Ask Slashdot: Best FLOSS iTunes Replacement In 2013? 317
First time accepted submitter cs80 writes "I've been looking high and low for a decent, open-source, cross-platform audio player that can import an existing iTunes library and sort my files based on their ID3 tags. Nightingale, with its iTunes-like interface, would have been the obvious answer, but its file organization feature was pulled for being too buggy. What open-source audio player did you migrate to after dumping iTunes?"
Foobar 2000 (Score:3, Interesting)
It's annoying, and a bit weird, but it works and can play FLAC. It's also gotten better than it used to be, I don't worry nearly as much about losing all my playlists now. Which is good because there's not really a central "library" where you can just look at everything : (
Honestly though, I'm not sure there's such a thing as truly "good" music software. Just one you know how to use so you stick with it.
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Nice troll though.
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Foobar2000. The only piece of software I really miss after moving to Linux. Simple but effective GUI, crazily customizable and low on resources, Clementine which I use now is a good replacement but still there are times when I miss Foobar.
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Not really. I've tried it a couple of times, and got lots of distortion and dropouts. I'd love a Linux port of Foobar, but that's not going to happen.
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I have never "lost" a playlist.
Lucky you.
I made the same experience as GP. Some times (I haven't found any cause) some of my playlists have a filesize of 0.
Also (and this is independent from the above mentioned lost playlists) foobar only saves changes on playlists on close. So if I rearrange stuff in playlists and then keep using foobar and it later crashes those changes are gone.
Re:Foobar 2000 (Score:5, Funny)
In 8 years of use, I've never had foobar2000 crash, so I suspect you were either using an unstable component or you're not being truthful.
Indeed, because your truth isn't anecdotal, and the rest of us just come here to waste time telling lies.
I've used foobar200 for 8.1 years, and I've managed to launch 4 nuclear missiles with it, had it send an elephant to the moon, and just used it yesterday to bake a cheesecake. I, too, have never had it crash, but there was a near miss once on an Antarctic cruise.
cheers,
Elephant to the moon? (Score:2)
Is this because the cow got stuck or something?
What happened to the Cat and Fiddle? Or is that just the name of the pub on the way to St. Ives?
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IIRC the library function is a plug-in. At least, that's what I remember from setting it up. Besides that, it has worked pretty well for me (I'm a new user, though).
Other than that, it is a fine audio player.
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Which part of "cross-platform" don't you understand?
Re: Foobar 2000 (Score:3, Insightful)
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Well - were you born on the Sabbath? ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday's_Child [wikipedia.org]
iTunes (Score:3, Funny)
Re:iTunes (Score:4, Informative)
I tried iTunes once. It installed crapware (Safari) and destroyed the file names of my entire music library, all without asking. I removed every trace of it right then and restored a backup of my music.
From what I did use of it, it was slow and had the worst UI I have ever seen. The only reason anyone should ever used iTunes is if they are forced to (they own an iPod or iPhone) or if they are an idiot.
iTunes-exclusive recording artists (Score:2)
The only reason anyone should ever used iTunes is if they are forced to (they own an iPod or iPhone)
Owning an iDevice isn't the only thing that forces one to use iTunes. A lot of recording artists sell their music on iTunes but not Google or Amazon. Good luck finding, say, "Bück dich" by Rammstein; all you get on Amazon MP3 (U.S.) or Google Play Music (U.S.) are cover versions.
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or maybe
1. software installs shouldn't default to bundling extra bullshit that really shouldn't be there in the first place?
2. software shouldn't have features that mess with source files turned on as start up/initial defaults?
itunes on windows is a piece of shit... hell so is quicktime. What started as a simple directshow/vfw codec turned into a monstrosity that installs tons of bullshit that is not necessary nor asked for.
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So, how many toolbars are on your browsers, hmmm? 4? 5? Nah, probably more... Your rig seems slow too, right? Even after you downloaded & installed every optimizer you could find. It's beyond your comprehension.
Personally, I only install QuickTime/win so Mediamonkey can manage my iDevices, never used iTunes/win, availed myself of the options to not install stuff I didn't want & configure what I do want so it works the way I want it to. Yeah yeah also beyond your comprehension...
Re:iTunes (Score:5, Informative)
or maybe
1. software installs shouldn't default to bundling extra bullshit that really shouldn't be there in the first place?
2. software shouldn't have features that mess with source files turned on as start up/initial defaults?
itunes on windows is a piece of shit... hell so is quicktime. What started as a simple directshow/vfw codec turned into a monstrosity that installs tons of bullshit that is not necessary nor asked for.
