Archives For November 30, 1999

Rhythmbox music player

Gnome’s default music player, Rhythmbox, has reached the 3.4 release. It has been made into the universe repository (to be default) for Ubuntu 16.10 Yakkety.

Rhythmbox 3.4 comes with a new remote web control plugin, allows users to control the basic music playback remotely via a web browser.

Other changes in Rhythmbox 3.4:

  • Grilo plugin now uses Grilo 0.3
  • Soundcloud plugin fetches more search results and allows pausing
  • No longer uses webkit (partly due to OpenBSD W^X enforcement)
  • Slightly better handling of keyboard shortcuts for playback
  • Core and some plugin data files compiled into binaries using GResources
  • Memory leak and plugin fixes, translation updates, etc.
  • See more in NEWS page.

Rhythmbox 3.4

rhythmbox 3.4 web control plugin

Install Rhythmbox 3.4 in Ubuntu 16.04

Besides building the new release from source, you can install Rhythmbox 3.4 in Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 via a third-party PPA repository.

Tried both official Rhythmbox 3.4 build in Ubuntu 16.10 daily and the PPA backports in Ubuntu 16.04, there are a few issues found in my case:

  • No menu (global or title bar menu) in Unity Desktop
  • new web control plugin does not work in my browser

If you intend to install Rhythmbox 3.4 via PPA, follow below steps:

1. Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox

Add rhythmbox PPA

2. Update package index and install the 3.4 packages:

sudo apt update; sudo apt install rhythmbox rhythmbox-plugins

DO NOT use apt upgrade, because the PPA also contains GTK 3.20 backports you may not want.

3. Remove the PPA after installation, via either Software & Updates -> Other Software or the command below:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:vascofalves/gnome-backports && sudo apt update

4. (Optional) To revert back to Rhythmbox 3.3, purge the PPA via ppa-purge

sudo apt install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:fossfreedom/rhythmbox