Revisiting Linux Part 1: A Look at Ubuntu 8.04
by Ryan Smith on August 26, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Applications: Audio Organization/Playback
Windows Default: Windows Media Player
What I use: iTunes/Winamp
Ubuntu Default: Rhythmbox/Totem
There are 3 things people will never agree on in this world: Politics, the Yankees versus the Red Sox, and what multimedia player to use. It doesn’t take much effort to find someone who hates any given player and has their own idea of what the best player is, so looking at the players included with an OS is somewhat academic. No matter what OS it is, a number of users are going to replace the default with something else. So for our discussion on multimedia playback, I’m going to preface this with a thought: the Ubuntu defaults aren’t the only options, there are other programs out there if the defaults aren’t satisfactory.
With that said, when it comes to audio organization and playback Ubuntu comes with two programs: Rhythmbox and Totem. Rhytmbox is Ubuntu’s dedicated audio organization and playback suite – analogous to iTunes – while Totem is a combined audio/video player, similar to VLC or the classic versions of Windows Media Player. In spite of the fact that Rhythmbox is the dedicated audio suite, I mention both of these since Ubuntu will in fact use both. Attempting to open an audio file from the file browser will default to Totem, while Ubuntu’s application menu calls Totem “Movie Player”, leaving the “Music Player” distinction to Rhythmbox. As a result Ubuntu is a bit schizophrenic about its audio software – it’s inconsistent throughout the OS.
Since Totem is an audio/video player, we’ll save it for our Video section and focus on Rhythmbox. As I mentioned previously, Rhythmbox is analogous to iTunes; even the manual specifically mentioned that the program was “originally inspired by Apple’s iTunes.” In fact there’s not a lot to be said about Rhythmbox: it looks mostly like iTunes, it acts mostly like iTunes, and it does most of what iTunes does. Consider it iTunes-lite, and that’s Rhythmbox in a nutshell.
As iTunes-lite, Rhythmbox holds both the benefits and the downsides to such a design. Monumental among these are the fact that Rhythmbox isn’t nearly as bloated as iTunes can be. Rhythmbox gives you the basic iTunes experience while eating less than half the memory and loading in less than half the time it takes for iTunes to load. iTunes may have a lot of features, but you’re paying for them somewhere. For most people, the complete iTunes feature set is overkill and they would be better served by lighter program like Rhythmbox.
The price of that lightness however is the feature set that Rhythmbox doesn’t implement. Among other things it lacks its own ability to extra audio from CDs, instead relying on another Ubuntu program, Audio CD Extractor (Sound Juicer) to accomplish this. Similarly, it lacks the ability to quickly encode existing songs in to another format. Last, for purchasing music it doesn’t have access to a full-featured store – the included interfaces are for Magnatune and Jamendo, which are best described as indie stores. Purchasers looking for mainstream music would be limited to Amazon’s store, which has a proper web interface and may be a curse or a blessing depending on how much you like the iTunes Music Store being integrated in to iTunes.
Rhythmbox does have the ability to synchronize music with portable media players, however since Apple actively blocks their iPhoneOS based devices from syncing with anything besides iTunes, Rhythmbox can’t actually sync with the portable media players most people have. This meant that I was unable to sync my iPhone with Rhythmbox, and had to dual boot instead. We don’t have a legacy iPod on hand, but it sounds like the latest Classic/Nano models won’t work either. Users with legacy iPods would need to seek out something like GTKPod, which is designed specifically for iPod synchronization and should do the job.
Ultimately the usefulness of Rhythmbox depends on how well you know iTunes and how many of its deeper features you use. For basic music organization and playback it does just fine – you may as well be using iTunes. But power users will probably be unsatisfied. Meanwhile Windows Media Player users will find it a tossup; it still has fewer features than WMP, but WMP has always needed to take a hint or two from iTunes when it comes to layout.
Final Verdict: Satisfactory/Only Meets Some of My Needs
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Telkwa - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Nobody's going to agree with the entire article. I'm just glad to see Anandtech paying some attention, and would welcome any articles, tests, reviews, etc.It's embarrassing to visit the "Linux" tab and see the latest article was posted in July of 2005...
