Request: An easy to use Media Player

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slvrldy17
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Request: An easy to use Media Player

#1 Post by slvrldy17 »

Let me preface this by saying that I don't want to start a fight with anyone about which is the best media player. For most average users a media player needs to be intuitive and so far what I've tried in Puppy hasn't been. Fact is, the closest I've come to an easy to use media player in Linux wasn't in Puppy - it was in the new Knoppix V5.1.1 - The Kaffine media player is as close as it gets. Check it out - I know it can't be used without the KDE desktop which would defeat the main advantage of using Puppy - it's small size and speed. But, Kaffine's preformance is so good that it would be a good standard to try for.

I know that MU has KDE available in his archive so the next question is this - is Kaffine part of the package? If it is I would be tempted to try the whole KDE package with LitePup 2.13 as a base. Any thought on this?

Thanks,

Alice
Always give without remembering - always receive without forgetting.
Alice

plinej
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#2 Post by plinej »

What's not easy to use about gxine?

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Pizzasgood
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#3 Post by Pizzasgood »

Or XMMS? There isn't much that can be done if we don't know what the problem to be solved is. :wink:

If it's appearance, there are skins for XMMS and Mplayer. I don't know about Gxine.
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slvrldy17
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Problem defined - I hope!

#4 Post by slvrldy17 »

The problem that I've had with gxine and xmms among others is partly the interface and partly ease of use. Over the years I've amassed a modest collection of music on my hard drive - about 20GB worth - all in the .wma format used with windows media player on an NTFS partition. For business reasons the Windows install is a permanent fixture. It is normal for me to have music going when I'm working on the computer (curently listening to a Native American Flute CD titled Wind Riders). With the right codecs gxine an xmms will play a .wma file - but accessing files on an NTFS partition and building playlists is awkward - more trouble than its worth when I'm tired.

A few days ago I was playing with the new Knoppix release V5.1.0/1 and decided to try the media player(s) - first up was Kaffine - imagine my surpise when I found a totally intuitive interface - no instructions needed - with the drive/partition with the music files mounted a few clicks to drill down to the album files and a couple of quick drag and drops I had a playlist and music going - as easy as using WMP 10 or 11. DVD playback was smooth and easy too - without the bugs/problems that gxine has shown with full screen playback. I'm a user - not a tinkerer and the quicker and easier something is to use the better I like it.

For a fair comparison grab a copy of Knoppix V5.1.1 - boot it on a windows machine with some media files in .wma format and play with Kaffine - then do the same with Puppy and gzine - the difference is easy to see. For myself I'm going to check into wether KDE puppy has Kaffine - if it does I may well try it with Lite Pup as a base.
Always give without remembering - always receive without forgetting.
Alice

DavidBell
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#5 Post by DavidBell »

Try my one if you want :-)
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=14222
It's not finished yet so a bit rough around the edges. There will probably be an update this weekend.

It's a pretty basic front end for xmms. Takes a bit of setting up - you have to add whatever codecs you need etc to xmms; you have to mount the disk if required; you have to edit the config file to point it to your music library; and your music files have to be in a special structure (sames as MS Media Player structure) But if you just play music like I do, once it's set up you can just doubleclick the album picture and it plays. I've been using it for a couple of weeks and it suits my methods perfectly (there's a surprise :-)).

Caution. Initially on my system it was very slow to start loading up the library. Think I've resolved that now but haven't tested on a really big library - will be testing a 20GB+ library this weekend.

DB

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WhoDo
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#6 Post by WhoDo »

plinej wrote:What's not easy to use about gxine?
... or Realplayer 10 from the PSI repos?

I know that it's not open source, Alice, but you specified easy first and nothing second. Your choice.

Cheers

Pence
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#7 Post by Pence »


slvrldy17
Posts: 292
Joined: Fri 17 Feb 2006, 22:17
Location: Mid western USA

Media Players

#8 Post by slvrldy17 »

WhoDo,

I guess you could say that my experience with Real Player under Windows was not the best - the version that I used was at best somewhat unstable. Still, it might be worth a try.

Thanks,
Always give without remembering - always receive without forgetting.
Alice

slvrldy17
Posts: 292
Joined: Fri 17 Feb 2006, 22:17
Location: Mid western USA

Media Player

#9 Post by slvrldy17 »

David,

What you are working on looks like it has real potential. Think I'll let the dust settle for a few days before I play with it though. Current project is to try out MU's KDE package on a base of Lite Pup - I've got a few days off coming up and that should keep me busy for awhile.

Thanks to all for the input and ideas,
Always give without remembering - always receive without forgetting.
Alice

marksouth2000
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Re: Problem defined - I hope!

