Illogic-al on amaroK

Gone are the days when KDE users would lament for an XMMS replacement.
With the likes of amaroK (down) and JuK on the
scene, it would seem that KDE Multimedia is gaining new fans. Which
brings us to this user's
opinion piece on amaroK
(coral). It may be illogical... but at least it
has screenshots. It'll be interesting to see what KDE Multimedia 4.0
looks like.

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Comments

by c0p0n (not verified)

you're insane, man...

by ac (not verified)

It'll be interesting to see what KDE Multimedia 4.0 looks like.

Allow me to sound negative, but in my view, realistic.

In the year 2005, KDE multimedia will still not be too impressive I suspect. Yes Juk and Amarok are nice, stand alone music players that is.

Multimedia on KDE, to be fair, currently is a stand alone music player and a stand alone movie player (non-kde). If you can get things to work, Mplayer and Xine will play everthing you want. From a UI point of view, both these are very different and totaly not related to kde in any way.

Then we also have a Noatun "thing", which basically is one big ass programming framework who no one ever sees use in writing great stuff for (we go down the separate Juk and Amarok route and make it all more spread out and now we are most things twice where Noatun could prevent that). Noatun is like a piece of leftover never really used and apprciated. In the earlier KDE days it used to drag your system to the ground, you was lucky if it did not skip like hell and even if it did work, you was stuck with horrible UI and bad default playlists. Sure some people might still use it these days, but it is lightyears away from being a practical multimedia solution. Unless great practical plugins arrive for it which make Noatun absolutely interesting to use, Noatun will drag and drag and drag with KDE in the future.

So we will be stuck with at least one music player (but it plays movies also) and at least one other music player and the end-user can figure out why the hell that is and why it is confusing things.

To add to the confusion, we have Kaboodle. OK, so, if Kaboodle is a media player, what does that make Noatun? If you think you where confused, now you reached a level of confusion where you just happy you can start xmms, mplayer, xine, amarok, juk or something else and leave those kaboodle and Noatun laying around uselessly.

Yes that sounds very negative, but I really love using KDE. KDE is almighty impressive. There is no other desktop solution I would want to use at this moment. I could go on and on about how great I believe it is. But if there is one thing which I think is really really horrible in KDE, it's multimedia. Sure it will improve over time, but I have a gut feeling this is going to take some years still. KDE 4.0 is going to be even more great, but I seriously believe that even in KDE 4.0 multimedia will _feel_ like a hacked together bunch with useless leftovers from the past which you might get to work. KDE multimedia is big ass challenge for KDE and I doubt KDE4.0 is going to really impress me with multimedia. Well, this is just my oppionion, and I would really like to be prooven wrong by the time I can start using 4.0.

by Janne (not verified)

Uh, the discussion about Multimedia in KDE 4.0 has been about Arts and it's replacement, and not about individual multimedia-apps as such.

Why two musicplayers you ask? Juk And Amarok are quite different beasts. IMO one is not a replacement for the other, since their design is totally different. And besides, Juk ships with KDE, Amarok does not. What do you suggest we do? Ask Amarok-developers to stop developing their app? Yeah, right.

AFAIK, Amarok was invited to be shipped with KDE, but the developers declined. So we now have a built-in KDE music-player (Juk) and a music-player that ships outside of KDE (Amarok). IF Amarok shipped with KDE, then we should think about doing something with Juk. But, as things are now, that is not required, since Amarok does not ship with KDE. Juk already kicks ass, and I would assume that it kicks even more ass in the future. So as far as multimedia-apps are concerned, I see no reason to worry. We already have kick-ass apps, and they will keep on kicking more and more ass.

And what is this "non-KDE" movieplayers you talk about? Kaffeine? Kmplayer? Both are KDE-apps.

The one area that desperately needs work in KDE's multimedia is the sound-server (Arts). Luckily Arts is on it's way out.

by ac (not verified)

>>Uh, the discussion about Multimedia in KDE 4.0 has been about Arts and it's replacement, and not about individual multimedia-apps as such.

So what? Multimedia apps are part of the whole thing, outside apps tend to have much outside dependencies. It's not simply just Arts.

