluxbox edition, but using IceWM DE (not really a fan of F-box, sorry). I'm also a fan of jwm but had already set up the HP with Ice before learning about it. I was setting up the HP with Linux bcz it was a useless piece of junk when it was pretty much consumed by its Windows 8 OS (which is really crazy, 'cause it was one of those COMPRESSED Windows!). No amount of personal space freeing up would make it useful. I was fixing up the HP with childrens' educational stuff (gcompris, etc.) for my granddaughters to use when they get a bit older and more interested in it. The thing works great, though ya can't really keep many browser tabs open at the same time, especially if you've got a resource hog like Clementine running (I didn't try Cantata back then, might have to go back and do it!).
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Yep, saw your other post and the specs of your Samsung RF711. Im getting a lot of exercise bouncing between posts, LOL!! I havent used the Fluxbox version of MX in quite awhile, I might give it a look.
Last edited by crosscourt (2025-02-03 20:49)
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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Not here to rain on anyone's parade, but multi-platform Qt-based Qmmp scores high points on my preference ranking...
From my experience, Qmmp's legacy versions even support old unmodified Winamp skins...
And BTW, regarding the Windows camp, although most audio purists swear by Foobar2000, I find the convenience and ease of use of XMplay hard to beat.
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XMPlay is really nice.
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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I just installed, tried qmmp, and removed it. Not really easy to figure out how to use it, it shows up in a tiny weird window arrangement, and it doesn't seem to have any internet radio stream functionality, at least nowhere as easy to fiddle with as Cantata (or EVEN Clementine, which still is insanely awkward). Thanks, but no thanks. No rain on my parade, and you be you! Thanks for the suggestion to try it (it was either that or Winamp earlier, and I dismissed it then years ago).
I'll check out XMPlay. But seriously, y'all need to try Cantata/mpd.
EDIT: apt can't find xmplay/XMPlay.
Last edited by Durhammer (2025-02-04 03:56)
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Different strokes for different folks. XMPlay is a Windows app so you would need to use an emulator like Wine to run it. Ive used it in Windows and its really nice.
Last edited by crosscourt (2025-02-04 04:53)
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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I just installed, tried qmmp, and removed it. Not really easy to figure out how to use it, it shows up in a tiny weird window arrangement, and it doesn't seem to have any internet radio stream functionality, at least nowhere as easy to fiddle with as Cantata (or EVEN Clementine, which still is insanely awkward). Thanks, but no thanks.
I was quite surprised by your review -- care to enlighten us on the precise version of Qmmp you tested?
Just to make sure, I downloaded the latest Qt 6 version (v2.2.3 for Windows), pressed "U" and pasted an online radio URL (keyboard shortcuts are customizable and you can also drag and drop a playlist file in Qmmp's UI, either M8U or PLS), which it proceeded to play without issue (see screenshot below).
Granted, its default skins are nothing to write home about -- considering that only one isn't dark mode oriented and all are mostly Winamp inspired, making them rather poor choices for modern high DPI displays -- but they can be easily changed or even de-activated altogether as I did, to revert back to the default underlying system decoration...
But, hey, to each his own, truthfully.
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Just re-installed it:
qmmp/stable,now 1.6.2-1+b1 amd64 [installed]
feature-rich audio player with support of many formats
I don't have any .m8u playlists, just .xspf and .m3u (is that what you meant maybe?). Still not even sure how to load such playlists, but I'll try. But seriously, maybe you oughta look at Cantata some time!
Trying to show what it looks like, in a cropped image from the full background image that spans two monitors, one on top. The app is in the lower monitor. HOWEVER, I can't seem to get the file uploaded. Is there a size limit? (No error was seen in that regard.)
Ah, just had to "submit". Here it is (?) --
[img]qmmp_cropped.png[/img]
Okay, that didn't work, but the image IS attached. And the app's window size is REALLY tiny!
