DeadBeef 0.4.2 Has Been Released, Adds Option To Specify New Tray Icon And More

DeadBeef, a lightweight music player I was telling you about in the Ubuntu Netbook Edition optimization tips post was updated to version 0.4.2 today which brings some minor but interesting new features:

• you can use your mousewheel over the notification area icon to control the volume
• custom tray icon and icon themes: to specify a different icon for DeadBeef, go to Edit > Preferences > Plugins, select the "Standard GTK2 user interface" plugin, click Configure and you can enter a new icon (you just have to enter the icon name). The new version also got a new icon and an option to hide the notification area icon altogether.
• a new "remove from disk" menu item
• "Look up at last.fm" context menu option
• new MusePack plugin with support for multi-chapter files
• many hotkeys improvements and new Play/Pause global hotkeys
• option to remember current track / position / state on exit, and resume after restart
• support for cover artwork embedded in APEv2 tags

And many other improvements - a complete list can be found HERE.


To install the latest DeadBeef 0.4.2 in Ubuntu, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexey-smirnov/deadbeef
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deadbeef

Deadbeef Is Ready For Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat [PPA]

Deadbeef, probably the lightest (GUI) music player for Linux is finally available for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat.

Most of you probably already know Deadbeef (we talked about Deadbeef a while back in our UNE optimization tips post), but for those who don't, here's a brief introduction: Deadbeef is not just another music player as it's a lot different then most Linux music players. The only music player that Deadbeef reminds me of is foobar2000 (Windows only).

There's nothing fancy about Deadbeef - it only comes with everything you need to enjoy your music: last.fm support, it can play any kind of music files  (including cuesheets, gapless) and has tabbed playlists support. There's a lot of stuff Deadbeef doesn't have but being so lightweight, it's definitely a music player to try out.

In my tests Deadbeef used around 10mb of RAM while Rhythmbox: ~62mb with my large music collection. Update: I removed my music from Rhythmbox just to see how much RAM it uses with only a few music files and it's somewhere around 27mb of RAM. For other music players, read the comments below!

Besides the memory usage, Deadbeef is also great for small screens (netbooks).

More about Deadbeef.

Install Deadbeef in Ubuntu (Karmic, Lucid and now Maverick) using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexey-smirnov/deadbeef
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deadbeef

Many thanks to Alexey Smirnov for updating the PPA with Maverick packages!