>>Why two musicplayers you ask?
No I don't ask that. I _tell_ you about confusion and clutter.
>>Juk And Amarok are quite different beasts.
See, you don't get my point. Two musicplayers are not Amarok and Juk, but Amarok and Noatun. Actualy it's three, Amarok, Noatun and Kaboodle. (just using Amarok as an example). And if you add the others you mention, Kaffeine and Kmplayer, make that 5 players (audio/media) of some KDE kind. It's at least 4 projects being a multimedia player or solution.

>>So as far as multimedia-apps are concerned, I see no reason to worry.
Well, where did I say I worry about multimedia apps? I am talking about Noatun and Kaboodle here as so called pure KDE apps and clutter and confusion. Juk is a good audio player and just that. That already makes 3 audio players (add noatun and kaboodle), where 2 are much considered clutter, but they are the KDE multimedia framework.

>>And what is this "non-KDE" movieplayers you talk about? Kaffeine? Kmplayer? Both are KDE-apps.
Well great. How depended on outside libraries are those? Do they fit in the KDE multimedia framework well? Will including them mean many new dependencies? How likely are they to end up in a default KDE build in 4.0? I hope to see them added if they mean great things, sure. Are they all just sort of GUI's for engines, how many GUI's are we talking about here then? What about Noatun and Kaboodle, arn't those supposed to be the multimedia framework already?

>>The one area that desperately needs work in KDE's multimedia is the sound-server (Arts). Luckily Arts is on it's way out.

Well, getting it out is not allot of work, more a thing of convinsing relevant people. Are you telling me all we have to do is get it out and replace it by something else and all of a sudden Noatun, Kaboodle, Kaffeine and Kmplayer are all doing the same thing, but added all into kde-multimedia?

Look just because I offer you an oppionion does not mean I can't change that oppionion, but it will take a solid kde multimedia framework, without clutter from the past, confusion and lots of dependencies on outside applications, that's the part I think needs work also.

by Janne (not verified)

"See, you don't get my point. Two musicplayers are not Amarok and Juk, but Amarok and Noatun. Actualy it's three, Amarok, Noatun and Kaboodle. (just using Amarok as an example). And if you add the others you mention, Kaffeine and Kmplayer, make that 5 players (audio/media) of some KDE kind. It's at least 4 projects being a multimedia player or solution."

AFAIK, Noatun and Kaboodle are on their way out. And yep, there are different apps aout there, like Kaffeine and KMplayer. And, again: what do you suggest we should do? Force the developers not to work on their apps? AFAIK, neither Kaffeine or Kmplayer ship with KDE.

Hell, what if I decided that none of the current apps are any good and decided to write my own app. What would you do about it? Beat me up?

"Well great. How depended on outside libraries are those?"

Xine and/or Mplayer. And I see no problem with that. Or are you suggesting that instead of using a library that already exists and works, KDE-devels should re-invent the wheel and write yet another library from scratch? Uh, OK....

"Do they fit in the KDE multimedia framework well?"

Considering that future framework for KDE is still in the air, it's too early to say, But I would say yes.

"Well, getting it out is not allot of work, more a thing of convinsing relevant people. Are you telling me all we have to do is get it out and replace it by something else and all of a sudden Noatun, Kaboodle, Kaffeine and Kmplayer are all doing the same thing, but added all into kde-multimedia?"

No. Could you please show me where I made a claim like that? In the future, Kaboodle, Noatun and the like will most likely be dropped. The apps that will be there are going to be Juk and a movie-player (Kaffeine?). And I see no problems with having a separate music-player and a separate movie-player.

"but it will take a solid kde multimedia framework, without clutter from the past, confusion and lots of dependencies on outside applications, that's the part I think needs work also."

If there are already "outside applications" that already work, it would be stupid to not take advantage of them. Did you know that the multimedia-framework on KDE4.0 will come from "outside" (the horror!). And the movie-players rely on outside libs/apps (Xine/Mplayer). And why shouldn't they? Instead of wasting time reinventing the wheel, the time should be spent elsewhere.

by Morty (not verified)

Whatever happens to KDE multimedia I hope Kaboodle newer goes, it is the single most usable multimedia app in KDE. If you use it the way it was meant to be used. Namely playing of single files, you have none of the crap the other players have like playlist, visualizing tools, skinning etc. You use it to check files you find before you decide to add it to your playlist or just to quickly test. Kaboodle is clean and fast, if you click on a file in Konqueror it only plays it and goes away and most important it leaves your playlist alone. Anyway comparing Kaboodle to Noatun/Juk/amoraK/Kaffeine is like comparing KWrite to KDevelop. They are different tools meant for different tasks.

by Corbin (not verified)

I agree, Kaboodle is great for that though I say your analogy is wrong. It would be better to compare KEdit (KWrite's little cousin) to KDevelop.

