AmaroK
Amarok is a GUI music player for KDE (But it also can be run successfully from other environments).
History
Mark Kretschmann, the founder of Amarok, was frustrated by the missing 1x1 pixel target in popular mediaplayer XMMS and decided to create amaroK (This was because, he was hitting the stop button instead of the play button in XMMS).
Features
Amarok is arguably the most feature-rich multimedia player for KDE. It has a practical and well-designed layout. There is also the option to choose between a single-window jukebox-like interface or a multi-window interface.
It's Important Features include:
- First-run wizard:
The user is given the option of setting up a collection of his music, using which Amarok determines the users most favourite tracks(among other features).
are among the engines available.
- Audioscrobbler support
This allows Amarok (if the user chooses), to send information about the songs heard by the user to an internet-based database, which in turn returns information about new songs which matches the taste of the user. (This information is obtained from uploads by other users).
- Integrated iPod support.
- Lyrics retrieval and display
- Support for themes
- A 10-band graphic equalizer(Only with select engines)
- Automatic album cover retrieval
- Artist/Album/Track details retrieval from Wikipedia
- CD-burning support (Through k3b)
Association with KDE
Amarok is a part of kdeextragear, and hence has an independent release cycle to that of KDE, but however, it is expected to join kdemultimedia replacing Noatun.
The Name
- The name Amarok is an adaptation of an album of Mike Oldfields' with the same name.
- Originally it was named amaroK, but since June 2006 renamed to Amarok.
- The word amarok also means wolf in Inuktitut, a language spoken by the Inuit people, mostly in northern North America and northern Europe. As a result many of Amarok's logos and splashscreens contain a depiction of a howling wolf.