My main box runs Windows XP. I have Ubuntu Linux machines as well, but much of my work still involves writing software for Windows, so I’m still using it as my primary OS.
I like to listen to CD’s sometimes when I work. I’ve used Windows Media Player and Winamp, but both annoy me for various reasons. Winamp, in particular, has gotten loaded up with crap that I don’t want. So today, I started poking around for another media player. I’d prefer something that is open source. Obviously, it needs to run on Windows.
Unfortunately, a lot of the most popular OS media players, like Amarok, either don’t run on Windows or require jumping through a lot of hoops. Using osalt.com, downloadpedia.org and AlternativeTo, I found a few that will.
First up was VLC Media Player. It crashed as soon as I tried to play a CD. It happened every time. I allowed the integrated crash reporter to submit information to the developers, then uninstalled it.
Next, Songbird. It doesn’t play CD’s, or if it does, I can’t figure out how. I checked the help on their site and found that their reason for not including that capability is that the program is primarily designed to stream music on-line. Really? It looks to me like they’re burning more man hours on marketing deals than on making their software do the basic things that one would expect from a media player. Uninstalled.
I tried Kantaris from Christofer Persson. It actually plays the music using a version of the same VLC player that crashed, though I’m guessing that it was a different version. It definitely has all of the basic controls that one needs. However, it lacks tooltips to explain what they are. It also lacks a compact mode that can be stuffed into a corner or placed on the edge of your desktop. I’m keeping it for now.
musikCube seems like it might be able to play CD’s. The wiki even says that it can, but not how. Clicking the play button with the CD drive selected in the device list doesn’t do it. Right clicking allows for ripping, but not playing. Also, the software hasn’t been updated in over 3 years. Uninstalled.
For the moment, Kantaris seems to be the only one that works. I’m hoping that a new release of VLC will fix the crash. I’m also going to take a look at:
