I've been thinking about switching to Ubuntu full time, but there are still some programs left behind that I haven't found any equivalent to yet. Does anyone know of a music player similar to Foobar2000 (I've read it doesn't handle well in WINE)?
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1what exactly don't you wanna miss from foobar2000? – type May 19 '11 at 21:55
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4foobar2000 works better in wine than other windows-migrated software: I have tested (and they still work) specialized features like tags editing with plugins, lyrics download/display/embedding, converting audio files, detailed media library access with foo_facets. the way it looks is not that good , it's true, but there are tweaks that can be made that i didn't tried... for common use I don't like running Wine and therefore use DeaDBeef (see answer below) – Apr 03 '12 at 20:58
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update: foobar works fine in wine, and even looks good - especially with improvements mentioned below (more on that here) – Jun 24 '13 at 22:41
11 Answers
DeadBeef is actively developed and in a way that brings it closer and closer to Foobar2000.
(what it lacks in Foobar2000-features (numbers of addons) it compensates in being light and up-to-the-point - the most straightforward and non-bloated music player/handler I have seen until now in Ubuntu).
With File browser plugin:
With Infobar plugin:
to install it:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alex-p/deadbeef
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deadbeef
Or download as .deb and install (i686 or amd64)
To install plugins, wich are .so files
, they should be put into a certain folder.
~/.local/lib/deadbeef/
or: /usr/local/lib/deadbeef/
For the static portable version it is deadbeef-versionnumber/plugins
Considering problems of incompatibility and other issues in using the plugins, see this related answer
To convert audio files, see this question+answer.
Considering memory use, Deadbeef is much lighter than other players that might be considered foobar-like.
The latest versions (now 0.6.2) bring it even closer to foobar by the 'Designer mode' feature (similar to the layout editing mode in foobar) by which built-in or plugin features (file browser, infobar etc) are integrated to the interface:
File conversion is now very close to Foobar2000's - see the link above on conversion.
Already mentioned in answers, a great alternative is Clementine.

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gmusicbrowser
: A customizable open-source jukebox for large collections
… was heavily inspired by other feature-rich media libraries like Foobar2000, Amarok, and Quod Libet. It comes with multiple layouts and themes that borrow from or try to emulate these or other popular music players.
You can install it via Software Center or the latest version from its official repository:
wget http://gmusicbrowser.org/squentin.key.asc -O - | sudo apt-key add -
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb http://gmusicbrowser.org/deb ./'
sudo apt update
sudo apt install gmusicbrowser gmusicbrowser-art
main features
- made with big (> 10,000 songs) libraries in mind (currently developed with over 27,000 songs)
- customizable window layouts (see layouts documentation)
- artist/album lock: easily restrict playlist to current artist/album
- easy access to songs related to the currently playing song
- songs from the same album
- album(s) from the same artist(s)
- songs with same title (other versions, covers, …)
- support ogg vorbis, mp3 and flac files (and mpc/ape/m4a with gstreamer, mplayer or mpv)
- simple mass-tagging and mass-renaming
- tray icon, with a very customizable tip window, which can be used to control the player
- very customizable SongTree widget for a pretty list of songs (example))
- support multiple genres for a song
- support multiple artists for each song by separating them with ', ' or ' & '
- customizable labels can be set for each song (ex : bootleg, live, -'s favorites, …)
- powerful search (nested conditions, can search any field using regular expression or fuzzy search)
- customizable weighted random mode (based on rating, last time played, label, ...)
- browse through pictures and pdf in the album's folder
- The possibility to act as a icecast server, to listen to your music remotely (experimental)
- plugin system, included plugins:
- nowplaying (to update an external program when the playing song changes)
- last.fm
- find pictures
- simple lyrics
- artist or album info
- customizable desktop widgets

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Try Guayadeque.
It is an extremely customizable music player, and should support most of the features you are looking for. I'm not sure if it will match foobar2000 100%, but at least it should fill the gap :)
- The website is here: http://guayadeque.org/forums/index.php
- PPA: https://launchpad.net/~anonbeat/+archive/guayadeque

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Wikipedia has a Comparison of audio player software which could be helpful.
Amarok seems to be a decent match functionality-wise, but it probably depends on which features are most important to you.

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Honestly, I've been in the same position as you for years, looking for a comparable music player to Foobar2K in linux...
MPD & GMPC is good, as is gmusicbrowser... clementine is coming along nicely, but nothing can take the place of foobar for me, and thankfully with the newer builds of wine nothing has too - try installing winepulse from the ppa here https://launchpad.net/~c-korn/+archive/ppa.
Listening to Foobar 1.1.7 on Natty right now, and it runs flawlessly :)

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1daedbeef. as for Amarok, Banshee, or Rhythmbox, maybe having powerful new computers can be an obstacle against seeing that such players are excessively resource hungry and bloated considering what they do and what they ask (and considering the quality of other players like deadbeef, clementine or quod libet !) – Apr 03 '12 at 19:55
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without media library foobar is as light as deadbeef. with media library still lighter than Exaile, Quod Libet, Amarok, Banshee, or Rhythmbox – Nov 16 '12 at 15:59
Foobar 2000 itself in Wine:
- Foobar2000 was always related in my mind to the use of a lot of addons; but only when monitoring a large media library accessed through the 'Album List' or the 'Facets' addons does it becomes a bit heavy through Wine
The image above that shows the use of 92MB of RAM is related to the use of a 270 GB media library. Otherwise, Foobar2000 in Wine is very light even with many addons.
But even in this case it looks lighter than very recommendable Ubuntu native players and it is not heavier than it used to be in Windows with the same addons installed.
And what about it's version without manually added addons and naked interface ? It looks extremely light!
Also, considering the looks of Foobar in Wine, a good method of improving this is:
1. enable font smoothing - fire one after the other these lines in Terminal:
wget http://files.polosatus.ru/winefontssmoothing_en.sh
bash winefontssmoothing_en.sh
(select third option in terminal)
2. install a windows msstyle file in Wine/Configure Wine/Desktop Integration
3. increase the screen resolution in Wine/Configure Wine/Graphics
It comes to smth like this (but colors and fonts are customizable):
Don't forget Quod Libet (disclaimer: I'm one of the current devs)...
It's popular with a lot of ex-Foobar users possibly due to the advanced tag editing features (including multi-tag support) and also complex searching with with regular expressions, boolean algebra, numeric aggregation etc.

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Great news! As of version 3 of Wine, Winamp 5.x is working perfectly on Linux! (except visualizations) Previous versions of Wine did not supported Winamp's Media Library, my favorite Winamp feature. Now it works excellent!

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