I was upset that the XMMS music player stopped shipping with recent versions of Ubuntu. I’ve used the new standard Rhythmbox Music Player and hate the way it (and iTunes, for that matter) reorganize my already-organized music collection. I don’t need a bloated, database-backed organizer – I just want to listen to some music!
Seems I’m not the only Ubuntu user who missed XMMS, because Knut Auvor Grythe built a repository of XMMS Ubuntu packages where Ubuntu users can once again have their XMMS.
Rhythmbox has never done anything to my file system. It presents an ID3 tagged view of my music, which after lots of work over time actually does resemble my collection, but it doesn’t actually reorganize anything.
I liked xmms too. I use Rhythmbox because it works so seamlessly with my iPod.
Rhythmbox has locked up on me frequently, ever since I did a recent Ubuntu upgrade. That’s what led me to switch back to XMMS.
Instead of xmms, there’s also audacious (which sports the newer toolkit) and its bevy of plugins.
I also recommend checking out quod libet, sonata (mpd frontend), and/or bmpx. If you’re into the Web 2.0 mashup thingamajig, there’s a ppa with songbird 1.0, too.
What sort of lockups are you experiencing with rhythmbox? Are you using pulseaudio or “plain” alsa?
Hey Dan,
Yes, I’ve had others recommend Audacious so I’ll have to check it out.
The Rhythmbox lockups only happen with the UI – the music keeps playing. I thought it might be NFS-related but XMMS has no trouble playing from the same share. So I’ve got no clue what’s going on.
I’m using Ubuntu 8.04.1 with the latest patches.