Audacious (software)

{{Infobox software

| name = Audacious

| logo = Audacious-2.4-logo.svg

| screenshot = Audacious 3.6 on Windows 8 (screenshot from official website) -- 2015-02.png

| caption = Audacious 3.6

| released = {{Start date and age|2005|10|24}}

| latest release version = {{wikidata|property|preferred|references|edit|Q758685|P348|P548=Q2804309}}

| latest release date = {{start date and age|{{wikidata|qualifier|preferred|single|Q758685|P348|P548=Q2804309|P577}}}}

| latest preview version = {{wikidata|property|preferred|references|edit|Q758685|P348|P548=Q51930650}}

| latest preview date = {{wikidata|qualifier|preferred|single|Q758685|P348|P548=Q51930650|P577}}

| programming language = Originally in C99 and GTK, rewritten in C++11 and Qt at v3.6{{Cite web|url=http://audacious-media-player.org/news/32-audacious-3-6-released|title = Audacious - an Advanced Audio Player}}

| operating system = Unix-like, Windows XP and newer

| genre = Audio player software

| license = Since 3.3: BSD-2-Clause{{Cite web|url=https://github.com/audacious-media-player/audacious/blob/master/COPYING|title = Audacious-media-player/Audacious| website=GitHub }}
1.4 to 3.2.4: GPL-3.0-only{{cite web | url=http://audacious-media-player.org/Main_Page | title=Audacious, Audacious-Plugins 1.4.0 DR1 released | access-date=2021-06-09 |archive-date=2007-08-24 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070824083432/http://audacious-media-player.org/Main_Page | url-status=dead}}
1.3 to 1.3.2: GPL-2.0-only
0.1 to 1.2.2: GPL-2.0-or-later{{cite web | url=https://github.com/audacious-media-player/audacious/commits/master/COPYING | title=History for audacious / COPYING | website=GitHub | access-date=2021-06-09 }}

| website = {{URL|https://audacious-media-player.org/}}

}}

Audacious is a free and open-source audio player software with a focus on low resource use, high audio quality, and support for a wide range of audio formats.{{cite web|title=Linux manual page for Audacious |url=http://git.atheme.org/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/audacious/plain/man/audacious.1.in |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110817064032/http://git.atheme.org/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/audacious/plain/man/audacious.1.in |archive-date=2011-08-17 }} It is designed primarily for use on POSIX-compatible Unix-like operating systems, with limited support for Microsoft Windows.{{cite web|title=Audacious 2.5-alpha1 release announcement |url=http://boards.audacious-media-player.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=341 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724085336/http://boards.audacious-media-player.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=341 |archive-date=2011-07-24 }} Audacious was the default audio player in Ubuntu Studio in 2011–12,{{cite web|title=lubuntu 11.04 released|url=http://lubuntu.net/blog/lubuntu-1104-released|access-date=2011-05-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513070943/http://lubuntu.net/blog/lubuntu-1104-released|archive-date=2013-05-13|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|title=UbuntuStudio/PackageList – Ubuntu Wiki|url=https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/PackageList}} and was the default music player in Lubuntu until October 2018, when it was replaced with VLC.{{Cite web |title=Lubuntu 18.10 (Cosmic Cuttlefish) Released! – Lubuntu |url=https://lubuntu.me/cosmic-released/ |access-date=2022-08-27 |website=lubuntu.me}}

History

Audacious began as a fork of Beep Media Player, which itself is a fork of XMMS. Ariadne "kaniini" Conill decided to fork Beep Media Player after the original development team announced that they were stopping development in order to create a next-generation version called BMPx. According to the Audacious home page, Conill and others "had [their] own ideas about how a player should be designed, which [they] wanted to try in a production environment."{{cite web|title=Audacious – Frequently Asked Questions |url=http://audacious-media-player.org/faq#id2 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100506005148/http://audacious-media-player.org/faq |archive-date=2010-05-06 }}

Since version 2.1, Audacious includes both the Winamp-like interface known from previous versions and a new, GTK-based interface known as GTKUI, which resembles foobar2000 to some extent. GTKUI became the default interface in Audacious 2.4.

