Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.

Audacious 3.9 was released recently, bringing much-needed updates to the QT UI, along with various other enhancements.

Audacious 3.9 GTK2 interface
Audacious GTK2 interface

Audacious is a music player available for Linux and Windows, which ships with an extensive list of plugins, along with multiple interfaces: GTK2, GTK3, Qt5 and a Winamp2-like interface. Note that the builds from the main WebUpd8 PPA use the GTK2 and Qt5 interfaces.

As a side note, the GTK2 and GTK3 versions may be dropped in the future, when the Qt5 version is mature enough.

The application is developed with low resource use and high audio quality in mind. It ships with plugins such as global hotkeys, lyrics, MPRIS v2, Scrobbler, Spectrum Analyzer, effects such as Crystalizer, Voice Removal, Crossfade, Extra Stereo, and more. Its Winamp-like interface supports Winamp 2.x wsz skins.

Changes in Audacious 3.9 include:
  • Qt user interface:
    • the Audacious main window is more customizable thanks to the addition of a View menu (includes options to view/hide the main menu, info bar, info bar visualization, status bar as well as remaining time) and additional options in the application settings;
    • configurable playlist columns;
    • drag'n'drop support for playlist entries;
    • improved playlist search bar: it's hidden until pressing Ctrl + F, and it matches results more intelligently;
    • new controls for stream recording;
    • integrated menu items and keyboard shortcuts for the Playlist Manager and Search Tool;
  • a comments column can now be displayed in the playlist (and it supports sorting by it);
  • improved Search Tool results formatting (bold, italics and capitals highlight different types of results);
  • added support for directories in m3u playlists;
  • added automatic switching between track and album ReplayGain modes when shuffle is enabled / disabled;
  • various other enhancements and bug fixes.

A complete Audacious 3.9 list of changes can be found HERE.

Here are screenshots with the Audacious 3.9 Winamp2-like and Qt interfaces:

Audacious 3.9 Winamp2 interface


Audacious 3.9 Qt interface


Install the latest Audacious in Ubuntu or Linux Mint via PPA


To install / upgrade to the latest Audacious (version 3.9 at the time I'm writing this article) in Ubuntu 17.10, 17.04, 16.04 or 14.04 / Linux Mint 18.x or 17.x, and derivatives, by using the main WebUpd8 PPA, use the following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt update
sudo apt install audacious

As a reminder, Ubuntu 16.10 (Yakkety Yak) has reached end of life, so Launchpad doesn't allow uploading new packages for it in any PPA.

For other Linux distributions and Windows, see the Audacious downloads page.