DISQUS

David Marsden · 2 months ago

Good that you got rid of your bloatware and an excellent guide for anyone else who wants to do likewise :-)

But what a lot of work just to play your music!

Ever considered using Linux? With my Ubuntu PC and Maemo Linux N810 I simply copy music from one to the other or if I wanted to I could sync with several of the available music managers.

Andy C · 2 months ago

Yes. I've run Ubuntu on both work and home PC's and considered migrating permanently but I'd have to move my wife's email out of Outlook Express (via Thunderbird) and photos etc but yeah, I am keen to run Linux at home.

As for work, if I had the time to build a Virtual environment for the necessary Windows stuff (Siebel Tools) that would also be possible.

David Marsden · 2 months ago

Does she use webmail? Gmail can import all her email, if so, then download into TB. Even if it was just a temporary account to do the transfer. Then also she has a Picasaweb account for her photos.

rpcutts · 2 months ago

Congratulations, may you live a long and happy iTunes free life.

rpcutts · 2 months ago

In case any folk stumble on this looking for iTunes alternatives.

Whilst I think foobar is the best because of how flexoble & extendible it is. My favourite player I've ever used is http://www.musikcube.com/page/main

Andy C · 2 months ago

In my non-existent 'Cons' section, I should have stated that Foobar is Windows only and for all freedom lovers out there it is closed source.

I've just had a look at Musikcube which looks good but active development appears to have halted in December 2006 which is a slight concern and it isn't clear whether there is any iPod support.

rpcutts · 2 months ago

Yea dev is dead in the water (It worked with my iPod no probs). But I love it as it is, the poor neglected thing.

My only critique of foobar is for novice users it can be hard for then to get it how they want it too look. I only ever used to play the odd file and playlist. I could never get it set up how I wanted it to behave. I think I'm in a minority of 1 on that though since it can be tweaked so much, there are so many setups you can download and so many plugins. I always recommend it to people as long as they are comfortable with computers.

douglasawhsport · 2 months ago

you missed a great potential Dr. Strangelove reference and if that's what you were going for you should have said you loved foobar 2000! Any reason no mention of Songbird?

douglasawhsport · 2 months ago

I see now that you wanted something lightweight (I had just searched for Songbird before...and the word love)...so, I retract my Songbird suggestion. It inherits Firefox' memory issues.

Andy C · 2 months ago

I have played with Songbird in the past but didn't really take to it and I also saw similar comments that recent releases are turning SB into a true iTunes clones (slow and bloated) but it was on my list of potential candidates.

fredo · 2 months ago

another one to consider is MusicBee (http://getmusicbee.com/) which is quite powerful and i think easier to use than foobar

rpcutts · 2 months ago

Looks quite good. If I still ran windows I'd give it a spin.

chedlee · 2 months ago

Very timely Andy, I was just setting up iTunes yesterday to use a shared external disk off my 'upstairs' PC to the 'downstairs' one and was lamenting to anyone in earshot (the dog) how frustratingly slow iTunes is and how there must be something better out there. And I read this, brilliant. QQ, does it support music streaming? I am thinking of setting up a streaming server, probably a Linux box, with all my music and films that the rest of the household can connect to.....

Andy C · 2 months ago

Steve. No direct experience but this Foobar component might be useful.

I have also heard good reports about Icecast.

Let us know how it works out.

chedlee · 2 months ago

Nice one, cheers mate. I have gathered the materials I need so I will have a play tonight and get back to you.

chedlee · 2 months ago

Andy, quick update, took me a few minutes to work out what went where but I had a stream working pretty quickly. All I need now is a reason to use it - not sure that Radio Chedlee is going to be such a hit with the kids.
Isn't technology great.

Andy C · 2 months ago

With FB2K or Icecast ? Remember - you don't actually need a reason to play with technology - it's just fun.

For example, yesterday I spontaneously decided to ditch Windows and am now running Linux on my home PC. This means all that hard work with Foobar wil be for nothing. But still, it was fun :-)

chedlee · 2 months ago

Both. FB2K is the feed for Icecast. Would be good if I could get on demand streaming working then I could put the DVDs I have ripped on there with the music and have a proper media server. I am thinking of building a linux box to do just that but I couldn't just ditch windows I am afraid. I have tried many times in the past but there is always something that pulls you back.

Good luck with yours.

wholesale kids clothing · 1 month ago

MusicBee (http://getmusicbee.com/) which is quite powerful and i think easier to use than foobar

Allwynd · 1 month ago

thats great news! so far there is no better player for windows than foobar2000. by far in my country apple software (and hardware) aint popular, so people mainly use winamp (because thats the only thing they've heared ... and most of them lack basic PC knowledge) so i also was using winamp on my old PC, but as old as my PC got, it started running slow and even reinstalling windows and formatting HDD wouldnt help, so i needed to find lightweight software and after some time i found spider player, then aimp, and finally - foobar2000, which was the best (except one thing, if i download some artist's discography from a tracker and then import the songs into foobar2000, some songs appear more than once, so i have to delete them. AIMP player had a great function - select a song from the playlist - shift+delete and it deleted it from the HDD, alas, this doesnt appear in foobar2000).

So i will be sticking with foobar, because it satisfies me - no shiny skins, no useless extras, no time to load. i use it as well on my new PC (laptop in the case) - 3gb ram; 2.16ghz dual core; 250gb hdd... and stuff... i still use foobar2000 on that machine because its so great!

best wishes to all other foobar2000 users! :)

Laptop Battery · 2 weeks ago

AIMP player had a great function - select a song from the playlist - shift+delete and it deleted it from the HDD, alas, this doesnt appear in foobar2000).