14 DAY TRIAL // The Linux platform has no shortage of media players, and most of them are really good. It should come as no surprise that Quod Libet is also playing in the same league and that users will really enjoy it.
It's a mystery why Quod Libet is not a more popular media player. It's been around for years and the developers have constantly worked on it. The last major update was done back in May 2014, and the software is stable and full of goodies.
Quodlibet is a Latin phrase that means "what pleases" and it's used in music to describe a piece that's a combination of multiple melodies. The name seems to relate very well to the media player and it's actually quite catchy.
Installation
We installed the application on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and it should come as no surprise that it wasn't at all difficult. The developers provide packages for all the major distributions out there. For Ubuntu, they offer a PPA, which is even better.
You could install it from the Ubuntu Software Center, but you would be getting a slightly older version. It's not a bad thing, but if you are like me and you want the latest version, than you might want to consider installing the PPA.
All you have to do is enter a few commands in a terminal. It could be done without the terminal, but where is the fun in that? Also, it would probably take longer. Keep in mind that you will have to be root in order to make this work:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install quodlibet
Usage
The first thing you have to know about Quod Libet is that it's not just a simple music player, it's also a library organizer and it has a powerful tag editing function.
The first time you open the application you will be asked to define the folders with music. The import seems to work very fast and you will be able to access the music in no time.
The interface is actually very familiar and the design is used by a number of other music players. It is very basic, at least at first glance, with three major panes, People, Year- Album, and the actual playlist at the bottom.
A very nice feature are the filters, which can be defined from the menus and are basically custom searches. If you enable Genre for example, you will find the songs in a specific Genre.
You can customize the player to look anyway you want to. I like basic music players and I find it easier if I only see the playlist and nothing else. You can easily do this in Quod Libet, with just one click.
One of the best features of Quod Libet is its plugin support. In fact, you can install lots of plugins from the PPA. By default, most of them are disabled, but I find it difficult to believe that you would need a feature that is not covered by the plugins.
Conclusion
I usually have a Good and Bad section at the end of the reviews, but I couldn't find anything wrong with the application. Besides the fact that it uses GTK+ for the GUI while most developers seem to jump to Qt, this is an almost perfect application. I'm sure that more astute users will find bugs and other issues, but I haven't, at least nothing that's derived from my music habits.
I really don't understand why Quod Libet is not present more often, by default, in various Linux distributions. It's simple, fast, and provides numerous options and plugins that extend its use tremendously.
What I like most about it is the fact that it doesn't have any stores implemented, at least they are not available by default. You can find online sources like LastFM, but that's also disabled by default.
The interface is about the user and not about music, and that is always a winning feature for a media player. The covert simplicity is a great attribute of Quod Libet, and I would love to see it implemented in more Linux distros. Until then, I think I just found a new favorite music player.
