I can't call myself a Linux expert, nor can this blog cover the topic in depth but recently, there have been several requests on how to read the various multimedia audio and video formats on Linux, which can be downloaded from the internet. One of the main uses of a PC, user side, is listening to music or watching a movie and this must be done without worries, on any operating system.
Who goes to use Linux, is probably a user who was not very satisfied with a Mac or the classic Windows and, rightly, demands the maximum.
On Mac, multimedia files open almost all with ITunes while with Windows you can use Windows Media Player which, equipped with the KLite codec, opens any audio or video format.
On Linux, on the other hand, there is no default media player and, depending on the version and distribution used, there will be different applications that all seem to do the same thing and, among which, it becomes difficult to find the reason to choose one over another .
We see in this article, which are the best media players on Linux that can open all multimedia files, audio and video, music and movies and taking into consideration the software developed for most distributions.
As for audio and listening to mp3 files and music on your computer, the best are:
1) Amarok is, perhaps, the most famous ITunes-like music player on Linux.
Recently brought to version 2.1, it has a modern, web 2.0-style interface that integrates with many online music streaming and podcast services.
It supports reading music from the iPod and from almost all ordinary common mp3 players.
Defects are the presence of some bugs that make it not always stable and the fact of being a bit heavy in the use of memory resources.
2) XMMS is a rather sparse and ugly graphically program which, however, for the sole function of listening to music, is the fastest to use.
XMMS is, in fact, a Winamp for Linux and works the same way.
Among the flaws is that it does not support external players like Ipod and normal mp3 players.
3) Rhythmbox is an excellent program for managing music on your pc and organizing mp3 files.
Rhythmbox was also inspired by iTunes and obviously integrates well with iPods and other devices.
Although Rhythmbox cannot be used with the iTunes Store, music can be downloaded from the Magnatune and Jamendo online services.
4) Banshee is another famous player for managing and listening to music on the Linux pc.
Banshee offers all the features of Rhythmbox except the ability to download music from a "Store".
Banshee, however, includes receiving the streaming from the last.fm site.
As for watching videos of any format, DVDs and films downloaded from the Internet or streaming, the choice could be limited to three media players to be kept on the Linux PC and used according to particular tastes or cases.
1) Mplayer is not usually the video player set by default on Linux distributions and is not even the easiest to install.
But, after having configured it well, it is the best multimedia player, both for quality and stability.
2) VLC, finally arrived at version 1, is quite famous because it is widely used also for Windows (also because it reads the previews of the partial files of Emule and Torrent).
This program is capable of reproducing all that exists and also what is unknown.
Clearly being a popular program for all platforms, Mac VWIndows and Linux, those who already used it will not notice any changes and will not have to change any habits.
VLC installs easily and supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, as well as DVD, VCD, and streaming.
3) Xine is the program to use if you are using a distribution that does not fully support the previous two readers.
Xine, in addition to being an excellent software, very reliable, is also a versatile and complete media player. Xine reads CDs, DVDs and VCDs and decodes multimedia files of AVI, MOV, MP4, WMV and MP3 formats.
Looking forward to your comments, probably more experienced, I would like to say that with the media players described in this article, even if there are others that can more or less like it, watching videos and listening to audio will be easy and easy manageable.
