For a while now, actually ever since I started using Linux as my choice of operating system on my desktop, I’m struggling to find the right way to manage my music.

I found my perfect way to organize it on the drive but I have yet to find the perfect program to manage my library.I organize my music on my drive as /Artist/ Year - Album/Track# - Song title and for compilations, like sound tracks, it’s /OST/Year - Album/Track# - Artist - Song title. I have some other directories structures as well but you get the picture.

Before I made my move to Linux, I never used a music organizer. I just open Windows Explorer, browse though my directory structure and add songs to QMP, my player of choice. For some reason I can’t seem to do this on Linux, technically you can of course but something is stopping me from using this method in Linux. I have a bookmark straight to my music library but I don’t use it. One reason is the lack of a missing “Open with <player>” when I right click on a directory, you have to go into the directory before you can add songs to a player.

I have tried to find a library organizer and the best thing I’ve found is Amarok. Now I use Gnome as my desktop environment and when I installed Amarok I kept getting error messages in my syslog, it wasn’t effecting my desktop, no crashes or such but some of the KDE libraries tried to start or search for something in the background and I don’t like that. All other’s that I’ve tried just don’t do it for me, I’ve tried several Banshee, Aqualung, Rhythmbox and some others. Some are slow, some don’t have full support of all ID tags.

I still need to find an organizer to my liking but I’m not giving up, until I find one I’ll just have to do it the hard way, browsing and adding songs.

If you have been reading this blog for a while you know I have recently switched over from Thunderbird to Claws Mail. After all the fuss at Mozilla concerning Thunderbird I thought I would look for a replacement, not for immediate use, but for the future in case Thunderbird was shot down from it’s email flight.
Now that I have been using Claws Mail for a while I thought I would write up a comparison between Claws Mail and Thunderbird and maybe this way I can help some people making a decision.

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Before I got involved in the Ubuntu community I was briefly involved in the Fedora Infrastructure. Most of the tools they used were written in Python. When I got more involved in the Ubuntu community I noticed that Python was used a lot there too. I’m curious why two major Linux distributions choose to use Python so intensively. During my Fedora time I noticed many Python related activities weren’t being picked up and I asked the following on the Fedora mail list:

Just out of curiosity but why are our webapps written in Python and not in Perl for example?

I have a feeling there is more Perl knowledge among infrastructure specialists as there is Python.

The reply was simple, somebody started in Python a while back and Python was structured and when using Perl it’s very easy to create unreadable code.

I don’t agree that Python won’t lead to unreadable code as well. Now I don’t know Python but I know several other programming languages. I’ve been programming for over 25 years and have seen my share of good code and absolute garbage and it didn’t matter what language was used. I truly believe the difference between good code and garbage is the programmer, not the programming language. Sure certain programming languages can help in setting up a good structure and therefor it should make it a little bit easier to write readable code. I used to program in Cobol and I can say that was one programming language with lots of rules and structure. It sure helped but I had coworkers who’s code was horrible to debug or near impossible to extend.

Again, I don’t know Python, I have seen some programs and that’s it, so I don’t know how easy it is to write good code or make it completely unreadable. I will be teaching myself Python over the next few months as I would love to help out with some of the Python issues I see in the Ubuntu community as well. Maybe I even start a new blog series: “Teaching myself Python”. I don’t know how big the learning curve is but I’ll give it a shot.

I have been using git for a while now and I have to say I like it a lot. It’s quick, easy to use and very informative when using the webgui as well.

The one thing that is kind of odd is the fact most, if not all commands are duplicated, for example the command git-pull can also be git pull. I know it’s the same but why have two options? I know it’s not a big deal, I just hope doesn’t get out of control.

The other thing is that when you updated your files and created a tag and you push your updates to the repository it doesn’t push the tag, you have to push tag manually. The developers know about it and I believe they are working on it. Otherwise I love git.

Even though git is designed for big projects and I don’t manage a big project at all, it doesn’t stop me from using git. After Linux Linus delivered another great piece of software.

Back in the days I used Eudora as my email client, I didn’t like Outlook Express, the development kinda stopped on Eudora and I needed more out of my email client. After releuctantly using Outlook Express I was relieved to see Thunderbird and I made the switch. I never looked back again and never thought about Eudora again.
When I made the switch to Linux, Thunderbird was the obvious choice. I tried Evolution but that just didn’t do it for me.

With all the turmoil at Mozilla and the new MailCo that’s started I don’t know what to think. The future of Thunderbird isn’t clear, nothing has been said expect not to worry, yeah we heard that before. The two big names of Thunderbird development left Mozilla the last couple of days. Some people suggest there will be forking of Thunderbird.

While waiting for more news I decided to look around at other clients.Evolution is a no-no for me, I just don’t like it. Claws looks promising. I’m having some issues converting though, I tried the scripts Claws offers but with no luck. Converting by hand is a pain, I’ve got a lot of folders and several accounts. I’ll keep looking around, just in case Thunderbird becomes a wingless bird.