Media Monkey in Linux

[zeesson]

Media Monkey has done for mediaplayers what LinuxMint has done for Linux distros. I think you would be suprised how many people, (myself included) took so long to make a permanent switch to linux or would have already done so if not for one program... MediaMonkey. Getting to the point.... I know that there are ways; mostly involving virtual machines or Wine that will allow you to run MediaMonkey but all of these methods sacrifice functionality. Some people will unnecessarily immediately try to "defend" Linux (which i am certainly not attacking) by pointing out exaile and Amarok as suitable alternatives. This is simply not the case, NO media program on any platform does ALL the things Mediamonkey can do, in the smooth seamless user-friendly way that mediamonkey can do them. I believe that if we pool our resources and realy make an effort to convert mediamonkey into a native linux application 10's of thousands will flock to Linux.

YOUR Thoughts?

[BlahBlah_X]

I had never heard of media monkey until now.

And anyways, I highly doubt there are 10s of thousands of possible linux users that would adopt it only if one mp3 manager was ported to linux. There are probably about 50 people that fit that category.

Most people either don't use linux because they don't want to make the change or are happy with what they are using already. If they do decide to use linux, they actually want to use it and explore the different software, not complain about one individual product not being ported over to a minority operating system.

[midknight]

It's called Miro

[zeesson]

I had never heard of media monkey until now.

And anyways, I highly doubt there are 10s of thousands of possible linux users that would adopt it only if one mp3 manager was ported to linux. There are probably about 50 people that fit that category.

Most people either don't use linux because they don't want to make the change or are happy with what they are using already. If they do decide to use linux, they actually want to use it and explore the different software, not complain about one individual product not being ported over to a minority operating system.

Blah, I think you misunderstood my point.


Im not suggesting that People who never heard of Mediamonkey or people who never had a desire to switch to Linux would suddenly feel compelled to do so if Mediamonkey were converted.

Im just refering to the coupele-hundred-thousand MediaMonkey Users (99% of which simply will not due without it) A large portion of the MediaMonkey community wants to get away from Windows completely and has already tried a Linux Distro or two and loved them, but simply could not due without MediaMonkey (which is not just an mp3 manager as you so ignorantly put it). By the way this is not just my gut feeling; go to the MediaMonkey forums and you will see for yourself the huge number of Linux users there who are simply chomping at the bit for a native Linux version.

[midknight]

blahblah, please realize that every time you or someone else rants about how Linux won't satisfy everyone's smallest wishes, think of the fact that you are discouraging another user from using Linux, and stopping him or her from spreading the word, and therefore slowing the Free Software Movement and putting another $300 in Microsoft's pocket. Instead, we could encourage zeesson to find a way to solve his own problem.

Zeesson, have you tried Wine? (if not, search it)

also, don't forget Miro !

I'm not trying to insult you or anything, just to inform you that it is very unpleasant to have your thread crushed by a pessimistic rant. Please don't flame me .

[BlahBlah_X]

No flaming intended. However, I wouldn't call one windows-only media player "the smallest thing" or a necessity.

There are plenty of good things out there, and if one doesn't satisfy you, use Wine!

But I think people get the wrong impression when they switch to linux from windows. Linux isn't windows (http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm) ! You can't do everything under linux that you can do under Windows. It's about variety and being different, not about being in an arms race with other operating systems. Linux was never designed to tak"e users from the big companies, it was designed to be special, and unique. If someone wants to leave those and Linux lets them, then great! But that was not its purpose.

People say, "Windows has this. Why doesn't linux?"

There are two answers.
1) Most people that contribute to linux do so in their free time and/or for no pay! Do we expect them to do everything we wish, even if there are more important things to do? Which is more important, patching a kernel or making yet another linux media player? Not trying to flame, but just think about it.

2) Big companies couldn't care less about linux, and most users don't mind. It is generally windows/mac converts or new users that expect the companies to care. Right now, linux is not a viable desktop competitor, and really not much of a server one either. You may say, "Oh some companies care like insertcompanyhere!" Yes, for some reason they do. But do all companies think alike? No. Companies want to make money, and making a product for linux actually loses you money for a few reasons. First of all, the people that work for companies, unlike the random people who contribute to opensource, want to be paid. So, you have to pay them. Then, not many people use linux, and a large part of those linux users don't want to pay for closed-source software, which is why they are using linux instead of the competitors.

And what is actually slowing the adoption of Free Software is giving people this false hope. If you go into using linux thinking that everything will work and it will do the same things as competitors, then you will probably hate it and tell others about their negative experiences. Almost all the blog rants I hear about why linux isn't ready for primetime and ect... are saying, "unlike XP, Linux can't blahblahblah" or "Linux should be able to do this" or "Linux is lagging behind because of this".


Hope you don't think I'm flaming anyone.

[zeesson]

I see your point.

