I am looking to play music on my desktop.
What do you think of this?
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What is wrong with the normal Spotify App? I am using it right now. Is there some advantage to this? Will it play from other sources?
Besides, this one is no longer being maintained. There is a fork here…
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Do I start with one of these methods?
Building
With GNOME Builder and flatpak
Pre-requisite: install the org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.rust-stable SDK extension with flatpak. Builder might do this for you automatically, but it will install an older version; make sure the version installed matches the version of the Freedesktop SDK GNOME uses.
Open the project in GNOME Builder and make the dev.diegovsky.Riff.development.json configuration active. Then build :)
Manually
Requires Rust (stable), GTK4, and a couple other things. Also requires libadwaita and blueprint-compiler: they are not packaged on all distros at the moment, you might have to build them yourself!
With meson:
meson setup target -Dbuildtype=debug -Doffline=false --prefix="$HOME/.local"
ninja install -C target
# to run test/linter/etc
meson test -C target --verbose
Good question. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can step in as I didn’t think MATE could support GTK4 (Just noticed that).
This is what I found.
If Flatpak isn’t an option:
Ensure your system has:
libgtk-4-dev
libadwaita-1-dev (or similar)
Build tools: meson, ninja, rust, cargo
Clone the repository, then run:
meson setup --prefix=/usr/local build
cd build
ninja
sudo ninja install
This mimics the upstream process for the spot client.
GitHub
Note: Because GTK4 and libadwaita may not be in all Ubuntu repos depending on your version, you may need to backport or build them manually—or upgrade to a newer Ubuntu release that includes them.
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Thanks.
I have Ubuntu MATE 24.04.3 . I do not plan on upgrading.
I like what I have.
How do I know which URL to clone?
Andy, I don’t use an app. I use my browser. I have two favorite sites. There are many genres, some commercial radio stations with ads, but also Internet stations with no ads. They carry everything from today’s hits, to Indie music to independent artists. Also a wide variety of countries. I get to listen to my favorite genre and learn new songs and artists.
My favorite:
I listen to most blues myself:
and another station gives me the names and artists if you miss them:
The other site I use is Streema:
Maybe that will help you find what you want.
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I also do not use spotify. I am completely done with the music industry as it is now (I've seen too much of it from the inside).
I am completely "Creative Commons" nowadays
When I want some radio, I use this:
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I use Rhythm Box and just copy in the streaming URLs for my favorite stations. Mostly jazz such as:
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Oh, I almost forgot.
On my mediacenter I always have Streamtuner2 installed, it is a player for streaming radio websites. It has a collection of default radiosites including shoutcast and somaFM.
sudo apt install streamtuner2
Not all lists work because the often changing radio APIs.
Unfortunately I can't use rhythmbox because it always wants to create a library first before playing something (highly unconvenient) and it also chokes and crashes on my music collection.
I use audacious ( a kind of old winamp clone ) which also can play radiostreams.
As a matter of fact, streamtuner2 uses audacious by default (but that is configurable).
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Thanks.
I bookmarked the site and am listening now. 
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