Thursday, December 6. 2007
Amarok 2: now with 100% more audio playing on Windows
Success!
After a couple of weeks of work, Amarok 2 was starting to come together on windows. However, there was still one problem: a media player without sound is about as useful as ... well, I can't think of anything sufficiently useless to compare it to, but it's pretty useless.
Not content to wait for Qt 4.4 "sometime next year", I decided it was time to give it a go. A couple of days later, here we are:
Amarok playing audio! Amarok is officially a media player (and not just a media browser) for Windows.
For those interested in the technical details, the backend is a plugin for KDE 4's Phonon media system (which means when Qt 4.4 is released, it should be a drop in replacement). It's using DirectShow for playback, which means support for mp3 and wma on a clean Windows install, and pretty much every other format Amarok on Linux supports if you have the correct codecs installed (basically, if it plays for you in WMP, it should play in Amarok). ffdshow is helpful here.
The bad news for all those drooling over the prospect of this is that Amarok 2 is still pre-alpha software, and there's a lot more work to do to get it ready for release on any platform, let alone Windows. So for now, unless you're comfortable with a compiler and a debugger, Amarok is still a few months away. Until then, get your fix with screenshots and progress here. World domination will have to wait ... but it will happen!
However, if you do have a bit of a coding bent (or just want to see where things are at), check out the wiki. It has details of how to get Amarok compiling and what needs to be done to get it to the stage where you never need touch iTunes, Winamp or WMP again.
After a couple of weeks of work, Amarok 2 was starting to come together on windows. However, there was still one problem: a media player without sound is about as useful as ... well, I can't think of anything sufficiently useless to compare it to, but it's pretty useless.
Not content to wait for Qt 4.4 "sometime next year", I decided it was time to give it a go. A couple of days later, here we are:
Amarok playing audio! Amarok is officially a media player (and not just a media browser) for Windows.
For those interested in the technical details, the backend is a plugin for KDE 4's Phonon media system (which means when Qt 4.4 is released, it should be a drop in replacement). It's using DirectShow for playback, which means support for mp3 and wma on a clean Windows install, and pretty much every other format Amarok on Linux supports if you have the correct codecs installed (basically, if it plays for you in WMP, it should play in Amarok). ffdshow is helpful here.
The bad news for all those drooling over the prospect of this is that Amarok 2 is still pre-alpha software, and there's a lot more work to do to get it ready for release on any platform, let alone Windows. So for now, unless you're comfortable with a compiler and a debugger, Amarok is still a few months away. Until then, get your fix with screenshots and progress here. World domination will have to wait ... but it will happen!
However, if you do have a bit of a coding bent (or just want to see where things are at), check out the wiki. It has details of how to get Amarok compiling and what needs to be done to get it to the stage where you never need touch iTunes, Winamp or WMP again.
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I do believe that the useless comparison you are looking for is: "a chocolate teapot". :p
I was thinking that perhaps "As useless as rhythmbox" would be more apropriate.
GREAT news dude!!! congrats! I'm looking forward to install it on my windows xp machine and uninstall winamp 
I agree, Winamp is this best windows alternative I've tried. But nothing beats the speed and power of amarok. Anyone with more than 30GB of music will cringe when they type into the search box on winamp.
I'll also agree will 1.2, "As uselss as rhythmbox" does seem very appropriate.
I'll also agree will 1.2, "As uselss as rhythmbox" does seem very appropriate.
You should try Mediamonkey (www.mediamonkey.com), we've got users who report over 1TB of music without slowdowns!
I have over 500GB of music, and library searches in Winamp take less than a second to return...
I have 200GB of music and Winamp can take from less than a second to over a minute to return. It's very memory-intensive, if for some reason it's paged then you're faced with a very long wait. I have a GB of memory, but you know what Windows is like - especially when you have a virtual machine, Firefox and Thunderbird running. That's 600MB gone right there.
Don't get me wrong, I would never not use Winamp, FF or TB, but they all suck balls for memory usage.
Don't get me wrong, I would never not use Winamp, FF or TB, but they all suck balls for memory usage.
I have 130GB+ of mp3's in my music folder (around 20,000 tracks) - and if i do a search in the winamp browser bar (5.5) it brings it up pretty quickly.
Some of the very best news I've heard in a while.
Thanks for saving the day Shane
Really looking forward to finally having a good media player on Windows.
