[HOW TO] Install Exaile in Xubuntu

Exaile is a music manager and player for GTK+ written in Python. It incorporates automatic fetching of album art, lyrics fetching, Last.fm scrobbling, support for many portable media players, internet radio such as shoutcast, and tabbed playlists.

Here's how to install it in Xubuntu using two methods: from Ubuntu repositories and from source. The version in the repositories is always a little behind so to get the latest version choose the source method. The highlights of the newer versions are described on Exaile's website.

Exaile Running on Xubuntu

Install from Ubuntu Repositories

Open a terminal window and run:

sudo apt-get install exaile python-mmkeys -y

Note: The command above also installs python-mmkeys. This package is needed to activate the "XKeys" plugin (support for keyboard multimedia keys). You'll get this error otherwise:

mmkeys.so is not available

Install from Source

Navigate to Exaile's download page and grab the source tarball. It should look something like this: exaile*.tar.gz.

Extract the tarball somewhere and open a terminal on that directory, then run this command:

sudo apt-get install python-mutagen python-mmkeys -y && make && sudo make install

Usage

Exaile can be accessed via Applications Menu > Multimedia > Exaile or typing the following command: exaile.

Install Sound Indicator Integration

Open a terminal window and run:

cd && mkdir -p ~/.local/share/exaile/plugins/ && wget -O esi.zip http://goo.gl/PZFyC && unzip esi.zip -d ~/.local/share/exaile/plugins/ && rm esi.zip

Now, run Exaile and enable the "Sound Menu Indicator" plugin (Edit > Preferences > Plugins).

Exaile Sound Menu Indicator

Enable Multimedia Keys Support

If you wish to use keyboard multimedia keys (pause, next, stop, ...) with Exaile, enable the "XKeys" plugin (Edit > Preferences > Plugins).

References

Exaile-Soundmenu-Indicator

[FIX] Adjust sound with Multimedia Keys in XFCE 4/Xubuntu

When I installed Xubuntu 12.04 on my laptop (HP Touchsmart tm2) I noticed that even though I had sound playback and the OSD worked, the sound volume didn't increased/decreased after hitting the proper keyboard keys. This was because the keys were actually adjusting the volume of the HDMI output.

This can fixed by changing the value of active-card in the xfce4-mixer settings, but first the correct value must be determined:

1. Open "Sound Settings" (Alt+F2 and type: pavucontrol).
2. Select the "Output Devices" Tab.
3. Annotate the device's name, leaving out spaces and all characters from this list: ()[]-/
4. Now add "Playback" to the beginning and "PulseAudioMixer" to the end of name annotated in the previous step. For me the correct value is: PlaybackBuiltinAudioAnalogStereoPulseAudioMixer

Now that we possess the correct, lets change the xfce4-mixer settings:

1. Open the "Settings Editor" (Alt+F2 and type: xfce4-settings-editor).
2. Choose the xfce4-mixer channel.
3. Edit the active-card value entering the value determined previously.
4. For settings take effect, either restart xfce4-volumed (killall xfce4-volumed && xfce4-volumned) or logout/login.