Amarok (software)

This article is about the music player software. For other uses, see Amarok.
Amarok
Original author(s)Mark Kretschmann
Developer(s)KDE
Initial releaseJune 23, 2003; 21 years ago (2003-06-23)[1]
Stable release
3.1.1[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 29 September 2024
Repository
Written inC++ (Qt)
Operating systemUnix-like, Windows
TypeAudio player
LicenseGPL-2.0-or-later[3]
Websiteamarok.kde.org

Amarok is a free and open-source music player for Linux, macOS, Windows, and other Unix-like operating systems. Amarok is part of the KDE project, but it is released independently of the central KDE Software Compilation release cycle. Amarok is released under the terms of the GPL-2.0-or-later.

History

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Amarok is one of the oldest Linux music players in active development, being started in 2003.[4] The program was originally stylized as amaroK, after a Mike Oldfield album of the same name.[5] The artwork references Amarok, a wolf in Inuit mythology. The app's capitalization was changed to Amarok in June 2006.

A new major version of Amarok, version 2.0, was released on December 12, 2008. On June 3, 2009, version 2.1 was released, which reintroduced some of the 1.4 features which had been missing from the initial 2.0 release, and introduced some features such as native ReplayGain support.[6][7]

Version 3.0 of Amarok was released in April 2024, after a six year hiatus of major updates. It ported the application to Qt5 and added support for FFmpeg 5, along with other smaller changes. A port to Qt6, the newest version of the Qt library, is scheduled for later in the year.[8][9][10]

Features

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Amarok supports a wide variety of music formats due to the use of audio engines. It can retrieve cover art information and lyrics from the internet[11] It includes a sidebar that displays the user's music collection, saved playlists, and internet radio stations on the left and the active playlist on the right.[6] Amarok can also display the Wikipedia entry for the band or album in the sidebar.[12] Other features include dynamic playlists, bookmarking, file tracking, and smooth fade-out settings.[13]

Amarok includes integration with online music services such as Last.fm, OPML Podcast, Jamendo, Magnatune, and Ampache.[7][4]

Amarok can be used to manage music on iPods and other MP3 players.[14]

Notable forks

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Clementine: A fork of Amarok 1.4.
  • Clementine is a fork of Amarok 1.4 that ported it to the Qt 4 framework.
  • Strawberry is a fork of discontinued Clementine 1.4 with additional improvements and fixes.
  • Exaile is a GTK+ fork of Amarok 1.4.

References

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  1. ^ "SourceForge.net". SourceForge.net. Retrieved 2014-08-05.
  2. ^ "Amarok 3.1.1 released". 29 September 2024. Retrieved 30 September 2024.
  3. ^ "license notice placed at the top in one of the source files of the project's repository, probably in each of its source files". Retrieved November 22, 2017. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.[permanent dead link‍]
  4. ^ a b Hossain, Rubaiat (2021-01-30). "The 15 Best Linux Music Player Apps". MUO. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  5. ^ "AmaroK - the audio player for KDE". amarok.kde.org. Archived from the original on 15 June 2004. Retrieved 11 January 2022.
  6. ^ a b "Amarok gets a facelift". Linux.com. 2008-12-11. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  7. ^ a b Modine, Austin. "Native-Linux music player Amarok gets major overhaul". www.theregister.com. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  8. ^ Nestor, Marius (2024-04-30). "Amarok 3.0 Open-Source Music Player Officially Released, Here's What's New". 9to5Linux. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  9. ^ Sneddon, Joey (2024-04-30). "Amarok 3.0 Released, Ported to Qt5/KDE Frameworks 5". OMG! Ubuntu. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  10. ^ Larabel, Michael (2024-04-29). "KDE's Amarok 3.0 Music Player Released After Six Year Hiatus - Now Ported To Qt5". www.phoronix.com. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  11. ^ Rankin, Kyle (2006). Linux Multimedia Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video. "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". ISBN 978-0-596-10076-6.
  12. ^ Pataki, Daniel (2008-03-25). "Amarok - The music player - gHacks Tech News". gHacks Technology News. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  13. ^ Okoi, Divine (2018-04-17). "Amarok - A Powerful Cross Platform Music Player". www.geeksmint.com. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
  14. ^ "How to use Amarok to manage your iPod". How-To Geek. 2009-10-12. Retrieved 2024-05-05.
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