However, I would also like to point out that I am in no way trying to bash linux, I absolutely love LInux Mint. I was simply trying to get the MediaMonkey community to stop asking for it to get done, and instead pool together and do it ourselves. I certainly dont want Linux to be like xp I just want a media program has the same functionality as MediaMonkey. I appreciate you guys willingness to discuss this like adults and not regress into senseless adolescent ranting and name-calling.

[zeesson]

blahblah, please realize that every time you or someone else rants about how Linux won't satisfy everyone's smallest wishes, think of the fact that you are discouraging another user from using Linux, and stopping him or her from spreading the word, and therefore slowing the Free Software Movement and putting another $300 in Microsoft's pocket. Instead, we could encourage zeesson to find a way to solve his own problem.

Zeesson, have you tried Wine? (if not, search it)

also, don't forget Miro !

I'm not trying to insult you or anything, just to inform you that it is very unpleasant to have your thread crushed by a pessimistic rant. Please don't flame me .

midnight I have tried wine and most times if I can even get it to work, it doesnt work properly.

Right now I am using Vmware, it works consistently but MediaMonkey wont actually play music and also moves incredibly slow when editing tags.

My next step will be to simply move all my Music to an external hard-drive and dual-boot xp

[kayakaholic]

Songbird Promises to be the Firefox of media players

http://www.songbirdnest.com

Unfortunately still in development but the 0.4 release is certainly usable

[Fred]

zeesson,

I must admit, I have never heard of MediaMonkey but I just went to their site to check it out. Let me ask you something. What license is it released under. Looking on the site I couldn't find any information anywhere about the license it is being released under. That and the fact you have to purchase a key to get full functionality means 99.99% of the time that it is under a restrictive proprietary license.

Assuming it is proprietary, what is it that you are requesting of the open source community? In the first place, a group of us couldn't just decide to port it over to Linux even if we wanted to. The source code isn't available and we are not legally allowed to touch it, even if it somehow suddenly appeared on my desk or the internet.

Secondly, even if the company would allow a group of FOSS developers access to port it for them after signing an NDA and giving up all rights to the code we write. How many developers do you think would be willing to step up and spend hundreds of man hours working for free and still not be able to use or provide access to their own software without purchasing it? And that is just for binaries. The source code we still couldn't touch. I haven't met very many coders, that are good enough to do the job, with that low an IQ.

I'll tell you what. Have I got a deal for you. How about coming over to my house every day for the next two summers and working in my yard. I really like a nice looking yard and so do my neighbors. Besides, I plan to sell the house shortly after the second summer and your work will appreciate my property significanly. I'll make a bundle and really appreciate your efforts.

The reasons we in the FOSS community write software has absolutely nothing to do with enriching the company behind MediaMonkey.

Just another point of view.

Fred

[zeesson]

Well put Fred, Well put indeed.

You have certainly made me aware of some points that I was completely overlooking.

I dont know who is the publisher behind MediaMonkey. My bill is from SWREG, but they clearly point out that they are not the Publisher just the distributor.

In its defense I would like to point out that the 20 bucks that you spend on MediaMonkey is a LifeTime License I paid for it once 5 years ago and i use that same key to activate full functionality for every release.

Howver I must concede that your argument is sound and correct I posted this in the wrong forum. What i should be doing is setting up an online petition on the MediaMonkey Forum, or something to that effect.

Once again i appreciate your input

[midknight]

I haven't tried MediaMonkey (I'm not much of a music collector), but from what it looks like, it seems to have the same functionality as Miro or Songbird. Have you tried those?

PS: sorry for asking this again, but I got no reply last time.

[zeesson]

midnight,

yes Ive tried miro (which i am still using), songbird, amarok, exaile, mplayer, and every other music player/organizer available for ubuntu. And while Mediamonkey certainly doesnt do what miro does, its not meant to. As for the rest they all do a lot of things that mediamonkey does but not them all; and not as well either. I will admit that Amarok comes very close but seriously lacks in its organizing and tagging abilities. I will keep my hopes up for Amarok 2.0.

[nik]

I strongly support your suggestion for making a good music jukebox for Linux. I prefer to convert J. River Media Center but i can live with MediaMonkey. We really need a good media jukebox for Linux.

And anyways, I highly doubt there are 10s of thousands of possible linux users that would adopt it only if one mp3 manager was ported to linux. There are probably about 50 people that fit that category.

I highly doubt there are about 50 people that fit that category. Probably the 10s of thousands. It is true, many people still rely on Windows only for their favorite media jukebox.

[zeesson]

Yes I think what a lot of people dont understand is that when people express the desire for a particular program; what they are truly attempting to convey (get across) is that they dont neccessarily want that program, but simply a program with that same functionality. Everyone gets all up in arms because its a Windows/Mac application; however if I had been talking about an app that was exclusive to another Linux distro instead of Windows/Mac that has superior functionality I would get alot less negative feedback.