= Change to C++ and Qt =

Before version 3.0, Audacious used the GTK 2.x toolkit by default. Partial support for GTK3 was added in version 2.5,{{cite web|title=Audacious 2.5 release announcement |url=http://boards.audacious-media-player.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=477 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110622034010/http://boards.audacious-media-player.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=477 |archive-date=2011-06-22 }} and Audacious 3.0 has full support for GTK3 and uses it by default.{{cite web|title=Audacious 3.0-alpha1 release announcement |url=http://boards.audacious-media-player.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=487 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724085406/http://boards.audacious-media-player.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=487 |archive-date=2011-07-24 }} However, dissatisfied with the evolution of GTK3, the Audacious team chose to revert to GTK2 starting with the 3.6 release, with long-term plans of porting to Qt.{{cite web|title= GTK2 port|url=http://redmine.audacious-media-player.org/boards/1/topics/1269}}

Since August 8, 2018, GTK3 support was dropped completely.{{cite web |title=Audacious 3.10 released |url=https://audacious-media-player.org/news/43-audacious-3-10-released |access-date=13 May 2019 |quote="GTK+ 3.x support is also gone for real in this release. .... Use Qt 5 if GTK+ 2.x is too "outdated""}}

As of version 4.0, Audacious is using Qt as its primary toolkit but GTK 2.x support is still available.{{Cite web|url=https://audacious-media-player.org/news/45-audacious-4-0-released|title=Audacious 4.0 released|last=Lindgren|first=John|date=2020-03-22|website=audacious-media-player.org|access-date=2020-03-22}}

As of version 4.3, Audacious has reinstated GTK3 support.

Features

File:Audacious in Action.jpg-like interface running on Ubuntu 8.04]]

File:Workspace1003.png 11.10]]

File:Audaciuos_4.2_-_QT.png

File:Audaciuos_4.2_-_GTK.png

Audacious contains built-in gapless playback.

= Default codec support =

MP3 using libmpg123
Advanced Audio Coding (AAC and AAC+)
Vorbis
FLAC
Wavpack
Shorten (SHN)
Musepack
TTA (codec)
Windows Media Audio (WMA)
Apple Lossless (ALAC)
150 different module formats via libopenmpt and libmodplug
Several chiptune formats: AY, GBS, GYM, HES, KSS, NSF, NSFE, SAP, SPC, VGM, VGZ, VTX
PlayStation Audio: Portable Sound Format (PSF and PSF2)
Nintendo DS Sound Format: 2SF
Ad-lib chiptunes via AdPlug library
WAV formats provided by libsndfile plug-in.
MIDI via native OS synthesizer control or FluidSynth.
CD Audio

= Plug-ins =

Audacious owes a large portion of its functionality to plug-ins, including all codecs. More features are available via third-party plug-ins.

Current versions of the Audacious core classify plug-ins as follows (some are low level and not user-visible at this time):

Decoder plug-ins, which contain the actual codecs used for decoding content.
Transport plug-ins, which are lowlevel and implemented by the VFS layer.
General plug-ins, which provide user-added services to the player (such as sending tracks with AudioScrobbler)
Output plug-ins, which provide the audio system backend of the player.
Visualization plug-ins, which provide visualizations based on fast Fourier transforms of the wave data.
Effect plug-ins, which provide various sound processing on the decoded audio stream
Container plug-ins, which provide support for playlists and other similar structures.
Lowlevel plug-ins, which provide miscellaneous services to the player core and are not categorized into any of the other plug-ins.
Output plug-ins:
PulseAudio output
OSS4 output
ALSA output
Sndio output
SDL output
FileWriter plug-in – no sound is played, the output is instead redirected into a new file: this plug-in supports the output file formats: WAV, mp3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, it can be used to transcode a file and also to rip a CD
JACK output
PipeWire output{{cite web | url = https://9to5linux.com/audacious-4-3-audio-player-adds-pipewire-plugin-native-opus-decoder-and-more | title = Audacious 4.3 Audio Player Adds PipeWire Plugin, Native Opus Decoder, and More | author = Marius Nestor | date = 2023-03-07 | access-date = 2024-03-25}}

= Skins =

Audacious has full support for Winamp 2 skins, and as of version 1.2, some free-form skinning is possible. Winamp .wsz skin files, a type of Zip archive, can be used directly, or can be unarchived to individual directories. The program can use Windows Bitmap (.bmp) graphics from the Winamp archive, although native skins for Linux are usually rendered in Portable Network Graphics (.png) format. Audacious 1.x allows the user to adjust the RGB color balance of any skin, effectively making a basic white skin equivalent to a host of colorized skins without editing them manually.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}}

= Clients =

Audacious is intended to be a standalone media player not a server (unlike XMMS2), though it accepts connections from client software, such as Conky.

Connection to Audacious for remote control can be done over plain DBus, by using an MPRIS-compatible client, or using the official Audtool utility created just for this purpose.