You might have known terminal to be a type of place where only the nerds hang out.
But hey, that’s not entirely true. Here are a list of top 6 command line music players for Linux that you can run right in your Linux terminal.
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CMUS – Console Music Player
CMUS is a very light weight music player that runs on console. It’s source code is entirely written in C programming language. The range of audio format supported by this music player is quite a lot.
It supports a wide range of audio files such as Ogg Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, etc. You can rest easy whatever you may have is supported.
Also, it gives you the ability to create a custom music library with your music files. Which provides you flexibility to better manage your music audio files.
Moreover, it supports gap-less playback while playing your audio files. Which enhances your experience greatly.
You can also find goodies on their own wiki page, if you want something custom you can look it up there. Also, one interesting thing about CEMU is that it supports SHOUTcast, Icecast for MP3 files.
In addition to it it also supports audio scrobbling to sites like last.fm or libre.fm.
You can check out the GUI for the music player below. I do not have any audio files loaded as this is just for reference.
You can install CMUS in different Linux distribution using the following commands.
$ sudo apt install cmus [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo yum install cmus [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/cmus [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add cmus [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S cmus [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install cmus [On OpenSUSE] MOC – Music On Console
The Music on Console is another light weight music player for Linux consoles. You can load thousands of music files really fast using MOC.
It has a lot of similar features related to CEMU for example it supports gap-less playback.
Also, it supports almost all modern audio files like MP3, FLAC, Ogg, etc. That means it is really flexible for your music library.
It also has a lot of useful keyboard shortcuts, that can make your usage very comfortable. Along with ALSA, JACK & OSS support for audio output.
In addition to everything else it also has different themes and colors that makes your terminal player feel very interactive.
Use the following commands as per your Linux distribution for installing on your system.
$ sudo apt install moc [On Ubuntu, Mint and Debian]
$ sudo yum install moc [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/moc [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add moc [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo pacman -S moc [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo zypper install moc [On OpenSUSE] Musikcube
Musikcube is yet another music player for your Linux terminal that is free and open source. It also supports lower powered devices such as RaspberryPi for playing music.
There are a lot of plugins that can be used to enhance the underlying functionality of the Musikcube for example data streaming and digital signal processing. This can provide so much control over your music experience if you want to.
Musikcube can provide a better library and queue management for you. When this is combined with high quality audio output handling you get top the notch experience.
If you have a headless server running in your home you can set it up on the server too for streaming. Even if you have 100k tracks with you.
It has gap-less playback with cross-fade support during the music playback for your large music collection. Take a look at the interface below.
You can install the Musikcube by downloading the .deb or .rpm for your version of Linux from their release page.
mpg123 – Audio Player and Decoder
mpg123 is another underrated terminal audio player for Linux. It is absolutely free and opensource terminal music player. It is available for Windows and Linux both.
It has the features of other music players such as gap-less playback of MP3 files. It supports multiple audio files but mainly it is for MP3.
The support of output is also quite extensive and competitive for example JACK, ALSA, and OSS.
What sets it apart is that it has audio format/rate/channel conversions options, which is not seen in other players mentioned above.
In addition to the above features it has relative volume adjustment that can help audio output gain beyond the 100% volume limit. But remember the gain might cause distortions.
Official Website: https://mpg123.org/
You can install mpg123 using the following commands for your Linux distribution.
$ sudo yum install mpg123 [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo apt install mpg123 [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo pacman -S mpg123 [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/mpg123 [On Gentoo Linux]
$ sudo apk add mpg123 [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo zypper install mpg123 [On OpenSUSE] Kew Music Player
This is yet another very small music player that is open-source too and it was created by Ravachol. This music player searches within your music library for the words that you have provided, it creates a playlist, plays the music and also prints out the album cover in terminal using the ASCII art.
The cue also has similar features to it’s competitors such as extensive support for audio files like: MP3, FLAC, and WAV. You can also organize and play whole playlist if you want too.
It has a search feature that searches for specific word in your music library and plays that. And that paired with common keyboard shortcuts it is quite flexible.
Official Website: https://github.com/ravachol/kew
To install the music player you can use the following Linux terminal commands.
# For Debian/Ubuntu
$ sudo apt install -y pkg-config libfaad-dev libtag1-dev libfftw3-dev libopus-dev libopusfile-dev libvorbis-dev libogg-dev git gcc make libchafa-dev libglib2.0-dev
# For Arch Linux:
$ sudo pacman -Syu --noconfirm --needed pkg-config faad2 taglib fftw git gcc make chafa glib2 opus opusfile libvorbis libogg
# For macOS:
brew install gettext faad2 taglib chafa fftw opus opusfile libvorbis libogg glib pkg-config make git
# For Fedora:
$ dnf install -y pkg-config taglib-devel fftw-devel opus-devel opusfile-devel libvorbis-devel libogg-devel git gcc make chafa-devel libatomic gcc-c++ glib2-devel
# For OpenSUSE:
$ sudo zypper install -y pkg-config taglib-devel fftw-devel opus-devel opusfile-devel libvorbis-devel libogg-devel git chafa-devel gcc make glib2-devel
# For CentOS/RHEL:
$ sudo yum install -y pkgconfig taglib-devel fftw-devel opus-devel opusfile-devel libvorbis-devel libogg-devel git gcc make chafa-devel glib2-devel
# For Solus:
$ sudo eopkg install -y pkg-config faad2-devel taglib-devel fftw-devel opus-devel opusfile-devel libvorbis-devel libogg-devel git gcc make chafa-devel glib2-devel
# For Guix:
$ guix install pkg-config faad2 taglib fftw git gcc make chafa opus opusfile libvorbis libogg glib
# For Void Linux:
$ sudo xbps-install -y pkg-config faad2 taglib taglib-devel fftw git gcc make chafa chafa-devel opus opusfile opusfile-devel libvorbis libogg glib-devel
# For Alpine Linux:
$ sudo apk add pkgconfig faad2 faad2-dev taglib-dev fftw-dev opus opusfile libvorbis-dev libogg-dev git build-base chafa-dev glib-dev
Code language: PHP (php)After running the above commands run the following commands as well.
$ git clone https://github.com/ravachol/kew.git
$ cd kew
$ make -ij4
$ sudo make installCode language: PHP (php)Mp3blaster – Audio Player for Console
Mp3blaster is a really old music player for terminal which was first introduced in 1997. Because of that it hasn’t been actively developed as the last commit on GitHub is seen on 2014.
You can find the repository in GitHub. It has quite a lot of features for you to use it. It has playlist support that is not good but okay. The audio handling is great as well, it can output really quality audio.
You can install Mp3blaster in your machine using one of the commands below.
$ sudo apt install mp3blaster [On Debian, Ubuntu and Mint]
$ sudo apk add mp3blaster [On Alpine Linux]
$ sudo zypper install mp3blaster [On OpenSUSE]
$ sudo yum install mp3blaster [On RHEL/CentOS/Fedora and Rocky/AlmaLinux]
$ sudo pacman -S mp3blaster [On Arch Linux]
$ sudo emerge -a sys-apps/mp3blaster [On Gentoo Linux] This concludes out list of top 6 command line music players for Linux. Keep searching and keep hacking.
Also Read
https://techenum.com/packet-forwarding-linux-iptables/
https://techenum.com/wireguard-vpn-on-linux/
