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See the original image at arstechnica.com —

Rock out on Linux with the Banshee 1.0 beta 2 media player

arstechnica.com — Ars tests the latest beta release of Banshee 1.0, an open source media player for Linux. This version adds support for video content, including video podcasts.

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  • SnowCrashv5, on 05/28/2008, -16/+34nice work on the player, too bad it requires mono.
    • Avian00, on 05/28/2008, -8/+15Why is that such a bad thing?
      • mazza558, on 05/28/2008, -14/+9It's bad if Microsoft feel spiteful one day and sue Mono (it's a FOSS .Net codebase)
        • Sammi84, on 05/28/2008, -3/+13Legally impossible. MS released their rights on .net. It's anybody's game now.
        • SnowCrashv5, on 05/28/2008, -1/+4stuff it, shill
      • stoanhart, on 05/28/2008, -3/+19@mazza

        Nope. MS submitted the core components of .Net as an international standard. Anyone is free to implement it.

        They have build their own products on top of .Net, like ASP.Net and Windows.Forms, but Banshee doesn't use any of those. While Mono is implementing Windows.Forms (which could land them in hot water), the worst case scenario is a cease and decist on the Forms component. The rest will live on.
        • PatrickBrown, on 05/28/2008, -4/+7Thus illustrating why .Net is crippled on systems not being licensed by Microsoft.

          Also, being a standard does not relinquish patents from Microsoft. Microsoft still has the freedom to demand reasonable licensing fees for certain core patents if they wish.
      • mazza558, on 05/28/2008, -2/+1Thanks for that info. I thought mono itself was a minefield. Is there any way to implement "windows.forms" without infuriating Microsoft?
        • SnowCrashv5, on 05/28/2008, -2/+4you seem to misunderstand, MS wants you to use windows.forms, mono, moonlight and the whole lot of it so they can have you, and linux users by the balls later.
      • geoken, on 05/28/2008, -2/+15Read up on the standard. It allows microsoft to retain claims to the patents associated with it under RAND. Under the terms of RAND, microsoft can at any time demand royalties for implementations of a standard which fall under patents which RAND allows them to maintain ownership of.

        • renegadeafk, on 05/28/2008, -7/+5I'm sick of these uninformed idiots saying mono is so horrible...
        • SnowCrashv5, on 05/28/2008, -5/+6then maybe you should enlighten us, moron.
        • gabaug, on 05/28/2008, -1/+7Except Microsoft has gone ahead and granted anyone the right to implement the ECMA part for free and without restriction. I suggest reading: http://www.mono-project.com/FAQ:_Licensing
        • geoken, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2Yeah, a link to a statement made by a single developer on a mailing list which has since been deleted and is now only available in the internet archive. If that's not binding I don't know what is.

          If a single link, an archived link at that, to a comment made by a developer on a mailing is the best Novell can do to rebut any patent claims then I'd be inclined to believe there is a significant danger.

          On a side note, the inventor listed on the patent has no power and can easily be overuled by the sponsor (usually his/her employer)
    • trivialmaggot, on 05/28/2008, -2/+5what is mono?
    • lemur, on 05/28/2008, -6/+8I'm sorry but Mono is awesome.
    • Weejay, on 05/28/2008, -7/+7SnowCrashv5 is merely an ill-informed prophet of doom. The kind of guy that would bash Mono just because it implements a Microsoft technology. The kind of zealot that are the plague of the open source world because they spread FUD all around and scare people.
    • djbon2112, on 05/28/2008, -9/+3Yet ANOTHER iTunes clone? Seriously, don't we have e-*****-nough of them? Jesus, SOMEONE please make one that's actually reasonably like Winamp! Is that too much to ask?
      • burjzyntski, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1Yes, bring back the xmms!
      • Burn, on 05/28/2008, -0/+5It already exists, it's called Audacious.
        • ukblacknight, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1Doesn't have a media library though.
      • Ademan, on 05/28/2008, -0/+4http://audacious-media-player.org/index.php?title= ...