I use Kaboodle to play all those weird WAV files my friends send me (I don't want quote from Invader Zim being added to my playlists, even if they are incredibly funny)

I say there should be 3 multimedia apps in KDE (shipped): Kaboodle for single media file playing, amaroK for audio files and audio library, and either Kaffeine (Xine Front End) or KPlayer (MPlayer Front End) for movie playback (I believe Xine is already a dependancy of KDE-Multimedia, so thats no extra stuff to add for Kaffeine)

by gnumdk (not verified)

> Kaboodle for single media file playing, amaroK for audio files and audio library

I think it's a bad idea, you don't want to have to apps for playing sound, default audio apps in kde have to be default audio apps in konqueror.

by Morty (not verified)

Nope, you have to consider the usage patterns and the difference of playing single files from Konqueror and managing your music collection in a userfriendly manner. An apt analogy are the case of Kuickshow and Digikam.

by TDH (not verified)

Seconded (or thirded?)---please keep kaboodle!

by ac (not verified)

>>Hell, what if I decided that none of the current apps are any good and decided to write my own app. What would you do about it? Beat me up?

Yeah kick your ass. Are you serious? I am only pointing out the confusion and you helped clear some of that.

>>"Well great. How depended on outside libraries are those?"
>>Xine and/or Mplayer. And I see no problem with that.

I see no problem usability wise, but simply does this mean that KDE will choose either of these two and add the engine code of either of the two into the official KDE source tree? All I am asking if it means just that, KDE adopts that engine code in it's own source tree, I doubt that currently.

>>"Do they fit in the KDE multimedia framework well?"
>>Considering that future framework for KDE is still in the air, it's too early to say, But I would say yes.

Exactly, it's all in the air. All I did was offer an oppionion about how that air was likely to flow, but your comment on Kaboodle offers at least some clearance.

>>Kaboodle, Noatun and the like will most likely be dropped.

IF "most likely" means -for sure- in KDE 4.0, my oppionion on it's multimedia was false granted and things are going to effectivly change. If else, I made my point well after all.

>>And I see no problems with having a separate music-player and a separate movie-player.

Neither do I.

>>If there are already "outside applications" that already work, it would be stupid to not take advantage of them.

Obviously. I only hope it's technically feasible to do and does not run into troubles of dependencies and cross-platform-ability, that's my main concern. It's not just a matter of simply being able to take advantage an application. I do not think the question is directly if KDE would ever want to do that.

>>Did you know that the multimedia-framework on KDE4.0 will come from "outside" (the horror!).

Erm no and you somehow believe I consider that a horror - where can I read about this framework going to be from "outside", in solid form, not in an arguement? If this really means a solid solution, no more confusion and clutter from the past, amen.

>>And the movie-players rely on outside libs/apps (Xine/Mplayer). And why shouldn't they? Instead of wasting time reinventing the wheel, the time should be spent elsewhere.

Yes off-coarse! Just as long as it all works slick in practice, the relevant developers agree with you, it stays cross-platform, yes in theory it then works. Untill then, I will wait and see what KDE 4.0 will offer, not in theory but in practice.

by Ian Monroe (not verified)

>I see no problem usability wise, but simply does this mean that KDE will choose >either of these two and add the engine code of either of the two into the >official KDE source tree? All I am asking if it means just that, KDE adopts that >engine code in it's own source tree, I doubt that currently.

no, KDE wouldn't incorporate xine or mplayer. KDE would depend on it. Its the polite open source way of doing things.

by superstoned (not verified)

KDE 4.0 will feature (most likely) Gstreamer as the multi-media backend. or it will offer a choice between several.

anyway, KDE will ship with Juk (noatun and kaboodle will be dropped, I guess) and probably amarok as audioplayers (an easy to use: juk and an advanced: amarok). and with kmplayer and kaffeine as videoplayers (again: easy and advanced). nothing wrong with that, as all apps (again, I think) will be able to simply use the KDE media backend (be it gstreamer or something else).

