Amarok 2 in Kubuntu Jaunty

Due to not so perfectly alligned release cycles, not wanting to ship a beta version and a few more good reasons Kubuntu Jaunty was released with Amarok 2.0.2. This version is still missing a few features that some users consider vital. We have made huge improvements in Amarok 2.1 beta 1, our latest release, and of course more improvements have been made since then in SVN.

Improvements and features include but are not limited to:

  • improved context view
  • customizable playlist
  • replaygain support
  • improved podcasting support
  • and more

For more please read the 2.1 beta 1 release notes.

So for everyone who wants to have some of the most loved features back: you can upgrade to Amarok 2.1 beta 1 with packages from the kubuntu-experimental PPA. Be aware that this PPA contains very experimental stuff that can break your system from time to time so you might want to consider deactivating the repository after you installed Amarok.

Please don’t forget to report bugs you find in the beta version at bugs.kde.org so we have a chance to fix them for the final version.

30 thoughts on “Amarok 2 in Kubuntu Jaunty”

  1. Is it not possible to setup apt-preferences so that only amarok has a higher priority from kub-exp PPA and all other packages a lower priority?

  2. I have never gotten real package differentiation in that way to work with apt-preferences. But an option is to:
    1. Add the ppa line to sources.list
    2. apt-get update
    3. apt-get install amarok, amarok-common
    4. Add the following to the preferences file:
    Package: *
    Pin: release o=LP-PPA-kubuntu-experimental
    Pin-Priority: 400
    5. apt-get update

    Now you have the PPA version installed; and you’ll track that one until a newer version ends in the official repositories; then you’ll go back to track those again.

  4. Is it true that Amarok 2 lacks support for CD’s in Jaunty?

    I haven’t been able to test it, since mostly listen to internet radio on Banshee.

  5. I have problems with amarok scripts. It reports problems with built-in scripts such as lyricwiki and librivox. Any idea? tips?

  7. It seems that debug packages are broken in this PPA 49Kb for amarok-dbg – wtf?
    One of my bugreports was rejected because of not useful backtrace. Could anyone check this (amd64)?

  9. This was a poor decision. I know there are a few people who arent happy with Amarok2 (yet) and it shouldnt have been pushed on them this way. Would it have been so hard to put the new one in a different package, “amarok2” or something.? Of course its too late now, you cant switch back to 1.4 and downgrade people. What a pity.

  10. The other option would be to downgrade to Amarok 1.4, using this package repository with the “amarok14” package:

    deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

    I’ve been using Amarok 2 since it was released, but I think I’m going back to the old version until metadata editing is usable again, hopefully in 2.2 already. (You know, stuff like “Assign ‘Artist’ tag to all items” or “Assign track numbers iteratively”. The “Edit track info” dialog is just not good enough, and metadata recognition, on my Kubuntu Intrepid/Jaunty, somehow doesn’t work with all audio files that Amarok 1.4 could read without problems.)

    Anyways, you’re doing a great job up there… keep up the good work!

  11. Seems that only Kubuntu has the bug with the scripts. On Opensuse 11.1 Amarok 2.1 beta is working fine with those scripts, but if I enable them on my Kubuntu box I get thos errors, so I think that it’s an (K)Ubuntu bug and not an Amarok bug.

  13. @Reader: As an answer to your first comment: Yes it would have been that hard. And if you’d have just a little insight into Kubuntu’s development team you’d know that.
    Besides that I do not think the decision was wrong.

    About your second comment: Don’t be childish! Your comment was just stuck in moderation and not deleted.

  16. Out of curiosity, why *is* it so hard to package an “amarok1.4” package in the main repo? If someone finds it easy to create a PPA for it, what is the additional technical hurdle that the Kubuntu team has to get past in their case? I’m not 100% skeptical, just to my uninformed mind it doesn’t seem to add up, no offense (and I think it’s quite understandable if other people don’t understand, since I’ve been an avid user of Kubuntu since the 5.10 beta and it’s quite non-obvious to me).

    Aside from that, cool to see 2.1 in experimental, but unfortunately if it makes it into the main repos I’m going to have to either pin it out or downgrade to 1.4 on my laptop; 2.0 isn’t as snazzy but for some reason the Kubuntu Experimental PPA version of 2.1beta doesn’t let me download podcasts; the option just isn’t there. For everying it says I can Append To Playlist, Load, and ironically Delete Downloaded Podcast, but nothing else. (There’s some other issues but they’re mostly just funny or obviously from my random upgrading and downgrading).

