The latest edition of the popular Linux distribution; Ubuntu was released on Thursday. Unfortunately if one wishes to use Amarok as their preferred music player the discovery that installing through Synaptic provides version 2 may come as a disappointment.
For me, I will not upgrade Amarok until the new edition supports an external MySQL database. I access my collection not only from my desktop computer, but also from a laptop in the living room (for playing music through the hi-fi). Having the collection stored within Amarok itself means that I would in effect have two different databases each maintaining their own statistics. Not good.
In addition to that, at present my website has a link to view my music library. This is compiled by accessing the external MySQL database that Amarok 1.4 is using. Therefore if I play a track, and the statistics are updated in Amarok; my website will show those exact same statistics. If I upgrade to Amarok 2 then this feature disappears.
I'm sure there are many that are in a similar situation to me for the reasons above and probably many others. So is the solution to just not upgrade Ubuntu from 8.10 to 9.04? No. There is another way.
A quick search on Google ('Amarok 1.4 Jaunty') reveals a blog which has detailed some very easy instructions for how replace Amarok 2 for Amarok 1.4. I've linked to the blog below, but for ease of reference I have expanded on those instructions here:
(Remember: to make life easy; you can highlight code, move to the terminal window, and then press the middle mouse button to paste and execute it.)
That's all there is to it. I've tested it and it works without fault! Huzzah!
For me, I will not upgrade Amarok until the new edition supports an external MySQL database. I access my collection not only from my desktop computer, but also from a laptop in the living room (for playing music through the hi-fi). Having the collection stored within Amarok itself means that I would in effect have two different databases each maintaining their own statistics. Not good.
In addition to that, at present my website has a link to view my music library. This is compiled by accessing the external MySQL database that Amarok 1.4 is using. Therefore if I play a track, and the statistics are updated in Amarok; my website will show those exact same statistics. If I upgrade to Amarok 2 then this feature disappears.
I'm sure there are many that are in a similar situation to me for the reasons above and probably many others. So is the solution to just not upgrade Ubuntu from 8.10 to 9.04? No. There is another way.
A quick search on Google ('Amarok 1.4 Jaunty') reveals a blog which has detailed some very easy instructions for how replace Amarok 2 for Amarok 1.4. I've linked to the blog below, but for ease of reference I have expanded on those instructions here:
(Remember: to make life easy; you can highlight code, move to the terminal window, and then press the middle mouse button to paste and execute it.)
- Open a terminal window (Gnome: Applications > Accessories > Terminal)
- Enter the following code:
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/amarok.list
- Add the following text to the newly created text file:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bogdanb/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
- Press CTRL+X to close the text file (DO NOT close the terminal window). When asked to save changes, press Y.
- Enter this code into the terminal (as one line):
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com / 0x1d7e9dd033e89ba781e32a24b9f1c432ae74ae63
- Update the repository with the new sources, remove the existing copy of Amarok (if it's installed) and install 1.4:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get remove amarok && sudo apt-get install amarok14
That's all there is to it. I've tested it and it works without fault! Huzzah!