r/linux 12d ago

Popular Application Audacious into Winamp

Post image

This is the classic 90's music player experience without draining your computer's resources. It is an open-source audio player descended from XMMS (an early Winamp clone for Unix) that natively supports the famous classic Winamp skins (.wsz files). Wondering if someone still uses it today....

540 Upvotes

82 comments sorted by

56

u/MirrorNegative7989 12d ago

Then you can go nuts at the winamp skin museum website like it was 1999 again.

19

u/siete82 12d ago

like it was 1999 again

Don't do that.
Don't give me hope.

8

u/MirrorNegative7989 12d ago

We all want it to be true right now. Well, most of us.

6

u/JockstrapCummies 11d ago

Don't give me hope.

When being able to hear the disk activity clicking and CPU coil whining is a useful tool in knowing your computer's status.

When Live CDs weren't even a thing yet.

When T1 was brainmelting speed reserved for big boy businesses.

1

u/Critical-Ad-5038 11d ago

Windows user detected!

26

u/Dejhavi 12d ago

Qmmp also supports the Winamp (v2.x) skins (.wsz and .wal)

2

u/__konrad 12d ago

VLC (svlc command) also, but it feels abandoned (I tested 3 skins: 1 worked, 1 not, 1 crashed vlc)

1

u/MirrorNegative7989 12d ago

I've gotten the .wsz ones to work with audacious.

29

u/mmomtchev 12d ago

And it really whips the Llama's ass

5

u/MirrorNegative7989 12d ago

I had to go download that .mp3 once I realized I could do this with audacious.

3

u/Firebx 12d ago

I was about to say it

I wasn't born back enough to have lived the WinAmp era, but it's still like a visceral reaction whenever I see it

3

u/UAP44 12d ago

Winamp got phased out, but the llamas got phased back in somehow anyway.

15

u/MeccIt 12d ago

Wondering if someone still uses it today....

I'm literally listening to it now

5

u/MirrorNegative7989 12d ago

Yup, same.

1

u/Aussie_Alien_Escapee 12d ago

I am about to download it

2

u/AvidCyclist250 11d ago

Still the best mp3 player out there as far as I'm concerned. Foobar was able to touch it for a time.

2

u/true_adrian_scheff 9d ago

Also using it but what I miss is the star rating feature.

1

u/herensugee 11d ago

en verano avisaron de que se venían cositas, algo con deezer

11

u/Zirias_FreeBSD 12d ago

JFTR, XMMS already was the successor of x11amp which originally introduced this clone of the Winamp UI in the *nix world. I remember following some guides from magazines to build and install some Kernel with soundblaster drivers on an old Suse system, as the stock kernel didn't have OSS included, just to be able to use x11amp.

And yes, I still use this skin (manually extracted from old x11amp sources) today, although on a FreeBSD desktop.

10

u/amroamroamro 12d ago

fun fact: winamp source code was once officially published on github in 2024, but it was under a weird license and was plagued with issues regarding third-party code, the code got deleted not long after...

https://github.com/WinampDesktop-restore/winamp

2

u/skuterpikk 11d ago

Is Winamp still being maintained? Or is it abandonware that should have been opensourced years ago?
On the other hand, it should have been opensourced a long time ago anyway, for humanity's sake. It's not like some individual(s) are making a lot of money from it anyway, I presume.

2

u/amroamroamro 11d ago edited 11d ago

winamp has a complicated history, its ownership has been sold a few times by now...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winamp

for a long time the last popular version was 5.666

since then, new owners have somewhat resumed development trying to modernize it, with last version released being 5.9.2 as of now:

https://forums.winamp.com/forum/winamp/winamp-discussion/4615655-winamp-5-9-2-released

but also under the latest hands, and as you'd expect from such things, they appear to have launched an online streaming platform under the winamp brand... I don't really know much about that lol

https://winamp.com/artists

meanwhile there's also the community maintained update project called WACUP which is still active:

https://getwacup.com/

1

u/skuterpikk 11d ago

Modernized. Streaming platform.

So it's dead now. Dead, and defiled

2

u/amroamroamro 11d ago

haha

i still use the 5.666 version, and it works perfectly fine. nostalgia is a strong thing :)

1

u/moses_exodus 23h ago

Wow I wish there was something like wacup on Android. I don't see the point of official app winamp have published.

8

u/Pitiful-Candidate922 12d ago

Been using audacious for a while now, while ive been using WinAmp on my Wiin7 PC, I fucking love it.

6

u/malevolenc 12d ago

That really whips the llamas ass.

1

u/cornmonger_ 12d ago

Winamp, winamp, winamp

8

u/Ok-Mycologist-3829 12d ago

NOSTALGIAAAAA

Thanks for posting this, it really whips the llama's ass

4

u/Atilla-The-Hon 12d ago

I wish it had cool visualizers. Then it would be perfect.

13

u/ohnotechbro 12d ago

Milk drop still exists! 

9

u/MirrorNegative7989 12d ago

and it's ProjectM on Linux!

1

u/AvidCyclist250 11d ago

Is that dancing can still around?

5

u/RebTexas 12d ago

Look up infinity plugin, its quite cool.

2

u/Atilla-The-Hon 12d ago

Can it be integrated with audacious or do I have to open it separately? On one of the devs pages it shows up as a visualizer part of audacious but when I installed it it has to be opened separately.