It doesn't mess with your source files by default.
By default it copies the music you point it at on initial startup into its own folder. The source files are left 100% untouched, other than reading the data off the disk.
Of course, this means that it essentially duplicates your music library on install, so if you're hurting for hard drive space you'll be in a world of hurt (i.e., you get duplicates of everything, thus doubling the size taken up by the music), but once it has read that initial folder of music it never touches it again. To counter this you can tell iTunes to work with the folder system you already have and to not manage it automatically. This is *not* the default option.
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How could it not support Apple's Intermediate Codec? - Apple Inter codec is something that was used by Final Cut Pro, which based its entire video handling ability on the Quicktime API.
That makes no sense.
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Unless you have a very large library in various formats. iTunes for me is one of the worst applications I have ever battled with and I doubt they will ever make it suitable for folks like that me that feel Foobar 2000 is a great app.
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What do you mean something about Cover Flow? That's just the way of browsing albums in iTunes, has nothing to do it actually quit playing music.!! I mean if you're saying that the new the new version of iTunes browses differently can your old one but you don't use iTunes to play songs you just use it stress your library and I guess what you're saying makes sense, but still kind of weird don't you
think
best solution (Score:3, Informative)
fuck your iTunes library. Set up mpd with a decent client like ncmpcpp. Light years ahead of Apple bloatware.
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Since browsing this conversation, I had to give mpd a try with Cantata client. Almost perfect! I just want to have ratings and tags for mood/tempo/setting and so forth, preferably built into the server.
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Clementine Player (Score:5, Interesting)
... is what I went to after ditching iTunes. In addition to getting the podcast(s) I subscribe to, it plays Grooveshark and Digitally Imported in the same playlists as my local files.
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X Error: BadShmSeg (invalid shared segment parameter) 128
unknown Extension: 129 (MIT-SHM)
So, it won't work on remote X, or VNC, or xpra, etc.
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So, it won't work on remote X, or VNC, or xpra, etc.
I just stared it under VNC (Fedora 19/KDE). Not sure about the others.
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I agree. Clementine just works, and stays out of your way otherwise. It responds quickly to external changes to the library (using inotify). .m3u playlist and appropriate tags. (The Unix "everything is a file" approach works well here). Then the music player is just for playback, for playing them, and not for editing tags (use easytag), ripping CDs (a shell-script), nor for buying music (CD store).
For me, my music collection is a set of well-ordered files/directories, each with a
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I actually quite like Amarok. The sorting, searching and filtering work really well, and I like the Lyrics display as well. The only thing I'm having trouble with is getting it to work as a DAAP client. It sees the source and songs, but won;t play them.
Re: Clementine Player (Score:2)
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Yeah, and the latest build finally adds support for ID3 ratings tags, so you can truly go cross-player with your ratings.
Now I just need to re-rate 16,000 songs for the eleventh time...
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Have they fixed the lack of gapless playback? The last time I tried Clementine, there were playback gaps between FLAC files, which really shouldn't happen. Is gapless really that hard to do? The same applies for music players on Android, by the way.
Clementine (Score:5, Informative)
Also, If anyone knows of a music player for Android which can do the same, I'd love to hear of it.
Re:Clementine (Score:4, Informative)
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Amarok does this as well.
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It does now (2.8.0).
Amarok/Clementine (Score:5, Informative)
They both have the same library management mechanisms, and come from the same place. There are a bunch of differences though.
Clementine is more old school and the development team seems to focus on online services (spotify, grooveshark and whatnot).
The playlist management is pretty basic though
Amarok is flashier and has much fewer online services, but is top notch for automatic playlists, both the automatic playlist generator and the dynamic mode are awesome.
There was a GSoC this year that brought to Amarok the ability to import and export libraries from a bunch of other media player (including iTunes).http://konradzemek.com
There's no official mac port though, because no Amarok developer uses a mac.
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Amarok is what I used to play my iTunes music on Ubuntu, back when I was using it on my old Powerbook (main machine runs OS X and is the home of the library). Works pretty well, but I was only using it occasionally.
An ugly spreadsheet that plays music. (Score:5, Funny)
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The OP's mistake was looking for something with the same iTunes style spreadsheet interface. Any half decent app will have a hierarchical display and powerful search facility, for a start.
It was an absolute disaster when iTunes came out and everyone started to copy the interface. It held back advancements for years.
