Now. Here is my rant: originally I was using rhythmbox with an old, dying pentium 4 1.8GHz and it was dead slow. That was back in the good old days of KDE 3 and Amarok 1.x. That's all changed now. Anyway, I was so fed up of Rhythmbox being slow that I switched to Amarok, and I was very impressed. The sound didn't skip at all when multitasking (something that Rhythmbox sadly exhibited and still does to a certain extent). I liked it for it's better flexibility on things such as being able to switch audio plugin (Rhythmbox isn't even Xine compatible). All was fine. For a while.

Now, I've got a new computer with a new operating system (Ubuntu 9.04 Alpha 6), and I started using rhythmbox again with that and the sound didn't skip really due to my new dual core. But then I started noticing crackling sounds instead of the songs every now and then (I think it's a gstreamer bug), which obviously made it unusable, so I tried out Amarok again. Here is where the trouble starts.

I found that Amarok had been "upgraded" to version 2, but not in the usual way. I found it out by installing it and not being able to use it due to its new alien user interface, no not 'interface': display. Cause it's utterly unusable.

I quickly purged Amarok and any files with the word amarok in them, and ran screaming down the street in a fit of madness (well maybe not the last bit, but near enough).

Who's idea was it to make Amarok the way it is? Can anybody give me a clue as to how to use it or, better, to change its interface back to the old way? Cause I really like Amarok's backend, just it's front end is worse than awful, it's unusable. Where the hell do I find all my music?

The rant does not stop there.

Having installed and uninstalled the new amarok, I thought, oh, there's a new version of KDE isn't there? (well actually I use and enjoy gnome, but briefly used KDE3.5 and, like Amarok, was impressed by its speed and agility compared with GNOME). I installed KDE version 4.2 from the Ubuntu repos, logged out, and logged back in (switching to KDE this time).

Nothing happened. I saw a black rectangle with a grey harddisk icon in it, frozen. I ctrl-alt-backspaced, presuming this was some sort of weird hang-up, possibly related to the first time installing it (don't flame me as I'm not a developer). So I restarted X, logged into KDE again and this time got a bit more than the first time. It loaded the desktop pretty quickly (although not as quickly as version 3). I looked at the snazzy new Kicker menu, new 'plasma' widgets. These widgets reminded me of Windows Vista pre-SP1, not because of what they were but because of their unresponsiveness. I mean, it took 2 seconds to grab hold of a widget, and I always had to wait for the translucent black rectangle to move stuff. C'mon, I think, but persevere anyway, as KDE is still very young (version 4, I mean). The first impressions of KDE4 were: bloated, unresourceful, unproductive. The last point was strengthened, no, concreted into position when I tried launching a program. Yes, launching a program does NOT work for me in KDE4, i.e. you click the icon and KDE freezes. Now, c'mon, have the KDE and Amarok developers been replaced with dummies or something? Cause the way I'm seeing it, the devs must have pretty low IQs to release something this bloated, unusable, crashy, and just general ****.

Both the new versions of Amarok and KDE suck big time.

Let me know what you think.

Thank you for taking the time to tell us all this.
Now go troll somewhere else.

nightrose wrote:Thank you for taking the time to tell us all this.
Now go troll somewhere else.

I'm not trolling. I'm saying my personal opinion about KDE4 and Amarok 2, cause I think they both have potential for being very good programs/desktop environments irrespectively. The thing is, if no one complains and says what's bad about them, then they won't get better as quickly will they? So, anyone who's reading this and loves KDE and Amarok, well you can reply if you have a better answer than saying that I'm 'trolling'. You should be grateful really if you think about it to people who want to make programs better.

Maybe its trolling as there was no constructive criticism, just "this sucks" and "who did this?", at al, ad nauseum. Especially using an alpha version of  Ubuntu

The development of Amarok didn't happen yesterday at someones whim, and discussion on this subject has been going on during the entire process

srynznfyra wrote:have the KDE and Amarok developers been replaced with dummies or something? Cause the way I'm seeing it, the devs must have pretty low IQs to release something this bloated, unusable, crashy, and just general ****.

Both the new versions of Amarok and KDE suck big time.

Let me know what you think.

I think constructive criticism is one thing but this is just offensive trolling! 

Anyone against deleting this whole thread? I personally don't want to tolerate trolling/****/hating (constructive criticism is something else).

Nah, no need - these things should stay to remind people that errectile problems aren't only a problem in real life!
Think of it as a customer service. Besides which, there'll be a new thread tomorrow because people who register simply to spout their diarrhoea don't bother searching for a suitable thread in which to register their disappointment.

KDE4 - particularly with everything on can be slow on some hardware. It works fairly well here... What graphics card does your machine have... Try the following, KDE-Menu->System Settings and go to desktop, then turn off desktop effects. KDE 4 can be a lot more hardware dependant than KDE 3.... aver all though it is not too bad and a lot of the stuff under the hood is an improvement on KDE 3.

As for amarok 2 it is not yet a complete replacement for Amarok 1.4 - if you head to the Ubuntu forums you will find a link to a PPA for amarok 1.4 for jaunty...

I agree that I don't think the current interface is working in 2 or 2.1... I think the concept definitely deserves some merit but the implementation definitely needs a fundamental rethinking of some aspects as well as a lot of polish. There's potential there but it hasn't been reached yet.