Thanks for saving the day Shane
Really looking forward to finally having a good media player on Windows.
ffdshow project is not up to date.
a fork with many updates can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/
a fork with many updates can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/
JOY!
You have no idea how much I've been looking forward to this release. Oh, god, ever since I've tried it on my linux test machine I've been yearning to have it full time on Windows.
THANK YOU!
-Bonekhan, of
Central Gear music blog
You have no idea how much I've been looking forward to this release. Oh, god, ever since I've tried it on my linux test machine I've been yearning to have it full time on Windows.
THANK YOU!
-Bonekhan, of
Central Gear music blog
The analogy you are looking for is "about as useless as a screen door on a submarine"
"However, there was still one problem: a media player without sound is about as useful as ... well, I can't think of anything sufficiently useless to compare it to, but it's pretty useless."
The expression you are searching for is, "As useful as tits on a boar."
The expression you are searching for is, "As useful as tits on a boar."
The problem with QT in windows is that it has to load all the libraries, hence QT programs in windows run at a heft memory load. Launchy's memory usage increased about 66% when it switched to QT. Amarok seems to use something like 75 megs of RAM in windows. Winamp uses about a third of that with a modern skin and less in classic mode.
Winamp is the worst media player there is when it comes to memory usage. Sure, if you have no collection it's small, but if you're going to run without a collection, you may as well play your files with mpg123. It has an even smaller memory footprint.
For me Winamp uses ~140mb (VM Size in task manager) with my library loaded (~27k songs). iTunes uses ~115mb. No idea about WMP since I don't have a collection in it, but I'd bet it's somewhere around that too.
Amarok currently uses ~50mb as a debug build (would probably be a bit less as a release build) using my small test collection. Because it uses a database rather than keeping everything in memory, even with a large collection shouldn't increase too badly beyond that.
I don't think Amarok's memory usage will be too much of a problem. It'll likely have a slightly higher baseline than the others, but it should scale better.
For me Winamp uses ~140mb (VM Size in task manager) with my library loaded (~27k songs). iTunes uses ~115mb. No idea about WMP since I don't have a collection in it, but I'd bet it's somewhere around that too.
Amarok currently uses ~50mb as a debug build (would probably be a bit less as a release build) using my small test collection. Because it uses a database rather than keeping everything in memory, even with a large collection shouldn't increase too badly beyond that.
I don't think Amarok's memory usage will be too much of a problem. It'll likely have a slightly higher baseline than the others, but it should scale better.
Hmm, well i have 7.2k songs totaling like 50 gigs with a modern winamp skin and i'm running at ~4 megs or ram and ~70 megs of VM. This is the 5.51 beta. Anyways if you're shooting for bare bones memory consumption use something like Music Cube or whatnot.
Well, memory consumption (within reason) doesn't bother me too much really. Machines these days ship with 1 or 2gb of ram, so using 100mb of it doesn't seem as ridiculous as it once did.
Still, using less memory is always better, and I think Amarok will end up only using about the same amount as other players.
You are right though, using Qt and KDE means that Amarok will have some degree of memory overhead that something written directly against the WIN32 API wont have. It's up to users to decide whether the features in Amarok are worth it. I think they are.
Still, using less memory is always better, and I think Amarok will end up only using about the same amount as other players.
You are right though, using Qt and KDE means that Amarok will have some degree of memory overhead that something written directly against the WIN32 API wont have. It's up to users to decide whether the features in Amarok are worth it. I think they are.
I'm more worried about the look and feel of Amarok compared to the rest of the Windows desktop, I don't care so much about memory resources.
Anyway, I'm confident it will be worth it. Amarok is the best player out there.
Anyway, I'm confident it will be worth it. Amarok is the best player out there.
Nice, but who uses windows these days. You know you want to install linux anyway. If you don't like WMP you don't like the whole rest of the OS.
Apparently 92.42% of the world ...
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8
Great, another useless statistic using flawed methods.
I haven't bought anything from Microsoft after Windows 98.
And I'm happy that way.
I haven't bought anything from Microsoft after Windows 98.
And I'm happy that way.
Are you asserting that the majority of desktops are linux desktops or that 94% is just high? Do you have a better statistic or a refutation to that study? I'm not saying it's right because I haven't looked into it but I think supported arguments are better than unsupported ones.