        here's a link to the software Burn mentioned "Audacious", it can even use winamp skins... I personally hate the interface of winamp and all of its ilk, but to each his own...
      • djbon2112, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1Audacious is missing a media library, which is to me the main selling point of Winamp.
        • Burn, on 06/12/2008, -0/+1I use WinAMP and only WinAMP as my media player when using Windows (Which, admittedly, is rare these days), and I've never used the Media Library feature.
  • madwaxer, on 05/28/2008, -0/+5just glad it lets me stream from the server. i get mad when podcasts fill up my HD while i am listening to some of them. especially the video ones which i am beginning to just get audio streams of instead and checking out only the interesting software i hear about. though it would be nice to watch all of them. this might change that too.
  • amrhassan, on 05/28/2008, -3/+6if it has better last.fm integration than amarok 1.4, i'm switching right away..
    • SnowCrashv5, on 05/28/2008, -7/+4I used to love last.fm support and thought that was a super neat idea... but generally i've grown pretty anti-last.fm. Neat service, problem is.. 90% of their users are broadcasting the ***** they've pirated. Not exactly smart in the long run.
      • mazza558, on 05/28/2008, -1/+10What's the difference between a pirated/genuine file, if their tags are identical?
        • fragsta, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1I think what SnowCrashv5 is trying to say is that most pirated tracks have bum id3 tags, and/or that most users aren't careful with their tagging.
    • sandyarmstrong, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1I haven't used Amarok, but the last.fm integration is the best I've used in any other player, just try it out. ;-)
    • sn0wmis3r, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2i just tried it out, amazing last.fm integration, better than any other player so far
  • tiftof, on 05/28/2008, -0/+8I'm willing to try another music player than Amarok. Banshee might be a good alternative since I am using gnome. But there some things that keep me from switching to Banshee: no folder list (only a library), no mysql database (might be able to live without it: Banshee seems pretty fast at handling my library) and no .cue support ...
    • Dohko_Xar, on 05/28/2008, -1/+4What is wrong with Amarok?
      • jakethecake, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2Troll Tech's QT
        • jay019, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1It's not that bad. I have switched to Amarok recently cause I actually like the interface better than banshee. The "context" pane is awesome!
      • tiftof, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2Nothing is wrong with amarok itself, you won't hear me complaining about it. But as it uses kdelibs, it uses a lot of extra ram that a gnome app wouldn't. I like using just gtk programs when using gnome and just qt apps when using kde.

        KDE is missing a good msn client and gnome is missing a good music player.
    • ppvanzella, on 05/28/2008, -2/+2I guess it became too mainstream.
    • sandyarmstrong, on 05/28/2008, -0/+4Banshee uses a sqlite database to manage all the library data (minus the actual music files), which is one reason it's so wicked fast.

      If you were disappointed with the speed of older versions of Banshee, try the 1.0 betas...it's like an entirely new application.
      • tiftof, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1I tried it already and it is indeed much faster at handling my collection.

        But I especially want a folder structure available in my music player. I use the library to search for a song sometimes. But mostly I just use my folder structure to find the album or genre I want to listen to: my folders are well organized and I find things faster that way.
  • Sammi84, on 05/28/2008, -8/+27Yes Banshee uses MONO, which is a free software implementation of .NET, which Microsoft developed and made patents for, but please read up and stop the MONO FUD.

    Most of .NET was submitted to ECMA for standardization, and so Microsoft has no rights over it any longer. They cannot sue for patent infringement anymore.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software)#Licen ...
    • geoken, on 05/28/2008, -5/+12That is completely incorrect. The ECMA standards body does in fact allow standards to be passed that are encumbered by patents. The ECMA only specifies that patents required to use the standard are made available under the terms of RAND. RAND basically says Microsoft is allowed to keep all patents, and they're even allowed to force people to pay for using said patents but the fee must be reasonable and non-discriminatory.