Shameless plug (Score:4, Informative)
Ubuntu 12.04 Overview: http://bryanquigley.com/reviews/12-04-music-player-review-my-top-choices [bryanquigley.com]
(also has a stuck on Windows section)
Library & Playlist in separate windows (Score:3)
iTunes is sort of like a stubborn child...it will do everything else before the right thing...
I use iTunes of course ;)
One place iTunes still hasn't caught up to Winamp's late 90s releases..."playlist"
See, if you never used Winap by default it had two windows that listed your music files...one was a "library" which listed all your songs (in a file tree if you wanted IIRC). The other was you "playlist" which was...the songs you were playing in order.
You could of course save a cool playlist, and open it...all your saved "playlists" were also listed in the "library" window. You could have two "playlist" windows open at the same time...resizing each as needed...
I know iTunes tried w/ their little "up next" thing but it's 5 abstraction layers and 10 clicks too many...
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You see, I used to use Winamp back in the day, and for my meager MP3 collection it was perfect, but I never really liked the management of playlists/library.
I do remember sending an email to the "Development Team" in 1998 asking about what changes were going to occur with the Library/Playlist manager and I got an email back that basically was full of abuse that I would dare ask such a "Fucking stupid question" and that I should "Fuck off and die"
Yeah, so I never used Winamp again. Sonique was pretty good,
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I totally went and downloaded the latest Winamp after posting that...
ah the good old days **rattles cane**
problem not solved (Score:2)
that doesn't do as I described at all....it just changes the main windown list of songs...unless I'm double clicking my playlist the wrong 'source' column somehow
Quodlibet (Score:2, Interesting)
quodlibet has excellent searching and tag editing
Exaile (Score:2)
I've also been searching for a new music player.
Right now trying Exaile. It seems to work alright.
I only listen to music as background noise while I'm programming, however. I had it load the entire /Media/Music directory and play on random.
Linux (Score:2)
Never used iTunes (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never used iTunes. I just use folders and store everything by /Artist/Album. It's easy enough to right click the folder and select "play in VLC".
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I've never used iTunes. I just use folders and store everything by /Artist/Album. It's easy enough to right click the folder and select "play in VLC".
I do the same. I'm old so I actually own CDs and started ripping them all back in the '90s. I used CDex for that and it works really nicely. I use WinAmp to play my music and it works quite nicely as well.
I tried using iTunes on some of my relatives' devices and it sucks really badly. I would say that just about anything would be better than iTunes.
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I'd never though of adding such an option to the right-click menu on directories. Quite creative and extremely strightforward with Thunar! :)
Thanks for the hint! ^_^
iTunes sorts for you, sort of (Score:2)
I tried that, but every time I got music from another source, it was arranged differently, making searching, indexing and even playing hard.
If you'd have a player that would 1) Figure out the actual name of the album, the year it was released, give me a nice big picture of the cover so I could recognize that without having to read all the info, find the name and sequence of all the tracks 2)play gapless 3) rearrange my music in such a way that other players would be able to use that 4) able to export to mp
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Drag files to the playlist window. I don't need .M3U files, I don't need a huge "library" of anything and everything sorted 5,000 ways, wasting tons of hard drive space and CPU cycles building a database; I just need my files organized the way *I* want.
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Separate functions... (Score:2)
In my experience, iTunes does just fine for organizing files into a directory structure. Also free (as in beer, not libre), Mediamonkey is pretty flexible.
For playback, have you looked at Subsonic? It's free (as in libre, not beer). Multi-platform client support, and a server architecture which lets you access your library from anywhere without having to carry it around. You just point it at th
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The one thing that nothing seems to handle well are compilations - there's the dichotomy between "albums" as they are released vs. organizing based on artist, etc.
which is my only serious gripe with Clemetine, sure there are some clunky ways to work around it it but they aren't pretty. That aside, I do find that Clemenitine do the job very well, and based on the few times I've encountered iTunes I'd that say anything is an improvement
Replace iTunes??? (Score:5, Funny)
Logitech Mediaserver (Score:3, Informative)
You can stream to different speakers, laptops, mobile phones in parallel.
It's really good as DLNA server and you can have him on Linux, Mac, Windows, NAS, BSD.
http://www.mysqueezebox.com/download [mysqueezebox.com]
I'm not sure on the FLOSS status, there are a lot parts from this development on sourceforge and github.
And yes, it's running local as your server without any ties to Logitech.
