Install gxmms2 in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal - A GTK Written Music Player

In the past when Winamp used to dominate the audio players with its gorgeous GUI and features... few GNU/Linux enthusiasts created an audio player that has a very close look-n-feel to Winamp, which was called Xmms. It was a "hit" back in the day with GNU/Linux PC/Laptop users because it lets us manage/listen to your audio files with ease.

But then as the time went on, Xmms project got frozen and I think the reason could be due to the fact of a GUI that looks similar to Winamp, you know, it's not the "thing" the days anymore :). And also the original Xmms was written in the older version of the GNU/Toolkit called GTK and if you use Gnome 2 + and never versions, then not just Xmms, but anything that's written in that old GTK toolkit does not integrate well with the never "theme engine".

So as a result there are few other audio players that uses the Xmms as their engine but the GUI is written in never version of GTK toolkit which resulting in a better looking GUI. So, if you're one of those individuals who love Xmms but would like to have a bit never looking GUI written in GTK2+, then you "may" like the audio player called gxmms2.

gxmms2 is actually is not based on Xmms, in fact, it uses the Xmms2 as the engine, which is the new generation of the "old" Xmms player, built from the scratch.

From things like a playlist, search for files, manage Xmms2 media libraries, etc... gxmms2 is a "decent" player. If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal or older versions then you can install it by entering the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install gxmms2

But for those who's searching for a never look-n-feel, well, you may not like this that much :).