  18. i’m sorry but i don’t like amarok 2
    the mini player disappeared;
    the equalisateur where is???
    if somebody as answer;gracias mail me

  19. Amarok 2 simply doesn’t play any music.

    Ubuntu Jaunty upgraded me to amarok 2..
    It has trouble with my sound card I think.
    In the sound settings it’s all set to the default: the first 3 autodetection, recording is set to pulsaudio soundserver and apparaat is “Playback: HDA Intel – ALC1200 Analog (PulseAudio Mixer)

    Now, with the PPA tip I downgraded to amarok 1.4 and that works perfectly. I do hope you fix Amarok 2 soon: it looked nice (but I care more how it sounds then how it looks 🙂

  20. I apologize fully for suggesting you deleted my comment. It might be nice to note somewhere that moderation is enabled? Best wishes.

  21. Reader:

    I know there are a few people who arent happy with Amarok2 (yet) and it shouldnt have been pushed on them this way. Would it have been so hard to put the new one in a different package, “amarok2? or something.?

    Lydia:

    Yes it would have been that hard. And if you’d have just a little insight into Kubuntu’s development team you’d know that.
    Besides that I do not think the decision was wrong.

    Lydia, you are being childish here. Last time I checked, Ubuntu was “Linux for human beings”, not “Linux for developers” or “Linux for people who have insights into Kubuntu’s development team”. Amarok 2.0.2 shows feature and stability regression with respect to 1.4.x, and shouldn’t have been included in a “stable” release of such a popular and “average joe”-oriented distro such as Ubuntu. There is no denying this.

    Users don’t want to have “insight into development teams”, or know why their favorite music player, the one that up to now worked, is somehow broken when upgrading. They want it to work. Period. Pushing betas into mainline is poor judgement.

  22. On May 3, someone committed a new package of amarok to the PPA, specifying a dependency on a version of amarok-common that does not yet exist, breaking the ability to upgrade.

  23. @Keith Z-G: Well for one it would have been hard because it would mean maintaining not only Amarok but also its required KDE 3 dependencies. Which is basically impossible for another release for the Kubuntu team as they have to concentrate on software that is actually maintained upstream (in this case Amarok 1.4 is unmaintained for example by the Amarok team). Having to provide support, bug triage and fixes and updates takes a lot of time.

    @Seb and others: Can you please stop calling censorship? I didn’t delete any comments. So please chill. It sometimes takes some time to moderate comments and others simply get marked as spam and I never get to see them.

    @sbirouffman: The equalizer will come back at one point but it needs other things in place first. The miniplayer itself was replaced by the now-playing widget in Plasma.

    @GEOF: Very likely it is pulseaudio that is screwing up your sound. Ask Ubuntu for support or remove it completely. It is a huge PITA and causing all kinds of problems.

    @Iñaki Silanes: Has it ever come to your mind that some Joe users might find Amarok 2.0.2 perfectly fine for their use-cases and it is mostly geeks complaining? I am not saying it is perfect for all of them but it isn’t completely broken either.

    @Jason: It seems to still be building in the PPA. Scheduled for building in 23 hours. Hope it works after that.

  24. Where is the miniplayer? The widget in plasma just does not do it for me at all.

  25. @Neil: Sorry there is no miniplayer. There are other widgets which you can install to control Amarok if the default one doesn’t suit your need. I am using PlayWolf at the moment for example.

  26. I’m having some problems with my Ipod nano (2^ gen). The collection doesn’t show up in amarok. The Ipod shows up in the Media Device applet, but clicking on the icons does nothing. In amarok 2.0.2 it works fine.
    Any idea?

  27. Well amarok 2 works for me. but i dont like it. I like the old amarok. This new UI is confusing and crappy. I mean who came up with the idea of having 4 middle sections. its really crappy. and confusing and I dont like it one bit. UI complexity has actually increased with this one. All I can hope is the future release will make the UI a bit more cleaner. i mean look at itunes it’s ui is crap but atleast its simple and pleasing to the eye. But music player whose UI i really like is media monkey. Now thats a powerful UI and its cleaner and more in control.

  29. @IAIA: I was experiencing the exact same thing, and as it turns out, apparently iPod support was left out of 2.1b1 in the kubuntu-experimental repo:

    “amarok 2 has ipod support, just for some reason the kubuntu guys are packaging it without” – sebr on IRC

    Not the most ideal situation, I do hope that once 2.1 hits final it will be released in backports (with full functionality).

  30. I apologize fully for suggesting you deleted my comment. It might be nice to note somewhere that moderation is enabled? Best wishes.

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