The decisions made by GNOME developers no longer surprise me. I’ve come to accept that everything in this desktop environment happens differently—though, unfortunately, not in the positive “different” familiar to us from one other operating system. Here’s yet another example of that.
Let me start by saying this loud and clear: this article doesn’t question the quality of the Decibels audio player. I’m convinced it’s a great piece of software. Instead, this is about something else—the GNOME developers’ decision to choose it (among a wide range of similar alternatives) as one of the desktop environment’s core apps.
And so, a few days ago, Decibels (an audio player written in TypeScript) was moved from the GNOME Incubator (a project to help new applications and libraries become official GNOME ones) to the core apps of the desktop environment. What does this mean? When you install a vanilla GNOME, Decibels will now be included as part of the standard application suite.
Additionally, due to its updated status, the application will be rebranded from its current name, Decibels, to GNOME Audio Player. This aligns with naming conventions commonly followed by GNOME developers. For example, the Nautilus file manager is simply called Files, the Epiphany web browser is known as Web, and so on.
Since I wasn’t familiar with the app, I immediately headed to Flathub to install it. Excitedly, I launched the audio file, eager to experience GNOME’s new choice for audio playback. And then… this is what I was met with.
Hold on a second—did I accidentally open Audacity instead of the right app? Nope, that’s not it. I took a moment to check for some basic features you’d expect from an audio player: a library, track browser, tag editing (eventually), album arts, and so on. And guess what? None of those are here.
The app does one thing: it plays a single audio file while showing you the waveform. That’s it. Hoping to queue up multiple tracks? Whoa there, don’t get too ambitious.
Once again, the app’s Flathub page description is brief and to the point: “Shows the waveform of the track.” And yes, it does exactly that—no issues there. However, it’s far from acceptable for this solution to be considered a major component of GNOME, one of the two leading desktop environments (soon to become one of the three leading options in March).
The reason is crystal clear: Decibels lack even the basic features needed to serve as the default music player. And that’s not a flaw in the app—it’s simply designed to do exactly what it was meant to do.
Now, picture a new Linux user deciding to try GNOME for the first time or choosing a distribution that offers a vanilla GNOME experience. One of the first things they’ll likely do is test the multimedia capabilities. They double-click on an audio file, and… well, that’s what I’d call a disappointing introduction to Linux.
However, I hope that after the next versions of GNOME are released (when Decibels will debut), most distros will take the forward-thinking step of removing it from their GNOME implementations and replacing it with something most suitable as a default audio player – for the good of its users.
Honestly, no matter how much I try to understand the reasoning behind this decision from the GNOME developers, I just can’t seem to figure it out. The only explanation I can come up with is that the app is sticking to their sacred GNOME design guidelines—you know, all that GTK 4 and Libadwaita stuff.
But even in this niche, there are apps that may not boast a wide range of features but present the basics in an eye-catching, visually appealing way while adhering strictly also to those GNOME design guidelines. A perfect example of this is the Amberol music player.
What to say in conclusion? Once again, GNOME stays true to itself by offering yet another controversial solution for its users. But let’s be honest—who’s surprised at this point?
The days of having a persistent panel, a system tray, or using your desktop for more than just displaying wallpaper are long gone. Users gave up on that dream a while back. And every six months, they brace themselves for another round of extension incompatibilities just to bring back some semblance of normalcy.
What strikes me as particularly ironic is GNOME’s own Human Interface Guidelines, which proudly state, “People are at the heart of GNOME design.” With all due respect, if that’s the case, maybe I’m not considered “people.” Anyway. COSMIC is coming—perhaps it’ll help me feel human again.