Last edited by Durhammer (2025-02-04 18:45)
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Okay, again, not to rain on anyone's parade here either, but QMMP is for me gawd-awful. I FINALLY figured out how to load one of my radio stream playlists (*.m3u), but I could not find a "search" facility anywhere to locate one of them. THEN, I tried some of the stations I had loaded, and things are really, really screwed up. I clicked on a station with a label (WXYZ, say), and at least A radio stream starts playing -- but it's not THAT station, it's another one. If I right click to view the "track" information, it's only got the song metadata right. Actually, upon further examination, it looks like it's merged two adjacent playlist entries, the name of the first and second are combined (WEIRD!), and it seems that the second station is what's playing.
Maybe it's somewhere hidden in the tiny window's (okay, THREE windows stuck together) realm(s), but I can't find anywhere to search the library, search, list or select a playlist's entries, discover radios or podcasts, or even find out where the volume control is.
Oh yeah -- to add insult to injury -- even though it looks small on the screen, it takes up 20+ MB more RAM than Cantata + mpd combined.
You can keep this app. It's not for me. But thanks for making me try it again! Really! I appreciate the input!!!
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I also tried to get MusicBee running, but I still haven't got the hang of doing such things with Wine. I did it a few years ago, and don't remember the process well enough. Plus, it seems the goalposts have changed. When I did have it running in my old MX Linux 19 (? or 21?) setup, I think it simply ran up the CPU utilization bill (and thus the heat -- lappy has crappy cooling!). I've read suggestions of it being better or easier to set up under Steam, but don't know 'bout dat. Still, it's a really nice music player, but only on Winders.
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Wine will definitely cause some heat issues with a system like yours. I also run Zorin OS 17.2 and they do a great job with having Wine ready to go, and making the process really simple, almost like just installing the app. Its not perfect, but one of the best implementations Ive seen.
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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Quick highlights in defense of my suggestion before I give it a rest...
- yes, I meant M3U playlists.
- saw the screenshot and that is a default Winamp inspired dark SKIN, so no wonder it looks like that -- but again, that can be disabled easily.
- yes, playlist management is rather basic in Qmmp (much better in XMplay, for instance) although it does work as previously explained.
- 20MB RAM is peanuts in this day and age but I'll give you that MPD is always going to be hard to beat: it was conceived as a daemon after all, meant to work even with no UI...
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Forgot to add that v1.6.2-1+b1 is old, please check Qmmp's project page for newer releases:
https://qmmp.ylsoftware.com/downloads.php
Last edited by Midas (2025-02-05 14:42)
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Im with you Midas as I still dont understand the desire to weed out little bits of MB in this day and age. Certainly you dont want apps that leak memory but overall the issue is moot with present hardware specs.
Q4OS Aquarius 5.x KDE Dell Latitude 5450/7450 I5 2.3ghz, 16gb,256gb ssd
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No worries, you two. I said it before, for things I start and stop (not necessarily things that run all the time), I'm not as focused on size/lightness as usability. Cantata wins hands down. I'm betting you haven't tried it.
For what it's worth, I'm trialing "Nuclear" right now. Strange and interesting, but really, really slow loading (?) music library. It also doesn't have the radio sources that Cantata (or even Clementine, and certainly not the QMMP I tried) has like IceCast, ShoutCast, and TuneIn, nor the Podcast discovery (via iTunes, GPodder, and others) that Cantata has, It says it does lyrics, and while Cantata supposedly does, it hasn't been working for some time; both haveLastFM scrobbling, and a few other things but I haven't used that for a long time.
Nuclear has an equalizer and a "visualizer". Cantata doesn't have either that I'm aware of. Whoop-te-do. It does a GREAT job. Cantata is lots easier to deal with radios than Nuclear right now, which does not have a streaming-centric interface, but does let you import playlists (Spotify or JSON, neither of which I think I have) and URLs. Time will tell. I'll have to see if it lets me import .m3u or .xspf, which is all I have.
And yeah, while I could live with the lack of some usability features that Cantata has, and despite what I said above, Nuclear is currently taking up almost 500 MB of RAM real estate compared to 82 MB Cantata + mpd.
I've got to test out its playlists feature, which like Clementine, Strawberry, and others (QMMP, I think) have as the main way of dealing with radios, but it's probably also going to be relegated to the electronic dustbin soon. It just feels awkward to deal with like so many others.
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