As for using it... the middle panel lets you add information about the current running track... i normally add albums and either wikipedia or lyrics. (these should be resizable by the way. When you drag and drop pay attention - drop targets appear in the middle of the screen
this will save you a lot of dragging. The new dynamic playlist section is really good as is the Internet services section.

To get Amarok 1.4 on Jaunty do this:

1. Close Amarok if it is open
2. In the terminal type: sudo apt-get remove amarok
3. Download these 3 package:

- http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/amarok
- http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/amarok-engine-xine
- http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/libgpod3

Make sure you pick the correct architecture.

4. Open the .deb files in a package manager and install them. I used the order: libgpod3, amarok-engine-xine, amarok

Now you should have the 1.4 version installed and usable. I also found 2.0 to be lacking too many features(such as ipod connectivitiy) and that is had a confusing interface. I am sure it will improve with time.

I have tried this method on both amd64 and i386 machines successfuly.

I have to say that my own feelings toward Amarok2 echo those of the OP in this thread. I find the interface clumsy, unnecessarily cluttered, and difficult to use (and I really miss the remote player which helped me control my listening while freeing up screen space).

What bothers me the most is that there is no elegant way to import my playlists from Amarok1.4. I created over a dozen playlists, and having to rebuild them is a serious pain; quite frankly, the lack of this functionality is a deal-breaker for me. I also miss being able to select which database the player uses, as well as the login information for the database. I feel as though Amarok2 does not meet my needs as well as Amarok1.4 did. I got the impression that Amarok2 was designed not to meet any particular needs or design and functionality goals, but simply because a major release was felt due, so major changes were made.

I was very happy to see the instructions posted by HighInBC on how to successfully "upgrade" from Amarok2 to Amarok1.4 (I call this an "upgrade" because I honestly believe the older version is far superior to the newer).

In summary, here are the major flaws I found in Amarok2:

* Cluttered, difficult to use interface;
* Lack of ability to specify database integration; and
* Lack of ability to import playlists from older versions to newer.

Here's hoping that future updates to Amarok will resolve these flaws and once again provide the best media experience for Linux users.

Hello all,
I don't want to jump on a bandwagon of negativity here. But on the outside chance that some of the developers do monitor these threads and care particularly I would add my 2cents. I am running a fairly fast machine, 4 processors, 4 gigs of ram and 1.5 terabytes of disk. When I went looking for a distro I tried Ubuntu, RedHat in several version before settling on Suse 11.1 x64. The installation wasn't bad (btw I do maintain several other distros just in case and I have the space) and I went for the latest and greatest including KDE4. Over a good number of years I've preferred KDE over the several other managers etc. But KDE 4 took my machine down. I was scrambling like a cat tossed in the dog pound to get to something like stability/usability. In the end I was very unhappy to give up all the beautiful eye candy that KDE 4 brought with it. But I was looking for stability and wound up going back to KDE 3.5.10 release 21.11. My experience with Amarok is turning into a similar experience. I'm running Amarok 1.4.10 because I cannot upgrade to the 2.x releases because of the dependency on KDE4. At the moment I'm trying to do something trivial, put mp3's and playlists on a fuze player. The version of  Amarok that I'm running has (or the database engine) has taken some 36 hours to build my collection db and it's showing 88% completion. In the meantime my wife has just shown me that a single processor machine running WinXP can scan and build the data base for media player in under an hour. And this is using a USB connection to a backup drive containing a copy of the mp3 collection. I ain't a happy camper. BTW, just in case you start thinking "newbie", I'm a senior software engineer  with way too many years spent in computers. I have absolutely no desire to be a KDE or Amarok guru. I just want to use them as tools to do more interesting (to me) things. So right now I'm scurrying around trying to find a way forward. Given time I expect I will upgrade to KDE 4. I just hope to avoid the bleeding edge syndrome.


Best regards
j

paragraphs paragraphs paragraphs! Devs are more likely to read your post if it's formatted legibly

HighInBC wrote:To get Amarok 1.4 on Jaunty do this:

Thanks, I have upgraded from 2.0 to 1.4. It all works again as I like it to work.

Just wanted to comment.  I'm really appreciative of all the effort and work that has gone into Amarok, but I too have dowgraded back to version 1.4. 

I have too much info in my playlists, and just can't upgrade until that information comes across.

"paragraphs paragraphs paragraphs! Devs are more likely to read your post if it's formatted legibly"


You are a snooty ****. I will prey to my god for your destruction. Where do you get off? Come to me and talk to me like that. You have balls online but you f#$%ing computer geeks don't have any in person do you? Are the Devs your gods you freak.

new paragraph

I had a post last week **** that 2.x sucks but it seems it was taken down. This must be a communist website in China as there is no freedom to speak what is on my mind. You geeks can't handle a little criticism can you.

new paragraph (you pos)

FINISH 1.X and get over yourselves. You nerdy geeks think you are superior online but I am tired of reading posts on these sites where you think you are superior because you know how to code or because you use "Free Software" or because of any other reason you can think of. You are all small little creatures in reality and you are all slaves.

new paragraph

I use Linux because it I like it. Your hard work means nothing. So just fix the thing and shut the hell up!!!!! Make it work dog! Make it work for your master!!!


(I hope this post makes you realize how you geeks act sometimes. "paragraphs paragraphs paragraphs! Devs are more likely to read your post if it's formatted legibly" Come on. Be serious. Is that all you life consists of?)