I was catching up on some feeds yesterday, and this piece of news caught my eye - Amarok 2.1 released. Being a long time Amarok fan ( heck Amarok itself was catalyst to make me use my SUSE 10.0 use full time) - I read the article with great interest.

Amarok Headquarters reports yet again another release of the marvelous Amarok 1.4 'Fast Forward' series. Just like its predecessor, Amarok 1.4.8 fixes a fairly large amount of bugs, and therefore increases stability of Amarok's stable branch of development. Among the major improvements is the resolution of an issue that could, under some circumstances, cause a complete lockup during dynamic playback. Last.fm metadata fetching now also works with xine 1.1.8 and we made sure you can now also use your brand new iPods with your favourite music player. And now the team can get back to work on Amarok 2, getting their hands dirty to bring Amarok 2 to you as soon as humanly possible! :)

The Amarok team is excited to announce the release of Amarok 2.2. In three and a half months, Amarok has made a huge leap forward, gaining many new features and a lot of old features from 1.4 have returned.

Amarok was my favorite among Linux media players, until Amarok 2.0 series started coming in. I totally understand that Amarok 2.0 series is a complete rewrite and I really appreciate the effort they have put on upgrading Amarok. But the bottom line is, Amarok 2.0 series is not there yet.

"In This Issue

* What's New in Amarok
* Google and Amarok
* Roktober Success
* Interview with a Developer: Bart Cerneels
* Automated Playlist Generator: How to Use it
* Queue Manager in Amarok
* Installing and using a script in Amarok
* Amarok on Windows
* Transcode your media files
* Amarok Live CD"

With the very latest on Amarok 2 development ( with more screenshots than you can snake a stick at ), past and future events, news on Amarok 2 on Mac and a wall sized Amarok logo, issue 12 of the "Amarok Insider" is a a great read for anyone curious about what cool and unique new features Amarok 2.0 will bring.

Genuine Amarok fans are still reminiscing about the good old version 1.4, code-named Fast Forward. The new Amarok 2.2.1 should bring back memories.

Though i wholeheartedly admire the effort made by those behind this all new Amarok 2, i still have a lot of issues with Amarok 2.x series.

Amarok was my favorite for a long time. But when the new Amarok 2.0 series started coming in, I was left with no option but to leave my beloved music player in Ubuntu. Amarok 1.4 was by far the best music player I ever had in Linux. After a long time I gave a try at the latest Amarok 2.3.1 in Ubuntu, and I have to say, this is impressive work.