# Amarok

Related articles

- Amarok 1.4

Amarok is a music player and organizer for Linux with an intuitive Qt interface that integrates very well with KDE.

Amarok 2 has not yet and will not implement all features from Amarok 1.4[1], so if you are not satisfied with the new version and would rather have the old one back, refer to that article.

## Installation

Install amarok from the official repositories.

Amarok now depends on Phonon, so you will have to have a working back-end selected for it. See KDE#Phonon. You may also need to install a few codecs for use by the chosen back-end.

## Customization

### Integration with GNOME

See Uniform look for Qt and GTK applications for visual integration of the main GUI.

### Scripts and applets

New scripts and applets can be found either directly from within Amarok (Tools > Script Manager > Get More Scripts) or at kde-apps.org.

### Moodbar

The moodbar is a feature which turn your standard progress slider bar into a progress slider bar coloured depending on the mood of your track.

Install moodbarAUR from the AUR.

Then go to Settings > Configure Amarok and check "Show moodbar in progress slider".

Note: As of February 19th Amarok 2 does not generate moodfiles, you can either try to follow this tutorial [2][dead link 2015-04-23] to create them yourself or get Amarok1 from AUR and let it generate all the .mood files for you. For the Amarok1 solution go to Settings > Configure Amarok, and in the general tab check the "use moods" and "store moods data files with music" boxes.

## SHOUTcast

For reasons which have not been adequately explained Amarok developers have removed the SHOUTcast Internet radio features from version 2.1.90 onwards. See the discussion page, the forum here and the thread starting here.

You can get back SHOUTcast by using the "SHOUTcast service" script. Start Amarok, go Tools > Script Manager > Get More Scripts, search for SHOUTcast install Shoutcast Service, restart Amarok. Then you have it in "Internet" context.

Amarok 1.4 and VLC continue to support the SHOUTcast Internet radio station index and streaming as before.

See also: How can I use Amarok to stream to my own radio station?, which recommends Internet DJ Console, available in the AUR (idjcAUR).

## Ampache/MP3 Streaming

If you are streaming MP3s directly or with the Ampache plugin, you are not able to seek in tracks if you are not using the GStreamer backend. Install the needed packages: phonon-qt4-gstreamer phonon-qt5-gstreamer gstreamer0.10 gstreamer0.10-plugins gst-libav. Then go inside Amarok to Settings > Configure Amarok > Playback > Configure Phonon > tab Backend. Here make GStreamer the prefered backend

## Collection database

Amarok 2.x can use Sqlite (default) or MySQL to store the collection database. Users with large collections and more demanding performance requirements might prefer to use mysql.

### MySQL

For basic MySQL configuration refer to the MySQL page.

When using Amarok with MySQL you need to create a MySQL user that can access the database. To do use, enter the following:

    # mysql -p -u root
    # CREATE DATABASE amarokdb;
    # USE amarokdb;
    # GRANT ALL ON amarokdb.* TO amarokuser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password-user';
    # FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
    # quit

This creates a database called 'amarokdb' and a user with name 'amarokuser' with the password 'password-user' who can access said database from localhost. If you want to connect to your database computer from a different computer, change the line to

    # GRANT ALL ON amarok.* TO amarokuser@'%' IDENTIFIED BY  'password-user';

To configure amarok to use MySQL, enter the Configure Amarok screen, choose Database and mark "used external MySQL database". Enter the server (usually "localhost" if on your local box, else the name of the remote box), the username ("amarokuser" in this example) and your chosen password-user. Do not forget to select the path to your music collection.

### PostgreSQL

Not yet supported, see more[dead link 2015-04-23]

## Audio CD Playback

If you are not using KDE as your Desktop Environment, Amarok may not have the utilities it needs to play back Audio CDs. Install kdemultimedia-audiocd-kio from the official repositories to obtain this functionality.

## Firefly/Daap share

To make Daap shares visible in Amarok enable the "DAAP Collection" plugin in the Amarok settings.

Install nss-mdns and complete the hosts line in `/etc/nsswitch.conf` to look like:

    hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] nis dns mdns4

start `avahi-daemon` systemd service.

## See also

List of applications#Audio players

Category:

- Multimedia players

Hidden category:

- Pages with dead links