[Tar-Minyatur]

Some time ago I searched for a good jukebox myself. After trying a lot of different programs I ended up with Amarok. And in my opinion it's simply a great solution. I had a quick look at the Media Monkey homepage. The main features of Media Monkey like organizing music, tagging files and so on are definitely avaiable through Amarok. Now there are some more features Amarok does not have. Burning CDs for instance. As far as I know, Amarok is able to burn CDs in cooperation with K3b. But there is another solution: Amarok has got a plugin interface. You could write everything you want Amarok to be able to do yourself. That's the point of linux. You can just do yourself what you would like to have. Well...sure...not everybody is willing to learn how to write those plugins, but they'll simply have to stick with what's avaiable.

I'd strongly suggest that you keep looking for plugins that might enhance Amarok the way you'd like it. Besides that it might be an idea to start a small scripting group with some of the interested people you mentioned and build whatever you'd like to have. It's not that difficult. There are so many people doing things like that all the time...it's just a matter of wanting to contribute the own ideas to the community.

I'm fairly sure, that this is not really the kind of answer you would like, but as most of the former posts pointed out: That's the way linux works. And that's the point, why it's so great.

[cryptozoltan]

Boy, don't you linux boys rabbit on.....
My background.....sys admin of two large solaris unix installations, my home PC's until this weekend were all MS based now they are all running Ubuntu linux (it's a lovely simple distro with everthing one could need, well almost, read on).
My problem, I have ELISA (nice project chaps keep up the good work) running but would like to update my CD artworks in my hard drive. On MS based systems this was easy because Media Monkey just did it. Try finding something that can perform this task and link seemlessly into ELISA (still experimental I know but showing huge potential) or something else on linux, if you do let me know.....
But then my next question would be how do I install it.....linux is quite tedious by comparison to MS based software in this respect (although getting better).

I think the original point of this thread was to raise the hope that on linux there is something as good as Media Monkey is on other systems.
By good we mean seem less integration, simple to use, flexible. loads of facilities, cost effective, efficient and hopefully bug free......
Not to rant on about OS differences, value of services, who's better than who, garden development and support etc etc.

When linux can be a CD install, with selectable features that "simple end users" can understand and select to create their personal non bloated OS then linux will take off in the home community, a lot better than it is now.
Hey what am I saying....some linux distro's nearly achieve this now....but not quite....the user still has to use the old terminal / command line to perform some system "startup tweaks" after looking up a forum of painstaking geek speak and sarcastic comments. In other systems you don't.....they are techy less.
This is why linux fails so often and retains it geek status. Not because noob's like me ask, nah wish, that in the free world there is some comparable software that is not ripping you off with extortionate prices (I will and do pay reasonable prices for software).

However I might just keep a MS machine purely for Media Monkey (sorry geeks).

Bottom line = install MS OS you need one machine, insert CD, wait for bloatware to load, then play.
Install a linux distro you need two machines, one to install the OS on and one to scour the web for solutions to the install problems etc.

Thanks for the rant.....pleas advise me if there is a linux media monkey equivalent around.

[Fred]

cryptozoltan wrote:

Boy, don't you linux boys rabbit on.....
My background.....sys admin of two large solaris unix installations,

and

the user still has to use the old terminal / command line to perform some system "startup tweaks" after looking up a forum of painstaking geek speak and sarcastic comments.

Am I the only one that notices a rather large inconsistency in these two statements?

cryptozoltan, even though I am tempted to respond to your post I believe I will pass. I sincerely doubt that you will be happy with Linux, any flavor currently available. My best advice would be to return to Windows where you will be happy and comfortable, and not be frustrated with all the arcane, geeky, techy stuff.

Life is short, enjoy it while you can.

Fred

[Legend_bob]

As a Media Monkey user (and lover) in Windows and a recent Mint convert, let me say ...

I'm still playing with the various music players for Linux. I've been stuck on Rhythmbox because it was the easiest to get working with my Creative player. Also nice that it plays songs from the player directly. Media Monkey doesn't do that.

The way Media Monkey handles album art is really, really nice and any media player should strive to do it just as well. If the folder holding an album has a jpg, MM assumes it belongs to each mp3 in the folder. When you sync the files to an ipod (or player that handles art) it includes the art.

Tagging is pretty sophisticated in MM and I've had good experiences with it. Haven't done it in Rhythmbox or any other penguin player yet.

Last.fm integration. MM is okay with this - handled through the winamp plugin, which requires an older version to work. I know there are last plugins for various players.

All in all, I've been happy with my music experinces on Linux so far. I know there's more I need to learn, but that's part of the appeal of Linux. You do some research, you try some things out, and you can probably figure out a way to do what you want.

Part of the problem in this area now seems to be that there's no clear choice. Anarok seems like where people are going, but I was put off at first by the busy interface and the fact that my player wasn't easily supported. I have a feeling I'll go back to it. But what about Banshee? Haven't even looked at that yet.

Art, player support, and tagging. The player that handles these the best gets my vote. (Not that they're asking for it...)

[guruoogway]

ok...there may not be media monkey in linux but there is a jukebox software called " Jajuk" http://jajuk.info/index.php/Main_Page

try it... I found that I don't need Media Monkey anymore for organizing my music collection. Happy Linuxing !!!