Vista

These days when I listen to music it’s usually streamed from Last.fm via XBMC, either my own loved tracks or those tagged “ambient“, however sometimes I want to listen to my offline music collection and for that I use Amarok.  Given how much hassle it is to get working and that they’ve removed the features I found most useful*, increasingly I wonder why I bother but for the moment I do and this is an aide-mémoire to help the process go much smoother the next time I have to install it.

1. Check that libxine1-ffmpeg is installed
2. Check that phonon-backend-xine is installed
3. Check that phonon-backend-gstreamer isn’t installed
4. Configure phonon (Amarok > Settings > Configure Amaraok > Playback > Configure Phonon) so that the uppermost option for each “Device Preference” category actually works.  Use the test button to check each option if you’re not sure.

That should get the audio working.  Now to figure out why it doesn’t seem to be scrobbling…

* They have promised to put them back in but it doesn’t look as though it’s going to be any time soon.

After upgrading Ubuntu to Karmic Koala I experienced a few problems getting Eclipse to work properly – mostly buttons that clicked but triggered nothing. Thankfully, Chris Chrisostomu had already published a blog post on the matter, including instructions for a potential fix that certainly seems to have sorted it out for me:
http://mou.me.uk/2009/10/31/fixing-eclipse-in-ubuntu-9-10-karmic-koala/

My thanks go to Chris for writing it up so clearly.