14 DAY TRIAL // There are a billion music players on the Linux platform and it's getting difficult to find a really good one that can bring something new. Fortunately, Clementine comes to the rescue.
The biggest problem of music players on the Linux platform is that they look very much alike, and they don't stand out. Just a few windows panes with various info about the songs, and that's pretty much it. There are only so many ways in which you can arrange the interface, and if you've seen one music player, you've seen them all.
There are of course some exceptions to this rule, but Clementine is not one. In fact, Clementine will appeal very much to those who are used to old-school apps. It's a classic design that puts more emphasis on functionality than on form, and that is always a good idea. It might not look futuristic, but it's doing the simple job of playing music.
Clementine's developers say that they have been inspired by a really old music player named Amarok, but not in its modern version. They cite Amarok 1.4 as the source of their inspiration and it's easy to see why. There was a time when Amarok was a truly powerful app that didn't want to be much more than just that: a simple player. Now it's annoyingly colorful and modern, which is just the opposite of Clementine.
Installation
I tested Clementine in Ubuntu 15.10, and it works without any major problems. You can install it from the official repositories, which have the latest version. Yes, I know, it's weird to see the latest iteration of an application in the Ubuntu repos, but it happens from time to time. If you have an older version of Ubuntu, like 14.04 LTS for example, you can add the official PPA to the system. Just open a terminal and enter the following commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install clementine
Usage
The layout of Clementine is pretty simple and self-explanatory, so you won't have to dig around the interface to find how a certain function works. By default, users will see eight different vertical tabs on the left: Search, Library, Files, Playlists, Internet, Devices, Song Info, and Artist Info.
Each new tab opens up in an adjacent pane, and there are comprehensive options for all of them. For example, the Search option can be used to search in the local library, but it also comes with the possibility of searching a large number of online sources as well.
It's even possible to navigate online source too, like Last.FM, Jamendo, or Spotify. There are a couple of services that don't exist anymore, such as Ubuntu One or Grooveshark, but they will probably get removed with the first update.
The Devices tab lists all the connected devices, and you can see the files and directories inside after the mounting procedure is successful.
The last two tabs are also pretty interesting. One is called Song Info and displays information about the current song, along with the lyrics, and the other is Artist Info, which is pretty explanatory.
The best feature of Clementine is the main window pane, which holds the playlist dead and center. All the songs are listed there, and it's really easy to use.