I don't really care whether the stats are perfectly accurate or not, the question was "who uses Windows these days?" and the answer is "most people". So I think the port is important (obviously, or else I wouldn't be doing it).
If you're happy not using Windows, great. Porting Amarok to Windows doesn't affect non-Windows users in the slightest.
If you're happy not using Windows, great. Porting Amarok to Windows doesn't affect non-Windows users in the slightest.
Those of use who have specialized apps that won't run under Linux..or WINE..or Windows running in VMWare, Virtual Box, etc.
-A
-A
People who want to be able to use computers drunk, stoned, otherwise trollied, during a party, or just generally - every single time?
I love Linux. I run a virtual machine to do my programming on because it's an awesome environment, but for general home usage it's got to be XP. I have a server and workstation, it's as much Linux as I need in the comfort of my own home.
I love Linux. I run a virtual machine to do my programming on because it's an awesome environment, but for general home usage it's got to be XP. I have a server and workstation, it's as much Linux as I need in the comfort of my own home.
Nice, one step closer! This is great software, and I love it that this is no longer just for linux. No doubts that open source software like this should be cross platform. Kudos and thanks guys.
Nice one guys, I used to like Amarok on Linux.
Will the Windows version play gapless?
Thanks,
-Rob
Will the Windows version play gapless?
Thanks,
-Rob
At the moment playback isn't gapless. But the current audio code is really just for testing, hopefully the one trolltech release with Qt 4.4 does gapless.
Crap. Here's the bad thing about OSS: it gets ported to Winblows, giving them 1 less reason to switch to Linux (for the best Audio player ever).
Oh well, at least it gets them used to the interface for if they do switch.
Oh well, at least it gets them used to the interface for if they do switch.
Strongly disagree with your logic here. The more windows users running cross platform open source software the better. One of the largest barriers to switching to Linux is not being able to run your favourite programs. If I didn't use firefox and thunderbird in windows I doubt I would've made the switch to Ubuntu. Not having to change my most frequently used programs made it much easier to adjust. (But I was sad about losing foobar2000, which is by far the best music player I've ever used)
If one day windows users find that most of their programs also work in linux but a few do not they will stop seeing it as a flaw with linux and start seeing it as a flaw with the windows-only software. This is the last thing that microsoft want.
There are already plenty of good reasons to switch to Linux. We need to eliminate the good reasons NOT to switch to linux.
If one day windows users find that most of their programs also work in linux but a few do not they will stop seeing it as a flaw with linux and start seeing it as a flaw with the windows-only software. This is the last thing that microsoft want.
There are already plenty of good reasons to switch to Linux. We need to eliminate the good reasons NOT to switch to linux.
Wow another narrow minded tit... Why on earth would it be bad for open source software to be ported to ANY platform? Go crawl back into your hole and please don't return.
An open-minded individual wouldn't flame an uninformed person for not seeing the bigger picture
Fair enough but I'm just getting tired of this type of idiotic argument. OSS' purpose is NOT to force people to use ONE platform, rather the contrary (among other things)..
but I'm just getting tired of this type of idiotic argument. OSS' purpose is NOT to force people to use ONE platform, rather the contrary (among other things)..
Porting to Windows doesn't have to be a bad thing, so long as everyone, particularly the developers, remember that it's a Linux app, made for Linux, and ported to Windows, so the Linux version has to take priority.
Also, I'd like to suggest "useless as an inflatable dartboard"
Also, I'd like to suggest "useless as an inflatable dartboard"
I can't wait anymore!
You are doing the GREATE *WORK*!
Good luck, Amarok team!!!
You are doing the GREATE *WORK*!
Good luck, Amarok team!!!
i love amarok for linux, it's what i use in my linuxmint (most of the time).
however, most cross-platform (usually open source) programs get priority in windows and usually have less bugs.
so when people want to try the same program on linux they often find that it's either more buggy or lacks extra features like it's windows counterpart...
Even firefox works better in windows and hangs way less on the same hardware.
releasing linux OSS cross platform is a good move as long as the linux version gets released first, bugs are taken care off in linux first and the linux version always has more or same features as other platforms.
also why not try to win back first gnome users, who switch because amaroks interface doesn't integrate properly with other desktops.
