Music Players

Updated 19 December 2025

The only music player installed by default on Linux Mint is Rhythmbox. I'm sure it's like that on other distributions as well. Over time, I've had multiple issues with it. I went looking for something better.

Audacious

Install Audacious with the software manager. Get equalizer presets here: https://gist.github.com/kra3/9781800

DeaDBeef

Install this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~spvkgn/+archive/ubuntu/deadbeef

The toolbar buttons are hard to see. Replace the toolbar with this: https://github.com/kravich/ddb_customizabletb

Quod Libet

This music application is superior to anything I've ever used on the desktop (like Musicolet on Android). Install the flatpak version because the repository version is outdated.

Quod Libet comes with an equalizer plugin and playlists are a joy to use. The built-in tag editor uses the same code as an accompanying tag editor called "Ex Falco", which I also use. The only other tag editor I've ever used is called "EasyTag", which is difficult for me to use in bulk.

Spotify

As I alluded to in my "Audio Recorder article, I only subscribe to Spotify Premium when I have more than a couple of songs I want to record, and only for a month at a time. The page has the instructions on how to install it on Debian or Ubuntu, which includes Linux Mint.

Normalize MP3 Files

Install "mp3gain" from the repository.

Change to the directory containing MP3 files and run:

find . -name '*mp3' -exec mp3gain -r -k {} \;