I come from a Mac world using iTunes that I love, and now I’m
trying to get my music collection (as mp3s) running on Linux.
I’ve read a lot where people really like Amarok, so I thought
I’d try it out, but it’s a real pain. I hope it’s just my not
having used it much that’s at fault and someone more familiar
with it can guide me in getting it set up the way I want to
use it.
I’m running openSUSE 11.4 32-bit with the Gnome desktop, but
I also have KDE installed (I find setting it up the way I want
much more difficult than Gnome, which is why I’m running it).
I’m running Amarok 2.4.0 which came with the installed system.
Since I’m coming to Linux from Mac with iTunes, the easiest
way to get my music to Linux was to convert my Mac m4a files
to mp3 files, burn them to DVDs and then install them on Linux.
This was done, and now all my files are organized as follows:
Music
|
---------------------------
| | |
Artist1 Artist2 Compilations
| | | |
Albums Albums Album1 Album2
| | | |
Tracks Tracks Tracks Tracks
My issues with Amarok are as follows:
Dragging all albums for an artist in Media Sources to the
Pop-Up Dropper (PUD) to add them to a playlist adds more
than what I tell it to. By this I mean, if the artist also
has individual tracks under the Compilations header above,
then these get added to the playlist along with all those
from the artist’s albums. I DO NOT WANT THE COMPILATION
TRACKS ADDED AND DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY ARE ADDED SINCE
I DID NOT DRAG AND DROP THEM. I observe the same behavior
when not using the PUD and drag and drop straight to the
playlist side itself. Why is this occurring and can I stop
it from doing so?
Adding anything to a playlist automatically starts the 1st
track playing. I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING PLAYING UNTIL I TELL
IT TO START PLAYING. Can this be changed?
When a track is playing and I adjust the slider of where it’s
at in the song (i.e., move it closer to the finish) and the
song finishes, Amarok will stop instead of starting the next
track in the playlist. IT SHOULD JUST MOVE TO THE NEXT TRACK.
Why is this happening and can it be changed?
Using the Automated Playlist Generator (APG) to create a
playlist that consists of all my 5-star rated tracks (which
happens to be over 900 tracks). I used "Match tag: rating
equals 5 stars and “Match All” group and moved the match
slider to the “exact” position. Then I went through all my
tracks setting my favorites to 5-stars. When I clicked the
blue arrow for “Run the APG with selected preset”, I got the
surprise of my life. It would only do 30 random tracks, which
was set under “Playlist duration”. THIS ALONE SEEMS ODD TO ME!
It’s only settings are </=/> some number, so I tried = to all
my 5-star tracks, and ran it again with the selected preset.
THIS CREATED A PLAYLIST OF VARYING SIZES EACH TIME I RAN IT,
AND IT ADDED TRACKS THAT DID NOT HAVE 5-STARS AND ADDED MANY
DUPLICATES OF THE SAME TRACKS. I then tried the > number with
basically the same outcome. Why does this occur and can it be
told to just do what I want and do it reliably? Since I could
not get this to work anywhere close to what I wanted, I game
up and created a static playlist with only my 5-star tracks.
I cannot determine where my Amarok settings/playlists/etc. are
saved so I can copy this information to a backup CD/DVD so I
don’t have to manually create everything from scratch again,
if the need arises. Where is this stuff saved on disk, and can
I accomplish what I want?
FOR EXTRA CREDIT: It would be nice to not have to convert my
Mac m4a files to mp3 just to play them on Linux, so if there’s a
way to play the m4a files on Linux, I’d love to hear about it.
I’ve already added the Packman repository to my repository list,
but really haven’t done anything regarding it (really not sure
what to do with it yet).
Everything I complained about above can be accomplished with iTunes
on the Mac, so if anybody sees a better music player for my needs
I’d be interested in hearing about it. Otherwise, if all my issues
can be fixed to my liking, then I might be happy staying with Amarok.
Then switch to that repo, with the switcher in software management.
I can’t answer your playlist issues, it’s not something I do.
Converting is necessary. iTunes music is often DRM
You may be able to convert the music with pacpl (it’s in packman) add the dolphin context menu part and use dolphin, right click on your .m4a file/s and convert to>
None of my music has DRM - everything is off of CDs I’ve bought. Nothing is downloaded from the iTunes store.
When I talked about iTunes, I only meant that I loved using the iTunes music player.
Running Amarok 2.4.0 and .m4a files play well here. Have you not read the stickies at the head of the Multimedia forum? For example: Multimedia in One Click including its link to the multimedia guide. You will need gstreamer plugins e.g. I have the “good”, the “bad”, but manage without the “ugly”.
.m4a files play fine in AmaroK here as well. I use the xine backend, not the gstreamer, just to sort that out. These files were downloaded from an iPod long ago.
Adding anything to a playlist automatically starts the 1st
track playing. I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING PLAYING UNTIL I TELL
IT TO START PLAYING. Can this be changed?
This behaviour does not occur here. I can drag and drop from the local files library to the ‘playlist’ without it starting to play. I may also drag and drop from e.g. Dolphin onto the ‘playlist’ whithout AmaroK starting. I suppose you add them a bit differently though.
Dragging all albums for an artist in Media Sources to the
Pop-Up Dropper (PUD) to add them to a playlist adds more
than what I tell it to. By this I mean, if the artist also
has individual tracks under the Compilations header above,
then these get added to the playlist along with all those
from the artist’s albums. I DO NOT WANT THE COMPILATION
TRACKS ADDED AND DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY ARE ADDED SINCE
I DID NOT DRAG AND DROP THEM. I observe the same behavior
when not using the PUD and drag and drop straight to the
playlist side itself. Why is this occurring and can I stop
it from doing so?
If you get used to the way amarok organises the files I think you could manage to do that with labelling the files in quiestion under ‘various artists’, and use drag and drop from within the AmaroK library ‘Local Collections’ onto the ‘playlist’.
When a track is playing and I adjust the slider of where it’s
at in the song (i.e., move it closer to the finish) and the
song finishes, Amarok will stop instead of starting the next
track in the playlist. IT SHOULD JUST MOVE TO THE NEXT TRACK.
Why is this happening and can it be changed?
Nor is this happening with my player. NB, if you do play your music from the dvd itself this might happen? AmaroK (KDE) has one great weakness which is playback of CD/DVD media.
I cannot determine where my Amarok settings/playlists/etc. are
saved so I can copy this information to a backup CD/DVD so I
don’t have to manually create everything from scratch again,
if the need arises. Where is this stuff saved on disk, and can
I accomplish what I want?
You might also play around with the layout of your ‘Local Collection’: Artist-Album-Genre, Album-Artist-Genre, Album-Album-Album etc. It might make you comfortable with a way of adding files to your ‘playlist’.