I love KDE and it's programs but this move could be either something great for Open Source or a stab in the back for linux if other platforms get priority...
however, most cross-platform (usually open source) programs get priority in windows and usually have less bugs.
so when people want to try the same program on linux they often find that it's either more buggy or lacks extra features like it's windows counterpart...
Even firefox works better in windows and hangs way less on the same hardware.
releasing linux OSS cross platform is a good move as long as the linux version gets released first, bugs are taken care off in linux first and the linux version always has more or same features as other platforms.
also why not try to win back first gnome users, who switch because amaroks interface doesn't integrate properly with other desktops.
I love KDE and it's programs but this move could be either something great for Open Source or a stab in the back for linux if other platforms get priority...
Well, I talk about some of those concerns in this post:
http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/539-Why-Windows-wont-hurt-and-may-even-help-Amarok.html
Firefox is a bit different because it's mostly developed by people being paid to do so, so they'll work on whichever platform support they're told to. Amarok is a program written by a bunch of Linux users who I imagine will keep being a bunch of Linux users. Also, the first platform (which is Linux for Amarok) is usually the best supported, no matter what that is. For example, although you can get all the command line utils via cygwin, there's no doubt they work better under a unix operating system.
As far as winning back GNOME users ... if a GNOME developer wants to help out making it integrate into GNOME better, they're welcome to. You can't force people to work on things they're not interested in doing though.
http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/539-Why-Windows-wont-hurt-and-may-even-help-Amarok.html
Firefox is a bit different because it's mostly developed by people being paid to do so, so they'll work on whichever platform support they're told to. Amarok is a program written by a bunch of Linux users who I imagine will keep being a bunch of Linux users. Also, the first platform (which is Linux for Amarok) is usually the best supported, no matter what that is. For example, although you can get all the command line utils via cygwin, there's no doubt they work better under a unix operating system.
As far as winning back GNOME users ... if a GNOME developer wants to help out making it integrate into GNOME better, they're welcome to. You can't force people to work on things they're not interested in doing though.
To the two people who mentioned foobar2000, I completely agree.
I've been using it for well over a year, and it is excellent. Quick searches, easy to edit tag information, very lightweight, and the tabbed playlists is incredible convenient.
I've been using it for well over a year, and it is excellent. Quick searches, easy to edit tag information, very lightweight, and the tabbed playlists is incredible convenient.
Personally you couldn't pay me to use foobar. It really seems to appeal to a different user base than Amarok, so I don't really see them as being in competition.
I like foobar2000 speed and ease of use. It works well at my parties, and is more robust when the machine is under pressure.
I've not tried Winamp at a party yet but I will do next time. However, when I pick my arse up and go to town to buy a video-out card, Winamp will win every time purely for Milkdrop.
I've not tried Winamp at a party yet but I will do next time. However, when I pick my arse up and go to town to buy a video-out card, Winamp will win every time purely for Milkdrop.
You can use all your winamp-visualisation-plugins in foobar2000 (http://www.msu.edu/~singergr/bacon.html). (another interesting discussion: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t22648.html)
maggo
maggo
Amarok can do milkdrop (libvisual)
http://projectm.sourceforge.net/
http://projectm.sourceforge.net/
Can't wait till this comes out so I can stop using the pos music player called itunes.
"People who want to be able to use computers drunk, stoned, otherwise trollied, during a party, or just generally - every single time?"
I have never hosed my Linux system while drunk; I retain enough sense to know that AUI - admining under the influence - is a bad idea.
But for those who use Windows, Amarok is about to redefine their perception of a media player.
Correction, redefine their perception of a MUSIC player. Does Amarok even do video?
I have never hosed my Linux system while drunk; I retain enough sense to know that AUI - admining under the influence - is a bad idea.
But for those who use Windows, Amarok is about to redefine their perception of a media player.
Correction, redefine their perception of a MUSIC player. Does Amarok even do video?
"I have never hosed my Linux system while drunk"
I recently hosed a system by botching a dist-upgrade Thankfully I managed to recover it though, thanks to the beauty of chroot. I do usually remount my music drives read-only though.
What I mean though is that if we decide we want to have a stab at getting TV-out up and running, or showing us some weird game they saw the other day, there's a lot more chance of getting it going on Windows - especially when drunk.