So I guess that's the future. several mm-frameworks to choose from, and 2 players for music, and 2 for video, in both cases an easy-to-use and a more advanced.

Multimedia is really getting better, imho...

personally I love this configuration, I hate a all-in-one (like the horible windows media player) and I love choice.

by ac (not verified)

That looks promising then.

It's good seeing KDE go with multimedia back-ends so people can simply focus on just apps and intergrating functionality into other apps.

It's also good to see video and music apps being split and both having an easy and more advanced solution for them. I think this should be good news for people now using Kaboodle for "quick checking". I haven't much good to say about Noatun other then being relieved to see it go.

I guess it all means we can also begin to see much better Konqueror-web-multimedia intergration.

KDE just keeps getting more and more amazing, and this is only the multimedia part.

by mETz (not verified)

and if you had at least a bit of a clue you wouldn't write such lies.

by mETz (not verified)

and if you had at least a bit of a clue you wouldn't write such lies as apps getting dropped or gstreamer being chosen as a backend.

by superstoned (not verified)

I dont say gstreamer IS being chosen, I said it MIGHT be chosen. but (as I said too) its more likely there will be choice. as always, in KDE.

and about apps getting dropped, someone is going to have to port kaboodle and noatun, and both dont see much development, dont they? noatun is the master of crashes, and kaboodle - well, its indeed nice for a preview. but I guess that can be done better. I dont even considder kaboodle a mp3player, its just a preview-app. like the difference between kuickshow and pixieplus. but then, kuickshow is quite nice, kaboodle isnt.

anyway, kaboodle might stay, but noatun is useless with all these much more advanced and *working* musicplayers for KDE.

by Morty (not verified)

Good you find Kaboodle nice for preview, it's exactly what it was made to do. No other app mentioned in this discussion does this job as well as Kaboodle so none of them can replace it. I can't see why Kaboodle actually need much development as it does what it is supposed to do, and please explain how this can be done better? As a side note the sources for Kaboodle are slightly less than 55k.

As for Noatuns crashes I can't remember last time I had it crashing, and I am using it as my primary music player. Sometimes arts goes down when using internet radio, but it restarts automatically so that's no real problem. I only stop Noatun when I watch video's or use Kaboodle on singel files. There may be several reasons why Noatun don't crash for me, but one reason may be I never add ogg/mp3's to the playlist without being sure of the quality of the files (say Kaboodle). And my collection are not very big, approximately 4G.

by superstoned (not verified)

well, I haven't used noatun for some time, so it might be a lot more stable now. maybe I should give it a try... but it doesnt have the ultra-clean interface juk has, and doesnt give all the features amarok has - altough it has a plugin-structure, so it should be easy to add these features. hmm, pitty the different developers prefer working on different apps instead of one great musicplayer :D (I considder adding musicplaying to a videoplayer, and video to a musicplayer, just plain stupid. konqi is difficult enough, multi-functional as it is... I dont like windows-like behaviour like the cdburner being able to rip cd's, the musicplayer being able to burn cd's, the videoplayer being able to play mp3's etc etc. madness, imho. and (in the windows case, whoulnt be in KDE, indeed) needless duplication of work... so much for the duplication of efforts in OSS)

by Morty (not verified)

I have been using Noatun since 2.0 and when I considered swiching to juK it was not avalible on the distro I ran at the time, and I haven't gotten round to try it out now:-) As for clean interface Noatun has several interfacepuggins, the Milk-Chocolate are as simple as they get. Personaly I always run it minimized using the system tray pluggin, and this is close to juK's. The only weaknes I have found are the playlists, none are as good as juK's. But since I'm used to it, it doesn't anoy me so much anymore:-). As for features, I use only loop and random play so I can't say I realy care.

But we agree at least on one thing, the combination of music/video players:-) Serliously why would anyone want a playlist in a videoplayer?

by Janne (not verified)

" where can I read about this framework going to be from "outside", in solid form, not in an arguement?"

Simple: None of the proposed backends (Gstreamer, MAS etc. etc.) are related to the KDE-project. They are all separate projects. Hell, Gstreamer has ties to the Gnome-project!

