The developers behind the popular free and open-source music player Amarok announced the immediate availability of its brand new version, 3.2 “Punkadiddle.”
Perhaps the most intriguing highlight of this release is the option to build the same codebase on both Qt5 and Qt6. Even though the Qt6 version has a few known and potentially unknown issues, the initial results are more than promising.
However, Qt5/KF5 remains the recommended and more thoroughly tested configuration for everyday use.
In addition, Amarok 3.2 “Punkadiddle” offers an array of collection filtering features and Ampache-related improvements. For instance, the oldest resolved feature request in this release actually goes all the way back to 2013, which is more than impressive.
On top of that, various persistent crash bugs have been fixed, along with probable solutions for issues observed in crash report data. All these enhancements should make Amarok 3.2 slightly more stable for day-to-day use.
Looking ahead, Amarok’s development team plans to release several 3.2.x bugfix versions in 2025 before shifting focus to preparations for an upcoming Amarok 4.
For now, though, those eager to explore the newest updates can check out the notable changes since the previous, v3.1.1:
- Building an experimental Qt6/KF6 Amarok is now possible.
- Collection can be filtered by lack of tag or an empty tag.
- Dependency updated to KDE Frameworks 5.108.
- The current track context applet now appears by default.
- Crash fixes for occasional incidents, including when filtering the collection and clearing CompoundProgressBars.
- Ampache improvements include fixing login on server version 5.0.0+ and resolving a crash if the login is redirected.
For those who want to try Amarok 3.2 immediately, source code is available, and many Linux distributions will soon upgrade their Amarok packages to 3.2.0. If you prefer a more portable installation, you can also opt for the Flatpak version from Flathub.
For more information, refer to the release announcement.
