Reinventing the wheel is sometimes viewed as a significant barrier to the development of open source software. Critics point out that if developers simply collaborated more with each other, instead of creating yet another Linux distribution or programming another text editor, this would help to simplify matters for users, and actually significantly advance the development of established open source projects.

Personally, I like choice. Having the opportunity to select from dozens of mainstream Linux distributions and choose the one that best fits my requirements works really well. The same applies for the individual applications that are included in a Linux distribution. I do not see an issue in the availability of hundreds of open source text editors, backup tools, databases, productivity tools etc even if many of them have a similar set of features. There will always be important differences between the applications. Moreover, a developer who simply reinvents the wheel still learns from the programming experience. The simple open source text editor or sticky notes utility may lay the foundation blocks for a developer to create something more groundbreaking in the future.

Even with the abundance of Linux multimedia software, users are often polarised into one of three camps – either the music management application Rhythmbox (inspired by Apple’s iTunes), the Rediscover music world of Amarok, or the feature-laden Banshee media player.

Our Audio Software Group Test identified a number of other quality audio players worthy of attention besides the aforementioned trio. For this feature, we wanted to identify top-notch audio players which receive even less attention in Linux publications. The majority of these applications are not included in mainstream Linux distributions, and some are early in their development cycle. But they all have in common something which makes them stand out from the rest of the crowd, and come with our strongest recommendation.

Now, let’s explore the 9 alternative audio players at hand. For each title we have compiled its own portal page, providing a screenshot of the software in action, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.

Alternative Music Players Aqualung Gapless Gtk-based audio player Xnoise Bags of features included in this music and video player Decibel Audio Player Simple and very clean music player for the GNOME desktop Minirok Minimalist audio player with a simple and intuitive interface Herrie Minimalistic music player that uses the command line Mesk Similar to the Windows freeware player Foobar 2000 DeaDBeeF Billed as the ultimate music player Guayadeque Music Player For Linux audiophiles with large music collections Clementine Modern music player and library organiser. Port of Amarok

Return to our complete collection of recommended free and open source software including our latest additions.

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