I recently hosed a system by botching a dist-upgrade
Thankfully I managed to recover it though, thanks to the beauty of chroot. I do usually remount my music drives read-only though.What I mean though is that if we decide we want to have a stab at getting TV-out up and running, or showing us some weird game they saw the other day, there's a lot more chance of getting it going on Windows - especially when drunk.
I too cannot wait. Although with my luck this will get done about the same time dual head starts working the way it should on my laptop under linux and I'll be rid of windows anyway. Please, please save me from iTunes, and give me something prettier than winamp; I hate all those little boxes.
The latest Winamp has a single window interface and there are a few skins that use just one window instead of the old piece-wise winamp design.
All I can say is thank you for continuing and working on this project. I love Amarok and I miss it tremendously.
I am a Windows user and while I love Linux and KDE I'm a .NET programmer that does everything in Windows. I don't mind using Windows at all but oh how I miss Amarok and K3B.
So again thanks to the development team for bringing this to Windows. I do wish it used a native API for the look and feel as someone pointed out above, but I'll still use it. I'm sure it would be a big hassle programming window decorations for Aero.
Thanks! Randy
I am a Windows user and while I love Linux and KDE I'm a .NET programmer that does everything in Windows. I don't mind using Windows at all but oh how I miss Amarok and K3B.
So again thanks to the development team for bringing this to Windows. I do wish it used a native API for the look and feel as someone pointed out above, but I'll still use it. I'm sure it would be a big hassle programming window decorations for Aero.
Thanks! Randy
YAY! I am excited at the prospect of having a Windows verison. Though I won't be using it on MY machine (I run Linux), other people in my household do run WinXP. (Psst... It really is the games that eventually keep most people, in my experience, from dropping it. But I digress.)
My XP users are all looking for a good player on that platform, especially as their collections have been growing. Nothing has quite satisfied them yet. I think they'd love Amarok (2). I am thinking that foobar2000 and MediaMonkey mentioned here look good. But I am also thinking about the ramifications of centralizing our collective music collections.
We are building a server for the house. I worry about collisions if I leave the collection writable for tag modification and additions. I have been looking at AMPache, though I am still considering options. With a MySQL or Postgres database and music on a server, can multiple Amarok clients connect without collision issues? Have any of the Amarok devs given much thought to server-based music collections with multiple clients? Amarok seems to like to touch the files, in my experience. Though it could have been my initial in-experience with the program. It was very happy to move and rename a bunch of my data for me, with unhappy results, when I first used it. (I did stick with Amarok, though, once I learned). Perhaps just adding AMPache collections would be better? Hmm...
Anyway, there's time to figure all that out. The server project won't be done until after the holidays. I look forward to Amarok2 on both platforms! Great job devs! And many kudos on the architectural streamlining and modularity, most especially. It' not just the pretty face that counts!
My XP users are all looking for a good player on that platform, especially as their collections have been growing. Nothing has quite satisfied them yet. I think they'd love Amarok (2). I am thinking that foobar2000 and MediaMonkey mentioned here look good. But I am also thinking about the ramifications of centralizing our collective music collections.
We are building a server for the house. I worry about collisions if I leave the collection writable for tag modification and additions. I have been looking at AMPache, though I am still considering options. With a MySQL or Postgres database and music on a server, can multiple Amarok clients connect without collision issues? Have any of the Amarok devs given much thought to server-based music collections with multiple clients? Amarok seems to like to touch the files, in my experience. Though it could have been my initial in-experience with the program. It was very happy to move and rename a bunch of my data for me, with unhappy results, when I first used it. (I did stick with Amarok, though, once I learned). Perhaps just adding AMPache collections would be better? Hmm...
Anyway, there's time to figure all that out. The server project won't be done until after the holidays. I look forward to Amarok2 on both platforms! Great job devs! And many kudos on the architectural streamlining and modularity, most especially. It' not just the pretty face that counts!
I used to use Amarok with a read-only mounted nfs share for my music (I'm cautious with my music when running a svn copy of code). A read-only smb share works the same.
That way you can mount things with the same path on all machines and it can run purely from the collection (it obviously can't update anything in the files if they're read only!)
Unfortunately the cross platform thing might make it a little hard to have the same path on all machines. I'll have to think about how we might make that work.
That way you can mount things with the same path on all machines and it can run purely from the collection (it obviously can't update anything in the files if they're read only!)
Unfortunately the cross platform thing might make it a little hard to have the same path on all machines. I'll have to think about how we might make that work.
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