      Basically, the fact that it's an ECMA standard says nothing about the patent situation.
  • willwill100, on 05/28/2008, -11/+5the article talks about a "polished interface". this is wrong.
  • TheConman, on 05/28/2008, -13/+1The mac fanboy: GET A MAC GET A MAC GET A MAC GET A MAC
  • ThantiK, on 05/28/2008, -13/+7Or you could just use VLC. Which plays everything you could possibly imagine.
    • zwaldowski, on 05/28/2008, -0/+15Unless you're crazy enough to want a library.
  • watcht, on 05/28/2008, -0/+8I've downloaded it, and hell it's much faster than the previous builds, my only problem is the lack of gapless playback, but it's still a sweet media manager.
  • n0odles, on 05/28/2008, -10/+3Microsoft's Mono garbage is in Banshee. DO NOT WANT!
  • TiKoZ, on 05/28/2008, -6/+1The equalizer screen shot... typical Linux application, notice the XX Hz type? probably the only media player that has those, normal users won't need those 2 modify their equalizer preset.
    • UKsHaDoW, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2ITunes has something similar.

      32 Hz To 16 Khz

      Doubling from 32 hz each time.

      But it doesn't say Hz


    • zwaldowski, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2It comes with presets, and WMP, Winamp, and VLC has very similar controls.
  • skyshock1, on 05/28/2008, -6/+1Why should I use this instead of VLC?
    • EricSOzone, on 05/28/2008, -1/+6because you can set up a library with this?
      Generally most people don't want to browse through all of their folders to play a song - when it could take a second to search for it through a media library.
      • skyshock1, on 05/28/2008, -6/+2I already have a file browser that does this. Right-click, play file (or .m3u playlist). Why include this redundant bloat in a media player?
        • SuicideMouse, on 05/28/2008, -1/+3Some people would find that an insanely annoying thing to do when they have GBs of music even in properly organized folders.

          I also don't just use play lists, I like quick fast access to any song I have.
          I would have to the browse for that song and that's not something I'm willing to do.
        • zongamin, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2Its not redundant or bloat - why would you want to sort through your files rather than allow your media player to do it for you?
        • Killerah, on 05/28/2008, -1/+3Yeah, plus you can't have any autoplaylist features and searching takes way longer in a file browser than it does in a media player. VLC is not a good alternative to a full blown media manager. VLC is great for video, but not practical for playing music.
        • skyshock1, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1None of you have ever heard of Finder, Quicksilver, Slickrun, Launchy, ActiveWords, Katapult, Gnome-do, etc...? You type a hot key, and type in the name of the song (or playlist) and hit enter. All from your desktop. The media player associated w/ the file type launches the file(s). That's TONS more simple than opening a media player, navigating to the library, browsing for your song (yes, you still have to FIND your music within the media player's library), etc...
        • SuicideMouse, on 05/30/2008, -0/+1Ok well I'm sure I'm not only speaking for myself when I say, Yes, I have heard of those things but it doesn't make it much better.

          Finding music in a music player is just as easy if not easier because it's only searching through the music you want it to.

          Sometimes I want to hear a song by an artist but can't remember the name so I'll skip to the artist and play different songs till I find it or skim the titles until I see it and recall the name upon reading the name again.
          Sometimes my ADHD gets going and I play different artists so spiratically that I would never want to bother typing in a song name, I just scroll and click. Finding any song you have is beyond easy in the right music player (Amarok for me) since everything is labeled and it's just a matter of typing the band/song or scrolling down an alphabetically ordered list.
          Sometimes I just like that I can click a tab and see the wiki page for the current artist, click another and see the lyrics for that song or click another and see my listening habits and with that I can do some REAL bloat and redundancy removal by deleting the huge song files that I don't even listen to anymore. You know, the songs you'd probably never realize you had or didn't really listen to since you're searching for the ones you want specifically.
    • jay019, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2No one said you should. I'd get those voices in your head checked out.
    • priegog, on 05/28/2008, -1/+1If you have to ask that question you shouldn't switch. But really VLC for music?
  • Woknblues, on 05/28/2008, -4/+2I am sorry, but looking at that interface is doing nothing for me. I think the video integration is just adding clutter. I have no problem right now with amarok/vlc, in it's current state and stable release.
  • EricSOzone, on 05/28/2008, -8/+2the only things I want out of a media player are:
    Easy Library setup
    Quick Load times
    Decent EQ
    Amazing Visualizations.
    Gapless playback