Give version 7.7 up to 7.8 a try, higher ones are crippled.
AIMP (Score:3)
A couple of months ago, I switched to AIMP. I hate iTunes like sin itself. Never liked anything about it. If I didn't have to use it to put files onto my wife's iPad, I wouldn't allow it anywhere in my house. I can't believe that in 2013 she can only use an iPad properly with one computer.
AIMP even works with most Winamp plug-ins, has a clean interface and light footprint. The skin I'm using has some nice meters, a proper equalizer and everything I'd want in a player.
I'd still be using Winamp, but I'm pissed that it's going away, so I just decided to uninstall it once and for all.
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media library (Score:2)
Try iTunes ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Try iTunes on OS X.
It's much harder, better, faster and stronger that the Windows version.
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"Try iTunes on OS X.
It's much harder, better, faster and stronger that the Windows version."
No kidding. I'm rolling with almost a half-TB library and it just screams.
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I've got about 1100 albums in a library of over 300GB (90% lossless), even running with the actual tracks on my NAS over WiFi to my MBP, it's very fast.
I don't understand the people who say it's slow, maybe it's slow under WinXP on qemu on a raspberry pi?
Re: Try iTunes ... (Score:3)
Might want to turn the volume down then.
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The OP asks for a free, open music player and you suggest he buys a Mac. Someone else mods you insightful. Well done Slashdot.
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The OP asks for a free, open music player and you suggest he buys a Mac. Someone else mods you insightful. Well done Slashdot.
It's the flip side of the coin of all those "iTunes music is DRM and your kids will go to jail" posts that are getting insightful mods. ;)
Why not Nightingale anyway? (Score:3)
I vote you go with Nightingale, and fix the file organization feature. IT's clear from your FLOSS requirement that you are a fan of Open Source, so send patches: that's what you do with Open Source.
If you don't want to do that because you're not a coder, then you might as well just with a closed source product, since it's not like you'll be looking at the code.
Audiophile player choices limited (Score:2)
I need a player that will convert PCM files to DSD and send them via DoP to an outboard DAC that converts DSD files, only.
On Linux, that means HQPlayer. It's expensive. The interface seems designed by someone who thinks about everything in a way that would never occur to me. But it does the job for now.
When there's an add-on for MPD that will do PCM-to-DSD for all files, I'll migrate to that.
If you're on Windows and have the same need as me and also need bit-perfect output via USB to your outboard DAC, y
Useless conversion (Score:2)
You need an external DA converter that uses DSD to convert to analog, but that can accept PCM. The advantage of DSD (if any, purists sometimes come up with insane things) would be in the DA conversion part, not in the digital stream.
Don't start the mumbo jumbo about "synchronized clocks" and PCM vs DSD since the only clock you want to synchronize to is the one used during recording and that's in the past. Just get a good and stable clock in your DA converter and you're set.
Have you tried audio pebbles? If
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Let me start with the fact that I don't use DSD. But I use mpd as my primary music player. If you are like me and don't check for updates or search for new features very often then perhaps you have not seen this and perhaps it is of no use. Apologies if I am wasting your time.
http://slimnet.home.xs4all.nl/mytek/ [xs4all.nl]
iPad sync? (Score:2)
For Linux users, is there any way to replace the iTunes functionality to get music and photos onto an iDevice, and have it properly recognise the library? .ogg), forget it.
I only use Linux, but have an iPad3. I have mediocre photo functionality[1] via a jailbreak, but am still stuck with only one folder and no sub-folders. As for getting music on there (especially
[1] http://www.richardneill.org/stotbig#ipad [richardneill.org]
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I only use Linux, but have an iPad3.
Was it a gift?
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Mediamonkey+wine? Yeah it's not open source but there is a very capable version that is free as in beer and also works well under Wine.
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Sort files? If using iTunes-like, who cares? (Score:2)
The whole thing about big music programs like iTunes is that you don't have to care about where the files are actually kept and in which folders, your player just gives you sortable data that you can display and manipulate however you want. Personally I always go with Artist -> Albums Sorted By Date, but some people like genres and whatever and use playlists a lot. But it doesn't matter, you just throw your various folders of music in one big folder and point your player of choice at it and it goes and i
Just wait 3 weeks... (Score:2)
and then you can download the best iTunes Replacement in 2014.
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wahuh?
