FreshUbuntu

Just recently released is a 1.0 stable edition of what i think is a pretty good music management application.  That application is called Songbird and is a viable alternative to a not too crowded category of linux music managers.  Sure you could use tried and true packages like Amarok or Rhythmbox.  I happen to have both of those mentioned and also VLC which is a much more powerful yet simple music player, but I think when I show you the interface for Songbird I think you will agree that it looks and closely mimics a decent and very popular music manager made popular by Apple.

Now I must say this about the familiarity.  I think it's a pretty decent idea to have look and feel of a package "sort of" mimic other more heavily used packages.  It really does help with the transition to liberated software as it eases the user and breaks down barriers to usability. Not to mention how easy it is on the eyes especially if you have come from say OS X.  Okay, all that aside let's get on with the the rest of the tutorial.

I guess the first thing to do is head on over to the Songbird website which is called getsongbird.com and once there yo will notice a large button on the right side of the page demanding that you download the package. But, don't do it! You see the link will download the tarball file that needs to be compiled and if you have never compiled your own package, I suggest not to do it until you have a sufficient understanding of the command line.  Belive me there is an easier way.  What we want is the deb file which I suppose I could give yo the link to the file and you can just install it, but, then it would cut my tutorial short and where is the fun in that.  Also, you will get a chance to get more information about Songbird so that you can make a good decicion.

Now beneath the large download button is a link that says "Other Platforms"  you can go ahead and click on this link which will bring you to another page where you can choose to download packages for various versions of Windows, Mac OS X and again Linux.  I dont know why they did this again but unless you want to compile your own package do not click on the linux button!  Instead you will click on the "contributed builds" link embedded in the contributed builds paragraph, see picture below:

You would expect to see your package here but you would be wrong to expect it because the page you are looking at right now is a list of other operating systems that have been precompiled.  For instance, you can download a build for Open Solaris, Fedora, or Gentoo.  What we want is in the middle of the page under the Ubuntu Linux heading.  Looks a lot like this:

From here you have a decision to make either go to getdeb.net to get the deb file or go to the mother ship at help.ubuntu.com and from there you can shoose to get the build from ubuntu-hunden or from getdeb.net. 

I know, by now you just want the deb file so click on the getdeb.net link and download the deb file. Now this might remind you a little of Windows but if you click on the download link you will be asked if you want to install it right then and there using the gdebi package installer or save to file.  I personally chose to have it installed so that I would have to go through the extra steps of erasing a file.  Lord knows the trouble I've been through just to get the file. Once installed you can import your music and start listening to them.  Oh and before I leave, you might be wondering why I just didn't tell you to do the "sudo apt-get...." command it's because as of January 2nd 2009, Songbird is not included in the repos.  Going directly to getdeb.net would have saved a lot of trouble also but I thought going to the Songbird site would give a little more information about the application that neither getdeb.net or ubuntu.com could have given you.  Hope you anjoy your music and please leave a comment about songbird, if you like it or not, either way it would be good to know.  Cheers.