Amarok 2.2.2 released – rock on!

Rodney Gedda

Rodney Gedda is the former deputy editor of CIO and former editor of Techworld.

If you’re looking for an alternative music player for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, give Amarok a go. After an extensive re-write and port to KDE 4 for Amarok 2.0, the Amarok team has just released version 2.2.2, the latest in the 2.2 series. Like the overall user experience with the transition from KDE 3 to 4, Amarok 2 was criticised for not maintaining feature parity with the previous generation.

But in keeping with KDE’s “release early, release often” philosophy, Amarok is starting to take shape nicely.

For the full 2.2.2 release notes, see the Amarok Web site.

I did mention Amarok is cross-platform, but by the developers’ own admissions, the Mac OS X and Windows ports are not considered ready for everyday use.

YMMV with Amarok on non-Linux platforms, but there is every indication that Amarok can be a viable alternative to other popular music players.

Amarok’s uptake among consumers will depend a lot on how well the Amarok team package up the software for Mac OS X and Windows.

Most Linux distributions ship Amarok (or at most it’s a few clicks away), so a nice and easy one-click installation a la Firefox is needed to get non-Linux people using it.

Here’s to free music players and seriously rockin’ open source projects like Amarok.