Geraldo8022 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
This is based on Ubuntu and I installed it this past weekend. I am having certain issues with it. Yes, it is free. Overall I like it very much and am pleasantly surprised. But, this has shown that Windows 7 will be a comparative bargain to me. I do not have the time to sit in front of the computer and play with Linux; trying to find out why certain videos don't play and why I am having eye strain and clicking on an audio link that doesn't play and a few more. When I go to the Mint forums I am confronted with a Tower of Babel what with all of the acronyms, and told to go to the terminal and type $surun%(8#**#. Ok, now turn your head and cough.I'll keep Linux on this machine to boot up and play with now and then. It beats solitaire for the time being.
VooDooAddict - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link
You hit on a good point. People I've setup with dual booting linux distros and windows begin to appreciate what they are paying for with windows. Typical response is "This is cool (Ubuntu) and I can see why some people like it. But I'm going to stick with windows, it's worth the money to me."They appreciate that Linux could work, but see the "value" in paying form something familiar.
VooDooAddict - Friday, August 28, 2009 - link
I run Vista on my main PC. Vista on all the spare LAN gaming PCs. I have an Ubuntu 9.04 VM and Ubuntu Netbook Edition on my old tablet PC (small and netbook like).Locutus465 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
Just out of curiosity what user mode were you having guests run in? Even in vista I don't provide anything greater than standard user. With that guests need my password (which they don't have) to mess my machine up. Going back as far as Windows 2000, as long as you pair Windows with good spyware (spybot, or for XP defender if you choose) and antivirus (I like Avast and AVG both free and have nil footprints) you basically don't have to worry about system security as long as the person is running a standard user account.My my parents system, we went from having to wipe and reinstall windows every time I came home from college, to a rock solid system that absoultly never failed when I performed these steps. I still like the XP/2000 behaviour of simply denying access better than the current UAC implementation. But Vista 64 + UAC (active) seems to be secure enough, particularly when paired with the aformentioned anti-virus software.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
For what it's worth, it's an admin account. I know, I know, I could do Limited User. But that tends to just elicit complaints. XP's Limited User mode is embarrassing compared to how well Vista/Win7 does it.Since it's basically just a web browsing laptop anyhow, it's basically a perfect fit for Ubuntu since I wouldn't need to be concerned with Windows malware period.
leexgx - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
i have to agree even XP in its standered/limited user account mode quite hard for stuff to install but not imposable (Vista and win7 with UAC on and an standered account with the admin account passworded should prevent the system from been messed up)aguilpa1 - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
It seems the OS does not like core 2 duos and nvidia 9800GTX graphics, something even OSX was able to handle.samspqr - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
* for me, the best possible way to install applications on any OS, but specially in one that is free (libre) is as follows: you search on the internet for the best program to meet your needs, you find it, you copy some code that identifies it, and paste that in your package manager, which then connects to some database, checks that the program is not malware, looks for the latest version, and proceeds to download and install it, not caring whether it's open source or not; this would beat windows/OSX by a wide margin, and also the current ubuntu system, whose "we don't like this software, on philosophical grounds, so it's going to be a pain in the ass for you to install it" attitude is a bit too problematic* it would be nice if the "auto" option in the installer told you what it's going to do with your hard disk before going on to do it; I never use it, out of fear it might try to do something I don't like
* I missed some comment on that section on how Photoshop CS3 costs a lot of $$$, while GIMP is free
* along these lines, the comparison of total costs in time and money of installing windows/OSX/ubuntu, with all their companion programs, is striking
samspqr - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
and about openoffice:* I didn't check this ltely, but aren't there still problems with VBA compatibility? if I can open my xls/xlsm files but I can't run my macros, it's no good; I have a ton of stuff written in VBA, and I'm definitely not doing all that work again
* the ribbon UI in office 2007 is a royal pain: it's only good for the "It looks like you're writing a letter" users, and you can't get rid of it; there's a lot of people doing real work on excel, and none I talked to likes that ribbon thing, they'd all rather stay with excel 2003