When I’m coding I MUST listen to music. It helps me tune out and concentrate.
I’ve been messing around with Pandora and have heard about Last.fm. Both are services where you provide an artist or type of music and the service will stream similar music to you. You can usually vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for each song played and over time the service ‘learns’ about your musical tastes and will generate a playlist for you.
Tonight I was messing around on Last.fm and noticed they had a client download and was amazed to see they had a Linux version!
I downloaded LastFM_Linux_1.0.0b.tar.bz2 to my desktop (Ubuntu Edgy) and extracted the file to a Last.fm_Client_1.0.0b directory.
The readme file had instructions for doing a build but there was a ‘lastFM’ shell script already in the directory so I think the build instructions were included in case you downloaded the source.
From there I just had to create a desktop icon…
- Right click on desktop
- Create launcher
- For the command I entered: /home/jim/Desktop/Last.fm_Client_1.0.0b/lastfm (Adjust your path accordingly)
So far the client seems to be working great. I need to learn more about how Last.fm works but if you are into finding new music I’d give it a try!
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17 Comments
Thanks for the news! I didn’t know they had a linux client; I have been using Pandora for a long time now, but I scrobble everything on Last.FM.
Anyways, just a heads-ups to anyone else trying this, the tar.bz2 didn’t work for me, I had to goto the forums and get a .deb someone had posted. Check here: http://www.last.fm/forum/34905/_/211659
I recently discovered last.fm as well and was shocked and amazed that they offered a Linux client, and it doesn’t suck! But since you’re using Ubuntu Edgy, why not just use the .deb they offer (the link is right below where you choose your OS, easy to miss).
http://static.last.fm/client/L.....1_i386.deb
I used it a few times and like it, but if you happen to use Amarok (only the best music app ever, on any OS
), you can enable last.fm through Amarok and stream through there.
Ha - didn’t see the .deb at all!
And now that you mention it - I do remember reading that Amarok would connect to Last.fm. I’ll have to give that a shot. I imagine you loose the ’scrobbling’ functionality though.
And one more feature - Amarok works great with last.fm
try dynamic mode !
No actually you do not lose the scrobbling ability, everything is there
Join the club! I’ve been using Last.fm for a year now and it’s the only web application I use every day. It has like doubled my musical taste over the past few months.
I really hate articles where Ubuntu is mentioned in the title and it’s got nothing to do with Ubuntu. when are you newbs going to learn? Any Linux distro can run the file you downloaded. It has NOTHING to do with Ubuntu. Get it? Please stop writing crap articles like this!
Thanks for the positive comments. I’m aware that yes it probably will run on any flavor of Linux but *I* use Ubuntu and I installed Last.fm on Ubuntu - hence the title.
I’m sorry you felt the article was ‘crap’ but that is easily resolved… don’t read my blog.
Nice ‘Ubuntu’ lead to get more hits. Funny thing about this is you can compile this program in ANY linux distro to get it to work. We’ve had this in the repos (non-debian distro I use) for a VERY long time…since version 1.0.
Another thing, you don’t need the client to scrobble…you can use Amarok. And the latest version (Which isn’t available for Ubuntu) enables all the things that the last.fm client does…tagging, streaming neighbors radio, streaming your own stuff, etc…by default.
Amarok is the answer.
Why is it a crime for me to put Ubuntu in the title? I can assure you it wasn’t for ‘hits’…
I just don’t get the negativity? I *use* Ubuntu… and I’m aware I could compile this in any flavor of Linux - but I don’t use any flavor - I use Ubuntu.
And while this may have been in the repos since the beginning of time - I was unaware of it until I visited the Last.fm site.
Is there a site where you can search for programs within the repository?
If you are talking about Ubuntu repos, http://packages.ubuntu.com/edgy/allpackages should be everything (warning: big webpage!).
Don’t worry about the pissy people. It’s your blog, you can post whatever you want. Keep it up!
Thanks for the link (and the positive comment!) - it IS a long webpage! I’ve bookmarked that one for future reference. Nice to see they have Feisty list as well.
Nice post. Thanks. After reading it, I went to Add/Remove in Ubuntu and installed, typed in Scrob. Added last.fm with a problem
On windows, last.fm client integrates into players like winamp or mediamonkey, allowing I to mark a song like Favorite o not.
I couldn’t find this option on linux (Ubuntu edgy here too ;). I mean, the client has this option, but how to integrate into players?
I like to listen my music using “Listen”, Beep Media Player or others, and I would like to mark them like Favorite or not.
Is it possible in linux client?
Thanks!
PD: Another great software for recommending is MusicMagic aka MusicIP.
Hiya,
you might also want to take a look at ‘last-exit’, it’s an OS Last.fm player that’s also in the repos. Cool thing about it was it had a ’save’ button, so when you heard something you liked you could just save the mp3. They may have changed that now in the prebuilt repo version, but that’s the joy of having source code
Also, for browsing and searching the software available the simple ‘add/remove’ app is pretty cool, should be at the bottom of your launcher list.
A
Hi, you might like to check some unofficial Debian (sarge, etch) and Ubuntu (dapper, edgy) packages of Last.fm 1.1.3.0
They run with no problems and include some extra features not found in the upstream version.
You can download them and get more info here:
http://people.igalia.com/berto
I’m a newb to Ubuntu and have been porting as many of my apps from XP. I’m glad you had Ubuntu in the title cause that’s what I was searching for. Doing a search for last.fm + linux is too generic for me. Besides that allows Trevor to supply a super helpful link on Ubuntu distributions!! Keep up the good work and pay no attention to the so called non-newbs.