Amarok

Amarok is a music player and organizer for Linux with an intuitive Qt interface that integrates very well with KDE.

Installation

Amarok now depends on Phonon, so you will have to have a working back-end selected for it. See KDE#Phonon. You may also need to install a few codecs for use by the chosen back-end.

Customization

Integration with GNOME

See Uniform look for Qt and GTK applications for visual integration of the main GUI.

Scripts and applets

New scripts and applets can be found either directly from within Amarok (Tools > Script Manager > Get More Scripts) or at store.kde.org.

Moodbar

The moodbar is a feature which turns your standard progress slider bar into a progress slider bar coloured depending on the mood of your track.

Install moodbar^AUR.

Then go to Settings > Configure Amarok and check "Show moodbar in progress slider".

Since Amarok 2 does not generate moodfiles, you can follow this tutorial to create them yourself.

SHOUTcast

To get SHOUTcast use the "SHOUTcast service" script. Start Amarok, go Tools > Script Manager > Get More Scripts, search for SHOUTcast install Shoutcast Service, restart Amarok. Then you have it in "Internet" context.

See also: How can I use Amarok to stream to my own radio station?, which recommends Internet DJ Console, available as idjc^AUR.

Ampache/MP3 streaming

If you are streaming MP3s directly or with the Ampache plugin, you are not able to seek in tracks if you are not using the GStreamer backend. Install the needed packages: phonon-qt4-gstreamer^AUR phonon-qt5-gstreamer gst-libav. Then go inside Amarok to Settings > Configure Amarok > Playback > Configure Phonon > tab Backend. Here make GStreamer the prefered backend

Collection database

Amarok 2.x can use Sqlite (default) or MySQL to store the collection database. Users with large collections and more demanding performance requirements might prefer to use MySQL.

MySQL

For basic MySQL configuration refer to the MariaDB page.

When using Amarok with MySQL you need to create a MySQL user that can access the database. To do use, enter the following:

# mysql -p -u root
# CREATE DATABASE amarokdb;
# USE amarokdb;
# GRANT ALL ON amarokdb.* TO amarokuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password-user';
# FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
# quit

This creates a database called 'amarokdb' and a user with name 'amarokuser' with the password 'password-user' who can access said database from localhost. If you want to connect to your database computer from a different computer, change the line to

# GRANT ALL ON amarok.* TO amarokuser@'%' IDENTIFIED BY  'password-user';

To configure Amarok to use MySQL, enter the Configure Amarok screen, choose Database and mark "use external MySQL database". Enter the server (usually "localhost" if on your local box, else the name of the remote box), the username ("amarokuser" in this example) and your chosen password-user. Do not forget to select the path to your music collection.

Audio CD playback

If you are not using KDE as your Desktop Environment, Amarok may not have the utilities it needs to play back Audio CDs. Install audiocd-kio to obtain this functionality.

Firefly/Daap share

To make Daap shares visible in Amarok enable the "DAAP Collection" plugin in the Amarok settings.

Install nss-mdns and complete the hosts line in /etc/nsswitch.conf to look like:

hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] nis dns mdns4

Start avahi-daemon.service.

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