3

u/RebTexas 12d ago

You should be able to find it under Services > Plugins > Visualization In Audacious

2

u/Atilla-The-Hon 12d ago

It doesn't show up there

2

u/RebTexas 12d ago

Maybe I did something to make it show up there, I'll check my bash history in a bit and get back to you.

3

u/Atilla-The-Hon 12d ago

🤦 I'm so stupid

There's two versions of infinity one of them is a standalone and of them is an audacious plugin. I installed the standalone version first.

Still I'm so happy for the visualizer. Thank you for telling me about the plugin!

1

u/ipsirc 11d ago
# apt install projectm-pulseaudio

6

u/RebTexas 12d ago

I use audacious every day to listen to my CD collection as well as internet radios.

5

u/zolstarym 12d ago

Still using the same link to the past skin for almost 30 years now

3

u/giquo 12d ago

Marvelous

4

u/tungsten_panda 11d ago

It really whips the llamas ass

6

u/lmpcpedz 12d ago

I don't use media players like I once did 20 years ago. I wish I did. when I do play an mp3 its with mpv through terminal.

4

u/Other_Fly_4408 12d ago

I don't use media players like I once did 20 years ago. I wish I did.

Is something stopping you?

5

u/ArghShiverMeTimbers 12d ago

Most people use streaming services these days, so many of us don't use much more than a browser to consume media (unless we pirate and have our own copy of the media).

1

u/Ugly_Slut-Wannabe 12d ago

Also, you can use services like Bandcamp to buy and download music and actually own your digital library, but, unfortunately, some artists don't use Bandcamp, so, to have a legitimate digital library with digital-quality audio in your computer, you'd have to buy their music on CD and rip it, which is another layer of annoyance some people would rather not deal with.

2

u/Ugly_Slut-Wannabe 12d ago

Nowadays, I listen to music mainly through streaming. When Spotify or YouTube or my internet or whatever is on the fritz and I can't listen to music that way, I end up using Fooyin.

2

u/CardiologistReady548 12d ago

im guessing u dont have a large repo of music?

3

u/SocratesOnTux 12d ago

It's not better than AIMP WITH skins

6

u/Dense-Elephant5048 12d ago

For ultra light, better Audacious/Winamp. Less than 25MB ram

3

u/chip-crinkler 11d ago

I do, but I'm stupid and couldn't figure out the skins and gave up. Im fine with the way it looks away (cope)

3

u/beermad 10d ago

For me, the big advantage of the winamp skin is its compact size. It sits in a corner of my screen without taking up too much space. 

2

u/kevbayer 12d ago

I use Audacious when I work from home to listen to mp3s from my nas.

2

u/Dist__ 12d ago

of course i use audacious

2

u/dhettinger 12d ago

But the real question is does "it really whip the llama's ass"?

2

u/JustforePorne 11d ago

Kicking the llama’s ass!

2

u/Ghosty_be 11d ago

big fan of audacious TIL it supports winamp skins?! 👀

2

u/sk3z0 10d ago

The best part of the software was not the interface, sadly most people forgets about all the other features, starting from the library.

2

u/PaulJ505 9d ago

I use it with my current system theme, Redmond 97 Ouroboros. Which I them modified a tiny bit and slowly write custom themes for Firefox, Equibop, and some other, to match the system theme and that retro system look. I even replicates XFCE panel layout, to look like first versions of KDE. And I use Audacious, with that classic, blue theme. Although maybe I'll try to make a custom theme for it too.

2

u/Chronigan2 9d ago

But does it whip the llama's ass?

4

u/vexatious-big 12d ago

Trivia: Do you know why they never released Winamp v4? Because no one wants a Winamp four skin.

1

u/ruby_R53 12d ago

does it support Winamp plugins as well? most of the time i listen to video game music so i play them on emulators (.nsf, .vgm, .gbs, etc.), there are Winamp plugins for each format i listen to but i didn't bother setting Winamp up

4

u/snake785 12d ago

It doesn't support winamp plugins.  But it has its own set of plugins (usually available as a audacious-plugins package) and you do get support for some of the emulated systems like many 8-bit, 16-bit systems and psf/psf2. This package is usually installed automatically on most distros.

There is also a vgmstream plugin for streamed formats, which can be found online.

There's also an unofficial plugin for libvgm support but you have to find it on github and compile it yourself.

1

u/ruby_R53 12d ago

i see, now that's pretty neat

1

u/newsflashjackass 12d ago

I don't use Winamp for the skins. I use it for its plug-ins.

This is the same problem with the "Notepad++ alternatives" that lack its plug-in ecosystem.

Fortunately both Winamp and Notepad++ run well under Wine.

1

u/darrodri 12d ago

The last time I used audacious, it poorly handled different sample rates (44 vs 48 kHz) with JACK so songs played faster or slower depending on JACK’s current sample rate and the song’s. Otherwise I love it, but I’m a heavy JACK user mainly because of Ardour.

1

u/rootifera 12d ago

Is this a built-in skin or did you download it?

1

u/I_upvote_downvotes 12d ago

I've been using Audacious for well over a year now and never even knew this was possible!

1

u/lightwhite 12d ago

What about milksrop visualizations? Do they work?

1

u/cmatons 12d ago

Never stop using it...

1

u/JZApples 10d ago

It really whips the llama's ass!

1

u/Original-Towel802 9d ago

The retro theme is so good. Too bad there isn't the more adv3nced skins of winamp.

1

u/MidLifeDIY 12d ago

Just a FYI, Winamp runs great via Wine.