Clementine (Score:2)
I'm going for Clementine because it's bothered me the least. It still has some key features lacking. The smart playlists do not allow the inclusion of a song into another playlist as a criterion. If you sort by a column, no other columns will be sorted; sort by artists and album and track will be random. However, from what I've looked at in the source code, some modest changes to the commands it's sending to its SQL backend should be the answer.
Why that's not top priority on their buglist over some damn
Stubborn (Score:2)
Thanks :) (Score:2)
Thanks for asking the question, I've been using VLC for a while, but it ain't great. Will try clementine
VLC and files in folders (Score:2)
Works great. Searchable. Allows any hierarchy. Downside is a file can/should only exist in one folder, you could migate this using multiple playlists.
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Wait.... Why are you using itunes? (Score:3)
the ONLY reason to use itunes is that you own an iDevice or want to buy from the Apple store. If you are not doing that, why the hell are you using itunes?
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Re:You could always... (Score:5, Insightful)
winamp always worked for me. So simple, so tiny...
So missed. :-(
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So missed. :-(
Software whose installers are downloaded to local storage, run locally, and have no dependencies on web services, is never missed. It just works.
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So missed. :-(
Software whose installers are downloaded to local storage, run locally, and have no dependencies on web services, is never missed. It just works.
Given that the nonsense it is replying to is marked +3 insightful, I think this one deserves some mod points too. Are there seriously people who just up and deleted winamp off their machines because AOL told them to?
No? (Score:2)
He was asking for cross platform, so unless apple brings it out for Android and Linux, which happen to be on most of my daily use devices, it's not an option. Apple supports OSX, IOS and Windows with their application, which is not enough in my opinion.
Also, Apple has an annoying urge to block your IOS device from linking up to more than just a few other devices without wanting to erase your music library from your device. That doesn't make it very cross platform in my opinion.
MediaMonkey (Score:3)
You could always just use iTunes, if you want something like iTunes.
Or you could switch to something that works, like MediaMonkey: http://www.mediamonkey.com/ [mediamonkey.com]
Re:You could always... (Score:5, Informative)
Because it holds the key to millions of people's music that they paid for?
The iTunes Music Store hasn't sold a song with DRM since April of 2009. Anyone who ever bought any song, that was DRM'd off the iTunes store is able to download a free DRM-free replacement anytime by logging in to their iTunes account...so long as that music is still currently for sale on the iTunes store. Heck, that replacement copy will even be upgraded to 256kbps quality too! If the music is still not for sale on the iTunes store, then anyone can use the good-old-fashioned burn and re-rip method to remove the DRM.
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and by "free" replacement you mean $.35 a song right?
No, by "free" he the OP means "free as in beer".
Re:You could always... (Score:5, Informative)
The DRM still exists, it's just more subtle - they imbed your personal account info into the tracks you buy, so if you die and bequeath your music collection to your kids, they'll lose your entire music collection at best, and go to jail at worst - or possibly pay an exorbitant fine.
Apple's claims of 'no drm' are bullshit, but most people seem to have bought into it (much like Google's 'do no evil' and look where that's gotten us). This blinkered acceptance comes part and parcel with the creeping surveillance society, apparently.
You seem to not understand what DRM is.
Tagging a file with your Apple ID is not DRM. What Apple is doing there is discouraging you from sharing your music with the entire internet, but not discouraging you from sharing it with your immediate friends and family.
An iTunes file tagged with your Apple ID will play back on any music player capable of reading AAC files.
If you die then your entire music collection isn't lost. It's just there on your hard drive. I wasn't aware that your hard drive got deleted when you die.
Your kids certainly won't be sent to jail or fined for listening to it.
Man, the Apple haters get crazier every passing day.
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If you're going to bold the word "rights" there, then can we make a pact here on slashdot to never call it "Digital Restrictions Management" again?
As seen in this thread, the term "DRM" seems to mean "whatever makes Apple/Sony/Microsoft/hated-company-du-jour the bad guy".
I picked a pretty generic place to cite the definition (wikipedia) - that supports my position, but apparently that's not enough. I guess all the wikipedia contributors are in Apple's pocket or something.
Re:screw itunes (Score:4, Funny)
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Sure beats the bloated 'skinned' graphics and 100MB worth of support libraries common with today's graphical applications. Winamp 2.x and foobar are examples of gui applications done right.. itunes is an example of it done wrong especially on windows.
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Does this still exist? I can't find the original site anymore.
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I think Amarok has a fantastic user interface and helps me manage my files well. My only complaint is that it crashes about 50% of the time if I ask it to actually play music. Apart from that its great.