I've tested every Linux music player, and this one is my new favorite – here's why

I love a good music player. After all, I sit in my office for hours on end and listen to music from various sources (from vinyl, streaming, and local files). I’ve tried nearly every Linux music app on the market (even those that are command-line only) and have finally found one that I believe I could stick with for the long term. That app is Tauon, and I have only a single gripe about it (more on that in a bit).

Tauon can be installed on any Linux distribution that supports Flatpak, which means nearly any version of the open-source OS.

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But what is it that makes Tauon my new favorite? This music player is all about one thing… listening to music. It’s not overly fancy, it doesn’t throw every option at you, and it makes it incredibly easy to create new playlists.

1. Open Tauon
2. Open your file manager
3. Locate the songs (or folder of songs you want to add) and drag them from the file manager to Tauon
4. Enjoy

Of course, because Tauon is installed via Flatpak, there is one little trick you have to take care of after installing the app so that you can drag and drop from anywhere within the Linux filesystem.

How to install Tauon and enable drag and drop support

Before we get to solving the riddle that is dragging and dropping files into Tauon, you have to install it first. For this, you just need a Linux distribution with Flatpak support added.

flatpak install flathub com.github.taiko2k.tauonmb

Once that’s installed, you’re ready to enable drag and drop support.

flatpak install flathub com.github.tchx84.Flatseal

To fix this, open Flatseal from your desktop menu and locate the Tauon entry. From the app’s page, scroll down until you see the Filesystem section. In that section, click the On/Off slider for All System Files until it’s in the On position. With that taken care of, close Flatseal.

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You can now open Tauon, create a new playlist (by clicking New Playlist), and then drag and drop the files or folders you want to add. Tauon will automatically arrange the songs by album and even include the artwork for each.

What I really like about Tauon

The thing I like most about Tauon is that it’s so easy to use. Open it, select a playlist (or create one), and listen. It’s simple, it’s elegant. It even has built-in Chromecast support, so I can select any one of my Google speakers scattered around the house and listen from every room if I so choose. I will say the Chromecast feature can be a bit finicky, which means it can be prone to crashing. Even so, it doesn’t detract from the simplicity and ease of use found in Tauon.

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You can also select the layout you like, from a single album cover to all covers from the current playlist.

Another really cool feature of Tauon is that the UI adjusts as you resize it. For example, if you resize the UI, the components within shift to accommodate the size. There is one glaring issue I ran into. I attempted to resize it as small as it would get, and the UI crashed. After reopening, I found I was unable to change the size of the UI until I right-clicked an album art image and selected Re-download. That happy accident did the trick.

There’s also the UI mini mode. If you double-click under the progress bar, it’ll switch to a mode that only shows the album cover, the artist, and the song. You can then move that small window anywhere you like.

There are also built-in keyboard shortcuts, which are:

• Space: Play/pause
• – / +: Seek
• Left Arrow / Right Arrow: Cycle playlists
• Shift + Left Arrow / Right Arrow: Previous/next track
• “: Show playing
• , / .: Toggle repeat/shuffle
• Ctrl + F: Find in playlist
• Begin typing: Global search

What I don’t like about Tauon

First off, there’s no EQ. That’s fine, as I can live with the default sound (and I can install a third-party EQ if needed). Second, the UI isn’t quite as stable as I’d like on my Pop!_OS desktop. I found Tauon to work just fine on a KDE Plasma desktop, even when shrinking and resizing.

Another thing that bothered me was that the default themes are all dark. I much prefer light themes and don’t really have time to build a custom theme for the app. I can live with the dark theme, but I’d much prefer the developers add a nice default light theme for those of us with eyes that can’t handle so much darkness glaring at them.

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Although Tauon does support services like Spotify, you do have to jump through a few hoops to get it connected (you have to have your Spotify Client ID and the Client Secret). You can view the specific instructions for Spotify in the official Tauon documentation.

Other than that, there’s not much to dislike about this Linux music player. I’d highly recommend you give Tauon a go and see if it doesn’t become your favorite Linux music player.

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