A: I've found Audacious (http://audacious-media-player.org/).
I've been searching for a usable audio player for quite some time.
I intentionally won't say best one, but rather usable one, as my player of choice during the years keeps changing :)
My (current) requirements
Might be quite user specific, but still, here they are:
- runs on linux (windows would be a plus, however since my recent job change, I don't need windows neither at home nor at work)
- free, or better open source licensed (rather my decision, than a need)
- integrates lyrics into the UI
- can be minimized to system tray (by closing it)
- playback can be controlled by the keyboard (when in the player UI), as I hate those, that can be controlled by mouse only (I consider mouse beeing much slower input device for the specific actions that keyboard)
- shouldn't eat all my resources just to play music in the background
Well, as far as I remember during these years of my music listening experience I've been using following (more less chronologically)
winamp (http://www.winamp.com/)
- was quite some time ago, in my "windows ages"
- I still like it's original look and consider it's UI designers unbeated (with respect to idea and it's realization)
- major blocker was for me however no linux port
xmms (http://www.xmms.org/)
- worked well for me on linux
- supported winamp skins => more less same look
- not available any more in the most linux distros these days
- in the time I've been using it I needed windows port as well, there was no such, but winamp did the job there
songbird (http://www.getsongbird.com/)
- I liked the UI integration of all the song related stuff, but finally I've found myself using only lyrics in my daily life
- this was the first one, when I started to be OK with no winamp-like look (so it was very valueable for me for my future choices)
- there were quite some problems with linux port, these made me believe there has to be an alternative:
- first: no official packages in major linux distros
- then: officially announced discontinued support for linux
- nightingale (it's linux port http://getnightingale.com/) - had no stable/usable release for quite some time
- in the meantime I changed already
- moreover was quite resource consuming
amarok (http://amarok.kde.org/)
- worked well for me on linux
- I even wrote a small plugin for it: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=137205
- had nice lyrics integration
- ubuntu notifications worked/looked well
- however I've come to conclusion that there should be some more lightweight/performant player available (for the simple needs I have)
clementine (http://www.clementine-player.org/)
- worked well for me on both platforms
- as I've been used to amarok this was to me only a more performant version (as they forked old amarok version)
audacious (http://audacious-media-player.org/)
- works well for me these days
- fulfills all my requirements I mentioned in the prio section
- the greatest advantage to clementine I see is the lower CPU usage
Now the question is: What is your audio player of choice?
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