Headphones at the ready; the latest development snapshot of the popular open-source media player ‘Banshee’ has been released.
Banshee 2.9.1, the second of the unstable 2.9.x series releases, comes ahead of Banshee 3.0 stable and is the first to feature GStreamer 1.x compatibility across all platforms.
On the face of it this means little but with the GStreamerSharp playback-engine backend now default, Banshee’s developers will be able to flush out unused code. This, it’s hoped, will ‘lower the barrier of entry to new contributors, reduce complexity and increase stability.’
New Media Layout Option
In more visible changes there’s a new ‘MediaPanel’ UI derived from the one-time MeeGo specific interface. It’s not quite as swanky as it once seemed, but as layouts go it certainly could be worse. It’s a neat alternative for those times you’re bored of the stock layout. It can be enabled through View > Media Panel menu entry.
A mammoth 35 bugs have been fixed since the previous release, including annoying crash when connecting an iPod; numerous tweaks to the behaviour of the ‘Repeat’ feature; and, for those who still use physical media, CD audio sources now once again show up after inserting a disc.
Banshee 2.9.x can be compiled from source using tarballs from the official website.
The Banshee Unstable PPA that used to provide an easy way to try out the development series on Ubuntu is currently unmaintained.