Introduction to Audacious: the light and customizable audio player for Linux
Audacious is an open source audio player that stands out for its low resource consumption and its classic Winamp-inspired interface. It is ideal for Linux users looking for fast and unloaded music playback.
History and evolution
Born in 2004 as a fork of Beep Media Player, Audacious has maintained its philosophy of simplicity while incorporating support for new codecs and performance improvements. Each stable version fixes errors and adds customization options that make it attractive for both beginners and advanced users.
Main characteristics
- Play MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, WAV, WMA and many more by plugins.
- Double interface: classic mode similar to Winamp and adjustable window mode with integrated equalizer.
- Under CPU and RAM, suitable for old equipment or for running in the background.
- Support for themes and skins that change the look without restarting the application.
- 10-band equalizer with pre-settings and possibility of creating custom profiles.
- Play list with drag-and-drop, M3U and PLS support, and own format to save lists.
- Integration with the desktop through notifications, global keyboard shortcuts and MPRIS support.
- Extensible by plugins: letters, visualizations, support for USB devices, scrobbling to Last.fm, etc.
Installation in popular distributions
Then the commands to install Audacious in some of the most used distributions. You're supposed to have administrator privileges.
- Ubuntu / Debian:
sudo apt update sudo apt install audacious - Fedora:
sudo dnf install audacious - Arch Linux and derivatives:
sudo pacman -S audacious - openSUSE:
sudo zypper install audacious - Flatpak (universal):
flatpak install flathub org.atheme.Audacious flatpak run org.atheme.Audacious
Personalization and themes
One of the greatest advantages of Audacious is its ease to change its appearance. You can download skins from the official site or from repositories likeGNOME- Look. To apply a skin:
- Download the .wsz (Winamp's skin) or .zip file containing the resources.
- In Audacious, go to Settings → Interface → Topics and click Install.
- Select the downloaded file and confirm; the new aspect will be applied immediately.
In addition, you can adjust the equalizer, activate visualizations such as Goom or ProjectM, and define keyboard shortcuts for actions such as playing / pausing, moving to the next track or up / down volume.
Useful plugins that expand functionality
- Lyrics:Download and show the lyrics of the song in real time from services like LyricWiki.
- Album Art:Search and display the cover of the album using sources such as Amazon or MusicBrainz.
- Amidi-Plug:It allows the audio to be sent to MIDI devices or to external synthesizers.
- SCROBBLER:Send your reproductions to Last.fm to keep your history updated.
- Audio CD:Support to read and play audio CDs directly.
Practical use: create and manage playlists
Audacious allows to create playlists in a simple way:
- Drag the audio files from your file manager to the main Audacious window.
- Or use the File → Add Files or Add Folder menu to load multiple tracks.
- To save the list, select File → Save playlist and choose the M3U, PLS or Audacious own format.
- You can order the tracks by clicking on the column headings (title, artist, album, duration) or by dragging the elements into the list.
With the Smart Play List plugin you can create rules-based lists such as' playing only songs with a rating greater than 4 stars' or 'all the tracks of the Rock genre added in the last month'.
Integration with the desktop and global shortcuts
Thanks to the MPRIS support, Audacious is integrated with the sound indicators of the most popular desktop environments. You can control the reproduction from the GNOME panel, the KDE applet or the XFCE indicator without focusing the player window. You can also define global keyboard shortcuts in Settings → Quick access keys for actions such as:
- Play / Pausar
- Next clue
- Previous track
- Up / down volume
- Show / Hide Main Window
This is especially useful when Audacious runs in the background while working with other applications.
Conclusion
Audacious remains a solid option for anyone looking for a light, highly configurable audio player with a nostalgic touch. Its ability to work well on old hardware, along with its wide plugin and theme support, makes it a versatile tool for both casual users and for Linux audio enthusiasts. If you have not yet tested it, install it from the repositories of your distribution and discover why so many users consider it their default player.
