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Unofficial Winamp Web Site

mywinamp.com

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Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#21

Post by sandoooo »

mrweasel wrote: post #17
deanCommie wrote: post #7

One could argue we made better ways to play MP3s on our computers. But nothing has come anywhere close to improving or replacing Milkdrop

I would argue that WinAmp and XMMS where the last good audio players. Why is it that modern music players think that the need to do library management, why are they fullscreen applications? We need to start maintaining winamp and the clones again.

For pure mp3 playing, foobar2000 is like winamp except still getting updated, with less ugly (more OS-conforming) UI. For even more simplicity, there's no reason you should need a separate app for mp3s and movies, and mpc-hc is the best no-nonsense media player.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#22

Post by KindOne »

Teever wrote: post #6

Does anyone know what happened to the company that bought Winamp? If I recall correctly they announced that they were going to be releasing modern versions of Winamp a few years ago but there's been nothing but radio silence.

Version 5.8.3660 was released 15 months ago in October 2018.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#23

Post by xyz0 »

lazyjeff wrote: post #14
ktzar wrote: post #11

There's is a website that's keeping versions of Winamp, including the one I consider the best 2.95 https://winampheritage.com/download-winamp-player

Winamp 2 has been my music player for 20 years and it's still my main player that I use with the flac plugin. I never upgraded to Winamp 3 or 5, and Winamp 2.95 is still fully functional on Windows 10. Selecting "Double Size" makes it mostly fine on a HiDPI monitor, except some controls are a bit pixelated. Winamp 2.95 didn't need to connect to the internet, there is no background service, no application manager bloa…

> What happened?

Acceleration of the following:

- commodification of information on the internet

- the subscription model

- incentives for tracking users' every move

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#24

Post by smcl »

If, like me, you only recently decided to start listening to your music collection on a linux desktop and were dismayed to find that xmms was split into some odd client/server model, you can still use the original xmms 1.x. I wrote up how I built it here, since I found it a bit fiddly: https://blog.mclemon.io/debian-building-the-original-xmms

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#25

Post by alxlaz »

smcl wrote: post #24

If, like me, you only recently decided to start listening to your music collection on a linux desktop and were dismayed to find that xmms was split into some odd client/server model, you can still use the original xmms 1.x. I wrote up how I built it here, since I found it a bit fiddly: https://blog.mclemon.io/debian-building-the-original-xmms

Just a quick note that, unless there's a very specific reason why you want the original XMMS (nostalgia, or a specific plugin?), it may be more convenient to go with Audacious. It has a "Winamp" mode that gives you the same interface. It also supports classic skins, from back when UIs weren't all flat and boring, so that you can look at your desktop without yawning for more than ten seconds.

Building heirloom :-) GTK and glib isn't a big deal, but Audacious is packaged by pretty much all distros.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#26

Post by mrob »

Winamp was my first general-purpose music player. When I switched OS to GNU/Linux I switched to XMMS (originally called X11Amp), which was a clone of Winamp. XMMS was later forked to Beep Media Player, and Beep Media Player was forked to Audacious Media Player, which I still use today.

I use the GTK interface of Audacious Media Player now, because it works better with higher resolution screens, but the old Winamp-style interface is still supported, and Audacious Media Player still has all the speed and simplicity that made me love Winamp when I first tried it.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#27

Post by tomduncalf »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #9
mirimir wrote: post #4

Yeah, I remember when Winamp went to hell. I ended up using AIMP, which was fitting because I was "buying" music from some Eastern European "store" that operated under Russian copyright law.

AllOfMP3?

Oh wow that takes me back haha!

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#28

Post by doodliego »

rlv-dan wrote: post #18
lazyjeff wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Winamp 2 has been my music player for 20 years and it's still my main player that I use with the flac plugin. I never upgraded to Winamp 3 or 5, and Winamp 2.95 is still fully functional on Windows 10. Selecting "Double Size" makes it mostly fine on a HiDPI monitor, except some controls are a bit pixelated. Winamp 2.95 didn't need to connect to the internet, there is no background service, no application manager bloa…

My only problem with Winamp 2 is that people laugh at me when they pass my computer and see it.

Same. So I just open up task manager and show them that it uses only 3.4 MB. As opposed to Teams, Chrome, and all this other bloatware.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#29

Post by kaoD »

lazyjeff wrote: post #14
ktzar wrote: post #11

There's is a website that's keeping versions of Winamp, including the one I consider the best 2.95 https://winampheritage.com/download-winamp-player

Winamp 2 has been my music player for 20 years and it's still my main player that I use with the flac plugin. I never upgraded to Winamp 3 or 5, and Winamp 2.95 is still fully functional on Windows 10. Selecting "Double Size" makes it mostly fine on a HiDPI monitor, except some controls are a bit pixelated. Winamp 2.95 didn't need to connect to the internet, there is no background service, no application manager bloa…

> What happened?

Capitalism.

You can't make money out of shareware, so now everything is SaaS. This makes software way harder to write since now you're responsible for a distributed platform, including devops.

Competition is fierce now. There are very low barriers to entry, which made hobbyist projects (which is what Winamp would be considered now) mostly free.

If there's any money left in those low-barrier markets monopolies expanded into them. The only way to compete with them is with added value like a huge library of music (Spotify). Good luck trying to strike deals with record labels as a lone developer. VCs will devour any corner of opportunity in a blink, demanding growth, which will turn a perfectly fine piece of software into a feature-crept SaaS privacy-invading social platform.

TL;DR: money isn't in software anymore for self-employed people.

Re: Unofficial Winamp Web Site

#30

Post by smcl »

alxlaz wrote: post #25
smcl wrote: post #24

If, like me, you only recently decided to start listening to your music collection on a linux desktop and were dismayed to find that xmms was split into some odd client/server model, you can still use the original xmms 1.x. I wrote up how I built it here, since I found it a bit fiddly: https://blog.mclemon.io/debian-building-the-original-xmms

Just a quick note that, unless there's a very specific reason why you want the original XMMS (nostalgia, or a specific plugin?), it may be more convenient to go with Audacious. It has a "Winamp" mode that gives you the same interface. It also supports classic skins, from back when UIs weren't all flat and boring, so that you can look at your desktop without yawning for more than ten seconds. Building heirloom :-) GTK…

Good point - it's purely a nostalgia thing for me. I will definitely check out Audacious though!
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