You could say it's the same thing as with Xorg. KDE requires Xorg (or Xfree or some commerial Xserver. But I'll focus on Xorg for simpicitys sake), yet Xorg is not a KDE-project. It's totally a separate project. Yet nobody considers that to be a bad thing. Why should it be different with sound-servers? It should matter even less. KDE would not work without X-server, but it would work without sound-server. Yet nobody complains that KDE is totally dependant on Xorg (an outside project), but now some are concerned that KDE would have SOME dependancies on a another separate project.

by superstoned (not verified)

exactly. and KDE will use d-bus soon. a freedesktop-project, the horror!

by ac (not verified)

I know all that, but thanks anyway. Now are we or are we not going to use xine AND mplayer as back-ends both at the same time? Or was is GStreamer? Or are we going to support several other multimedia back-ends as well? Or is all this just way up, way up in the air? I don't think anyone in here really has all the answers at all, much as they would like to make you believe everything is sorted out. One tells you this, the other tells you that and that is why I wrote my first message in the first place.

Frankly I believe I am being told by people simply what they believe and what they would like and not at all what is going to be the actual plan in solid practical form, that's the whole point, there is no definitive plan, or so it seems at the moment. KDE and multimedia remains a joke, just look at this: http://www.kde.org/areas/multimedia/ , is that the mecca of KDE multimedia?

One thing has still remained the same, I wonder how the multimedia eventually really turns out in KDE 4.0 and what to really expect. I remain rather skeptical, but just for the moment.

by Janne (not verified)

" Now are we or are we not going to use xine AND mplayer as back-ends both at the same time?"

There are KDE-apps that use Xine, and there are KDE-apps that use Mplayer. But none of those apps (AFAIK) ship with KDE. Maybe one of them will ship with KDE one day, but as of now, they are separate apps that ship outside of KDE.

"Or was is GStreamer"

Gstreamer is a sound-server. It replaces Arts (that is, if they choose to move to Gstreamer). Gstreamer (or Arts) is not a replacement for Xine on Mplayer.

"Or is all this just way up, way up in the air?"

No official decision regarding the sound-server have been made. We'll see.

"KDE and multimedia remains a joke, just look at this: http://www.kde.org/areas/multimedia/ , is that the mecca of KDE multimedia?"

No. And I don't think KDE and Multimedia are a joke. Arts sucks, but it's on it's way out. And some of the kick-assest multimedia-apps are KDE-apps (Kaffeine, Amarok, Juk, K3b etc.). I think multimedia in KDE is doing just fine. Sure, some of those apps do not ship with KDE as such, but I see no problem with that, as long as they are KDE-apps and they are actively maintained.

by Kevin Krammer (not verified)

"Gstreamer is a sound-server"

No it isn't, it is like the other part of aRts, the framework for decoding, filtering, etc.

However it can output to most of the available sound servers, including aRts.

by Carlo (not verified)

>Multimedia on KDE, to be fair, currently is a stand alone music player and a stand alone movie player (non-kde). If you can get things to work, Mplayer and Xine will play everthing you want. From a UI point of view, both these are very different and totaly not related to kde in any way.

Regarding the UI there are e.g. KPlayer, KMplayer and Kaffeine as frontends. I for one don't really need a Multimedia hoK, doing all and everything under the sun. Some VJ application would be fun, though.

by miro (not verified)

qt only, but nice... mixxx.
get it at http://mixxx.sourceforge.net

by Carlo (not verified)

I wrote VJ, not DJ. And mixxx suxxx imho :)

by pieter (not verified)

here is what apps I use for multimedia (personal definition
of multimedia) in kde:

listen to a single music file: kaboodle
manage and play my music collection: juk
watch a movie: kmplayer
look to a single picture: kuickshow
manage my digital foto collection: kimdaba
edit an image: kolourpaint

I don't feel limited or irritated by kde when doing any
of the above in kde. So to me kde is on the right track.

by Florian (not verified)

Hello,
is NMM still on the run for a backend of KDE Multimedia? Or is it gstreamer now?

Thx,

Florian

by Mark Kretschmann (not verified)

Both are still in the game, as you will be able to switch between multiple backends (similar to amaroK's engines).

GStreamer will probably become the default backend, but this has not yet been decided.

by Mark Kretschmann (not verified)

We have a juicy beta release coming up, and will release as soon as our website is back.