    So until Winamp is ported to linux, I'll stick with Amarok(which does none of these)
  • jaydedragon, on 05/28/2008, -0/+4i'm still using rythmbox because of the ability to see by categories.. ie Genre, Artist, Album.. if it adds this and gives BETTER iPod support.. i'll move... until then... its just pretty
    • watcht, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1I was gonna say it does do the categories but it is missing Genre as one of them, other than that it seems to cover artist, album and title just fine. As for better ipod support i have not tested it.
  • psylence, on 05/28/2008, -6/+1Hooray for enormous icons, tons of whitespace separating everything. Feels really pro. I bet it feels real snappy like most GTK# apps!
    • fejj, on 05/29/2008, -0/+0It's faster than any of the native-C or C++ media players I've used, so yea, it is pretty snappy ;-)
  • shoeberto, on 05/28/2008, -2/+5I really love using Gnome for my desktop environment, but I usually can't stand most GTK apps because of the whole "keep it incredibly, annoyingly, insultingly stimple, stupid" design methodology. Last time I used Banshee it seemed basically like Rhythmbox with a different icon.

    Amarok, on the other hand, is still hands-down the best music player I've ever used.
    • SuicideMouse, on 05/28/2008, -0/+4I've never found a better music player then Amarok. I know others will disagree, rightly so as it's opinion based, but for my massive collection of music, the speed, simplicity, compatibility and wide array of functions that don't clutter up the GUI make it my favorite.
      • jay019, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3I also like the little things in Amarok. Like the volume fading out when you exit. Very nice.
        • SuicideMouse, on 05/30/2008, -0/+1Yeah I forgot to mention that, they put so much work into small detail like this. Not to mention all of the available add-ons (I heart Wikilyrics(SP?))! It's a program with a lot to share and express to it's users and it's users choose what it gets to.This keeps everything nice and tidy.

          Also, I like changing the colour scheme of programs, especially music players and Amarok is pretty great at this, even though it's small and relatively unimportant in what makes a player great to me, I still like that I can.
  • iindigo, on 05/28/2008, -5/+4What I can't understand is how there's so many nice Linux music management apps coming about lately, and yet none of them are built in a way that they easily compile and run on OS X... What makes this genre of application so different from the scores of other Linux apps that compile and run without a hitch on Macs?


    • zongamin, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2Itunes
    • priegog, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2I honestly don't know why you're getting dugg down. But yeah my first guess would be the same reason there's no itunes for linux: Nobody wants it in the other OS. MacOS fans particullarly won't use anything other than itunes even when shown the awesomeness that is amarok. That said, MacOS users is simply not the targeted audience. The fact that it has a BSD background is at this point in OS history, just a matter of luck.
    • sandyarmstrong, on 06/01/2008, -0/+0Banshee will be released on OS X and Windows soon. Nobody wants to release something half-baked, and currently the developers are focusing on Linux.
  • bigtrouble77, on 05/28/2008, -2/+1Banshee seems like a waste to me, at this point. Mono apps are a dog and are really only useful for porting .Net apps. The players that I've been most impressed with are Amarok, Listen and Songbird, Songbird being the most impressive by far. If you don't want a music library app then Audacious is for you.
  • Infowarmachine, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2xmms with xmms-xmplayer for the win
  • ptFoe, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3IT would be good if it can monitor certain folders for video files.

    Like the Bit Torrent folder you download movies & TV eps too.
  • cabronqueseyo, on 05/28/2008, -5/+0Wow! A media player? I was just thinking -- you know what I need? Another linux media player.
  • goldfenix, on 05/28/2008, -1/+11My own assessment:

    Previously I used Amarok, which I found to have some awesome features, but the program seriously locked up on me all the time.