#10 Post by marksouth2000 »

slvrldy17 wrote:...gxine and xmms among others is partly the interface...Kaffine...few clicks to drill down to the album files and a couple of quick drag and drops I had a playlist and music going....
Alice, I find this a curious comparison to make. XMMS in particular supports extremely simple and straightforward drag/drop. Alt-E opens the playlist, drag a music file onto it. Rearrange play order by dragging. Save playlist by right-clicking on playlist, selecting playlist-save.

I'm not knocking Kaffeine but XMMS really is amazingly easy to use, and lightweight to boot. Audacity, Audacious, and Beep media player all work very much the same way.

Cheers,
Mark

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MU
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#11 Post by MU »

PM:
Guess my questions boil down to a couple of fairly simple ones. First, does your KDE package include the Kaffine media player as part of the desktop package? Since I'm planning to try it on a base of Lite Pup 2.13 are there any pitfalls or bugs that need to be watched for? Don't know if the version of Kaffine that I've been playing with in Knoppix is the same as in (I hope) yours - but it is by far the easiest to use linux media player I've yet come accross so far.
you can install with gslapt
kaffeine 0.8.2-i486-2sl

Works fine.
Reminds me of DavidBells xmmsMusicBox.

Screenshot:
Image


If KDE runs in Litepup without aditional libraries I can't say.

Run "Kicker" (with BIG K) in a consolewindow, that will list eventually missing libraries.
Post them in the forum please.

Mark

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Rhino
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#12 Post by Rhino »

Songbird is an interesting development as a music player. It is much like an open source iTunes, and it is very heavy (17MB) if I remember correctly and I think needs gstreamer so that makes it even heavier. I can get it to run in Puppy, but then I get tons of error messages...missing libraries I'm sure. But if someone were to need Puppy as a standalone Jukebox or music player, it looks like it would be excellent. Check it out at songbirdnest.com Let me know if you get it to work properly, although I think it might be quite a challenge.
Visit the Puppy Linux Video Tutorials @ http://rhinoweb.us

Pelo

Kaffeine needs KDE. Default mediaplayers in Puppy do the job

#13 Post by Pelo »

Kaffeine needs KDE. Default mediaplayers in Puppy do the job, but if you like more professional appearance Audacious is one that can be elected, but they are a lot.
Perhaps we have more jukeboxes than Music lovers in the forum
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Galbi
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#14 Post by Galbi »

Media player means?... Just audio, or audio and video?

For music you can try Clementine.
"Clementine is a multiplatform music player. It is inspired by Amarok 1.4, "

https://www.clementine-player.org/

I´ve used this in Puppy, can´t remember which Puppy and how it was installed, sorry.

Saludos.

PD: Pelo... you know that the original post it's from 2007, don´t you? Chances that the OP reads this are very low.
Remember: [b][i]"pecunia pecuniam parere non potest"[/i][/b]

Pelo

new generation

#15 Post by Pelo »

Audacious 3.7.2 available now for Puppies new generation (Xenialpup) if GTK3 provided by the Puppy Distro.
Médor, Linux master in forum francophone can provide a GTK2 version for Slacko.
As a Jukebox manages your Music collection, Alexandra will do the same with your videos or Movies.
There are a lot, but these ones are brand new...

Clementine of course, is a really nice Jukebox, XIX too (screenshot).
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backi
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#16 Post by backi »

Sure Audacious is a fine player...... it does audio .......
But Vlc player is a powerful app too ....audio as video as well ...

Pelo

Winamp-style interface

#17 Post by Pelo »

Generally try to do with the media-player included as default in your Puppy Linux.
If some functiuns are broken, write it on the forum of the distro.
Gnome-mplayer, VLC of Gxine on older puppies do their job... They have been tested before the Puppy release, i hope.
However, our puppy builders don't test DVDs, and there is a problem to chosse chapters..
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starhawk
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#18 Post by starhawk »

GNOME-Mplayer is pretty good. I use it on the netbook.

I use Audacious on my main system because the Winamp-style interface makes me feel good. I guess there are some things I haven't learned to un-Windows from yet :oops:

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nic007
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#19 Post by nic007 »

SMPlayer, don't know why I haven't used it before. Seems to be the best frontend for mplayer.

jlst

#20 Post by jlst »

nic007 wrote:SMPlayer, don't know why I haven't used it before. Seems to be the best frontend for mplayer.
It's also a frontend for mpv, SMPlayer is awesome. I always compile the latest version.

SMPlayer, Qbittorrent and a few other high-profile apps makes installing qt worthwhile..

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