Some of the new features:

* 10-band IIR equalizer for GStreamer
* MySQL support for the Collection
* New NMM engine with video support
* Tags are read from the database if available
* OSD shows album covers
* Automatic song lyrics fetcher

Stay tuned :)

by LB (not verified)

COOL!, thanks a lot, can't wait until the new version is released, Amarok rocks!

by Illissius (not verified)

/ * Automatic song lyrics fetcher /

<3. I've always wanted something like that.

by brockers (not verified)

Question, why doesn't amaroK ship by default with KDE? I was under the impression that they were asked and turned it down. That would be a horrible shame considering that it is easily the best audio player for KDE.

Bobby

by Kevin Krammer (not verified)

"Shipping by default" is only a matter of packaging. A packager can always use the latest compatible release from amaroK and package it along the new KDE packages.

Being a separate module/package allows more releases - to get new features earlier to the users - than being bound to the KDE release cycle, which has a strong focus on the framework rather than on features of single applications.

by Mark Kretschmann (not verified)

Yes, I agree. For instance amaroK is now the default audio player in SuSE Linux 9.2. Just as K3B is the default burning application, which is located in kdeextragear as well.

Kdeextragear applications _are_ part of KDE. They enjoy all the nice services that KDE offers (CVS, mailing lists, translations..), without the problems that come with the long release cycle of KDE core.

by kuDDel (not verified)

Jippie! I've been heavy surprised about AmaroK 1.1 which works great and whose functions really make me happy (esp. when having MUCH music ;) ) If this app becomes even better, why use other players? The last I whished was 'guessing tags from Database' as JuK did (does anyone know, why it doesn't anymore?). If this one is in Amarok, I'll be completely happy! ;)

by Scott Wheeler (not verified)

JuK still does that -- assuming you mean "internet" rather than database. It's possible that your distribution messed up the packages though as it requires the libtunepimp library; if that's not available JuK doesn't have that feature.

by kuDDel (not verified)

Okay, thanks for the hint, it semms SuSE killed that feature in KDE 3.3.1 for SuSE 9.1, I can't understand why they did so... In KDE 3.3.0@SuSE 9.2 it seems to be implemented. So I'll upgrade my SuSE to downgrade my KDE, and this will add a feature, I had before... Funny world ;)

by Darkelve (not verified)

Yes, yes, yes!!!

...

...

yes!!!!

by Leo S (not verified)

Has anyone else had problems with laggy input on Amarok?
The problem I'm having is that I press a button like pause/stop/play, and it takes a while before amarok actually performs the action.
It seems to depend on the engine, with the xine engine its much better but the response time is still not "instant" like it is with xmms.

Any suggestions on where to fix this?

Oh yeah.. and amarok kicks ass! The only player that is good enough to switch from XMMS for.

by ac (not verified)

I have this lag problem also. Plus hearing a huge click or tick from time to time when skipping tracks.

by illogic-al (not verified)

Sounds like crossfade is turned on for gstreamer and xine. Go to Settings -> Configure Amarok -> Playback and choose Normal. Apply, then use as per the supplied directions :-)

by Leo S (not verified)

Nope, that's not the problem. I already tried that. Delay is set to 0ms.

I think it's just a problem with the buffer. I'm guessing that the engine buffers some data before playing it (even for local files it seems).

Not sure.. but with the xine engine that delay is small enough to be tolerable.

by Pat (not verified)

if you want a player that do both video and audio then use kaffeine, I would probably be using amarok if it offered video but obviously they don't want to add that and I don't want to use two different apps to play my media files. Plus Kaffeine offers a cool playlist and nice option such as streaming to your friends check it out at http://kaffeine.sf.net

by Corbin (not verified)

I love Kaffeine for playing videos/DVDs, but I think that Amarok is much better for playing audio (because of the library). Also I couldn't figure out how to do streaming (I just kept getting errors about not having the codec, even though I can play the video I tried on both computers).

by Davide Ferrari (not verified)

I agree. amaroK it's the best thing if you have and want to listen to a huge music collection.
And anyway, I was used to love Kaffeine in the 0.4.x series, I don't really like the new 0.5 layout. As now, it's completely a mess IMO

by Illissius (not verified)

Heh. That's interesting, because I had the exact opposite reaction -- 0.5 has an amazing interface, 0.4 is about average.
amaroK and Kaffeine rock :).

by gnumdk (not verified)