Amarok : Best Music Player for Linux

Computer is not just a Hacker-Box any more, it's revolutionizing our world with its entertainment capabilities. Let's make this more easier with Open Source.

Amarok !

Amarok is the music player for Linux and Unix with an intuitive interface.We all know how hard it is to maintain a good music collection, however Amarok makes organizing your music easier than ever.



Features of Amarok

Amarok is not just like any other music player available, it's more than a simple music player.It can be used to organize a music library into folders according to the information such as artist,genre and album, it can be used to manage music tags, album art,etc

• Amarok can play many types of media files including Ogg, MP3, AAC, WAV, Windows Media Audio, Apple Lossless, WavPack, TTA and Musepack, the list is not complete!

• Music file tagging (currently FLAC, Ogg, WMA, AAC, MP3, and RealMedia).

• Amarok can help you in associating Album art (Cover art) with a particular album, and retrieving the cover art from Amazon

• Creating and organizing playlists are more easier with Amarok it even supports dynamic playlists.

• Synchronizing, retrieving, playing, or uploading music to the following digital music players like iPod.

• Displaying artist information from Wikipedia and retrieving song lyrics.

• Last.fm support, including submitting played tracks (including those played on some digital music players) to Last.fm, retrieving similar artists, and playing Last.fm streams.

• You can even manage and listen to your favorite Podcasts using Amarok.

• The integration of Magnatune, a non-DRM digital music store, enabling users to purchase music in Ogg, FLAC, WAV and MP3 formats.

Disadvantages

• If you have own a collection of DRM protected Music, You must be disappointed.

How to install Amarok in Ubuntu ?

• Just type-in sudo apt-get install Amarok in your terminal.

Important Links

• http://amarok.kde.org/ - The official website of Amarok
• http://amarok.kde.org/wiki/Download - You can get your copy of Amarock from here
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmaroK - Checkout the Wikipedia entry on Amarok
  

Elisa : Turn your Linux Box into a Media Center

Jealous with that Jaw-dropping Front Row or Windows Media Center ? Checkout Elisa, an open source cross-platform media center with simple looks and stable performance.


The Elisa Media Center boasts of many advanced features that will help you turn your Linux Box into a Media Center. Everything is packed in a simple interface with a professional look and feel.

Features

Movies - Watch your Video files and Movies, you can even watch your favorite videos from youtube and other sites.



Music - Listen to your Favorite Songs and organize your music collection by artists or album covers.



Photos - Entertain your friends with your animated slideshows and image previews.



Peripheral Devices - Let it be an iPod,External Hard Disk or a Digital Camera, Elisa Automatically detects them all.




Internet - Let it be Youtube, Flicker or other popular sites. You can have all of them at your fingertips.


Click here for a more detailed list of features.


Installing Elisa in Ubuntu

• Installation of Elisa in Ubuntu and its Variants (Xubuntu,Kubuntu) are as simple as plucking a flower, just type sudo apt-get install elisa in the terminal.

Configure Your Media Directories

• If your music and movies are already in the music folder and movies folder in the home directory, you need need not worry about this step.

• Most probably you will have your music and movies located in another drive, in that case you can simply create a symbolic link.

• consider you have all your music located in /home/user/Desktop/Test/ all you have to do is just create a shortcut of that directory and place it in the music folder. You can either use ln -s (from terminal) or Graphical User Interface for creating a link.

Pros and Cons

• The Elisa is simple to install, configure and use.The interface is very good and clutter free.
• There are a few problems occured occationally while playing video files, other than this there were no serious disadvantages.

Downlaod Elisa

Obtain your copy of Elisa from http://elisa.fluendo.com/