    Banshee I find to be much, much simpler. Less preferences, less options, etc etc. BUT, I also have found that it still does precisely what I need it to do. Play music reliably. It's handling of the library is pretty good too, and it has a very nice integration with the Last.fm radio station system. Plus, no more freezes and it's ram usage is WAAAAY below Amarok's.

    All things considered, if you have previously found Amarok to be either a system hog or simply not reliable, or even if you want something more streamlined, I'd say switch over.
    • SuicideMouse, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2I've never had Amarok crash for me, are you using a the new beta?
      I'm not saying it doesn't crash for anyone but I'm just wondering.
      • goldfenix, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1I was using the official one from the add/remove menu. Don't know why it crashed so much, but seriously, with my meager 4k song library it crashed about 40% of the time when trying to play the first song I'd pick.
        • Ademan, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2Well, it sounds like you're using Ubuntu. Historically ubuntu doesn't give a ***** about KDE and all of it's applications. In fact, my experience with KDE on ubuntu was so horrible I've never tried it since... but i've *heard* that it's better on other distros, so this could be just another case of ubuntu not paying any attention to the KDE side of things.
        • SuicideMouse, on 05/30/2008, -0/+1I'm not a fan of KDE but there a few KDE designed apps I'll use because I love them so much and Amarok is definitely one of them.

          I wonder what the problem was, I'm guessing it had to do with the audio since it was the first song you'd play, and perhaps the 60% of the time it worked some other program wasn't getting into a fight over some resources with it. If you decide to try it again, set the default audio for your apps and set up the audio for Amarok in different ways trying a few times to see if it crashes.

          You could either find a way to make it work for you or find something worth reporting.
    • priegog, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1You bring up ery good points. You made me realise how much of an Amarok fanboi I've become... I might have to check this out, if even for the humbling experience.
  • xqb4dpx, on 05/28/2008, -2/+2this ***** is still in beta? its so good, but really?
  • sevenalive, on 05/28/2008, -0/+1I love banshee i use it for my music, i also love the song info and controls when you hover your mouse over the tray icon. IMO its the best music player in linux that does what i want and i also like the interface. Now with video support i won't have to deal with mplayer or totem.
  • Ademan, on 05/28/2008, -0/+4I'm really not in favor of the decision to support video as well as music. Unless it ends up being very tightly integrated, not just tacked on as an afterthought (which i can't help but think it is... considering how late in the game it's being added... although it *is* open source, and it's pretty young for an open source project)
    • NTolerance, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2Seriously. How does video support get added before gapless audio playback? Playing music is such an afterthought these days with PC and portable media players.
  • Zodiachus, on 05/28/2008, -0/+3I've used Banshee for some time now and I am very happy with the progress they've made. It integrates nicely with the rest of my desktop, it's efficient, purposeful and unassuming.

    I don't see why people are getting so hung up on Mono. Mono is not an important factor. The skill of the programmer using it is way, way more important than Mono. I'll take a good programmer over a good framework any day, and the Banshee team appear to know what they are doing.

    I invite you to try Banshee before you make comments on its supposed performance.
  • KhaaL, on 05/28/2008, -0/+2I'd give it a try, but there's one fact that makes me stick with amarok: Its support for labels. even if I'd find another player that supports labels, I wouldn't want to re-label all my music...
  • mrogi, on 05/28/2008, -1/+1Banshee is the Lamb of God
  • burjzyntski, on 05/28/2008, -1/+2Damn, thanks. I've been missing out/messing around with *****-ass Rhythmbox....
  • vanden9, on 05/29/2008, -1/+1For anyone who wants this on ubuntu here a .deb

    ftp://neacm.fe.up.pt/pub/getdeb/ubuntu/hardy/ba/banshee_0.99.2-0~getdeb1_i386.deb
  • brainspout, on 06/01/2008, -0/+1FINALLY !!!!!!

    A decent Linux app WITH AN EQUALIZER!!!
    AAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!!!

    Sorry, I had to scream, I was beginning to think this day would never come...

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