When I replaced Windows 10 with Ubuntu on my main laptop Envy, my biggest concern was the future of my music library. Not only was I worried about preserving the files themselves, but I didn’t know how I was going to organize them without being able to access to iTunes, the program I’ve used for over a decade. You already know how picky I am when it comes to arranging things like my international music and soundtracks in iTunes. Now I was going to have to make that work in a different app? Urg!
Then the Rhythmbox app came into the picture. I’ve used Rhythmbox several times in the past on the Presario, my old laptop that also runs Ubuntu, to rip CDs. I was more or less satisfied with how the program looked and worked. Since it was already installed on Envy and none of the alternatives I looked at were right for me (though Lollypop came close), I decided to give Rhythmbox a shot full-time.
The Migration
The first step was to get my music files back on Envy’s hard drive. Before I erased Windows 10, I made sure that I had a current and complete copy of my iTunes folder. Up until that point, I only had scattered pieces of my library: a small collection of recent songs on my phone’s microSD card, an out-of-date copy of just the music files on my netbook, and a complete but out-of-date copy on my external hard drive. Collectively, I could have used them to recreate my library, but I didn’t want to wade into that mess if I didn’t have to.
The problem was that I couldn’t boot into Windows to get those music files because Envy was stuck in that stupid disk check loop. So, I fired up the Ubuntu startup disk flash drive I had just made to install Linux on Envy. In the live Ubuntu environment, I dug into my Windows drive and copied my iTunes folder to my external hard drive. Then, I held my breath and nuked Windows.
Once I got Ubuntu up and running on Envy, I turned my attention back to Rhythmbox. Rather than copy over my entire iTunes folder, which contained app and TV show files that are useless on a Linux computer, I only grabbed the folder that contained the music. Then I copy/pasted it into Ubuntu’s Music folder, where Rhythmbox found and imported the songs without any help from me.
Working Out the Kinks
Naturally, I had a bunch of things to smooth over after the transfer.
First, there was (seemingly) no way to import my iTunes XML file into Rhythmbox. I lost all of the important metadata about my library, like the date I added the songs and the play counts. I rely on that info when I compile my annual post about my top played songs. None of my attempts to extract that data, like turning the XML file into a webpage and running a special import script, worked out.
My playlists were gone as well. I was dreading the daunting task of recreating them without the careful tagging and sorting I had done over the years. But when I started making new smart playlists (called “automatic playlists” in Rhythmbox), I was surprised to discover that my tags were intact in the Comment field of the song’s properties. All I had to do was plug the tag(s) into the automatic playlist’s criteria and Rhythmbox recreated the list. Yay!
Then I discovered that Rhythmbox couldn’t read AAC files (a reoccurring thorn in my side). Although I mostly fixed the problem by installing some “additional software,” there were still about 100 copy-protected AAC files (.mp4) in my library that were invisible to Rhythmbox. No biggie. I had already burned and re-ripped my DRM-ed songs to get clean copies when I started listening to music on my phone last year. I grabbed the folder with those rips from my external drive and dropped it into Ubuntu’s Music folder. I left the DRM-ed copies where they were.
Next, I had to rescue my music videos. I had been organizing them in iTunes alongside my songs, but they, too, were invisible to Rhythmbox because of their format. I painstakingly combed through my music folders and ran a system-wide search for all of the .m4v files, pooling the results into a folder with separate folders for each artist. Then I put that folder into Ubuntu’s Video folder for safe keeping. I think it’s probably a good idea to keep my music videos separate from the music going forward.
Lastly, I had to devise a good way to back up my new library. I want to keep the copy of my original iTunes library undisturbed until I can switch back to iTunes. At the same time, I’m steadily adding new songs to Rhythmbox that need to be backed up. I don’t have enough space on my external hard drive to keep copies of two libraries that have mostly the same files in them.
My solution was to create a special folder on my external drive called “iTunes New Music” to store every new song I get. It contains everything I’ve gotten since I stopped being able to access my library. When I get iTunes back, I’ll fire up my old library and add the new songs to it.
Unresolved Gripes
Despite the adjustments, I still have some issues with Rhythmbox that I’ll have to learn to live with.
Importing music is too complicated. When I download songs from the web or copy them from my phone, I always put them on the desktop to start with. I assumed that Rhythmbox would copy the songs into the correct folders like iTunes does, so I would delete the files from the desktop after I imported them. When I opened Rhythmbox again, however, the program would throw up errors because it couldn’t locate the songs anymore. It was easier (albeit more tedious) to manually copy the files into the appropriate artist folder (possibly creating a new album folder as well) in the Music folder. That way, the file locations never change. I suspect that this is more of a Linux issue than a Rhythmbox one, though.
Most of my other issues are minor:
- I can’t arrange the playlists into folders. The best I can do is hide them all.
- I can’t toggle songs off to stop them from playing during shuffle mode.
- I can’t add a sort name for songs. All of my J-Pop songs with titles written in Japanese Kana are thrown to the end of the song list and alphabetized by the Japanese alphabet.
All-in-all, though, Rhythmbox turned out to be a decent iTunes alternative. It will do for now.