[gentoo-amd64] Re: install amarok??

[Duncan]

Barry Schwartz posted on Wed, 12 May 2010 16:18:57 -0500 as excerpted:

> [...] on account of Amarok. [...] I myself would have been reluctant
> to tie my software to anything as cumbering as mysql.

This isn't a solution for everyone, YMMV, etc, particularly for those who 
actually use all the Amarok fancy features, but for me, most of them were 
just bloat, and when amarok decided to go with a mysql feature that at the 
time didn't even work properly on amd64, I decided it was time I find a 
less bloated and complicated to keep working music player.  Again, YMMV.

I ended up choosing mpd, music player daemon, here, because it has all 
sorts of front ends, including command line, ncurses, gtk, qt (both 3 and 
4), kde, even a web based front-end so you can control it remotely.  I 
didn't use all those but did merge mpc (command line), the two ncurses 
frontends, and qmpdclient (qt4), as well as mpd itself.  At the time I was 
still running qt3/kde3, so I merged one for that too, but of course it's 
now unmerged.

Basically I traded a bunch of features I didn't use anyway, plus the kde3 
amarok visualizations which I still miss but which the kde4 version didn't 
have at the time anyway, for a **MUCH** simpler and less troublesome to 
maintain install, and a player that can be started at bootup and 
controlled from the command line if desired, regardless of whether X is 
running or not.

There were a couple other more traditional ncurses based players I looked 
at too, with the idea of killing the X dependency.  If I hadn't decided on 
mpd due to its multiple front-ends, I'd have likely chosen one of those, 
and simply run it from a VC or a konsole window.  One of them even offered 
a disconnectable control interface, so I could have started it in a 
konsole window, then shut down the controller, konsole, KDE and X, and had 
it still playing.  That was the runner-up to mpd.  But mpd by virtue of 
its front-end and daemon design did that too, plus had multiple front-ends 
to choose from including graphical ones if I was running X, so that's what 
I chose.

So anyway, what I'm saying is that there /are/ alternatives to amarok.  
They may be worth considering, particularly if you're not using all the 
fancy amarok features anyway.  They are CERTAINLY less complex and 
therefore less trouble to keep "just working".  But if you're using all 
the fancy amarok features, particularly the database backed ones, it may 
very well be worth the hassle of keeping it working, to continue to use 
those features.  Your computer, your music, your decision. =:^) Just be 
aware that amarok isn't the only player out there, and don't artificially 
constrain your choices.  No use going to all the repeated hassle of 
keeping it working, if you're not using the fancy features that make it so 
complex and hard to keep working in the first place.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman