Last Updated on November 5, 2020
I’ve been writing a lot about multimedia software recently. My recent focus has been on YouTube and music players such as Kaku, Strawberry, Headset, and Qmmp. Staying on the multimedia theme, I’m experimenting with the best way of listening to the radio on my Linux boxes. One of my favorite ways is to use the Internet Radio GNOME Extension, which ranked 10th in the 24 Excellent GNOME Extensions feature. But I’m finding so many great applications designed for other desktop environments such that I’m slowly moving away from GNOME.
Step forward odio. It’s a cross-platform, no-charge radio streaming software with more than 20,000 radio stations. These radio stations are taken from www.radio-browser.info.
Odio runs on any graphical desktop environment. Linux support arrived with version 1.1.0 in November last year.
Installation
Let’s get a thorny issue out of the way. While odio can be downloaded without charge, the software is not (currently) released under an open source license. The developer’s GitHub repository intimates odio will shortly be released under an open source license. Let’s hope so!
You therefore cannot download the source code and compile it. Instead, what are the installation options? For Linux, the developer offers an AppImage (32- and 64-bit) which makes it easy to run the software. AppImage is a format for distributing portable software on Linux without needing superuser permissions to install the application. All that’s required is to download the AppImage, and make the file executable by typing:
$ chmod u+x ./odio-1.4.0-x86_64.AppImage
When you run odio for the first time, you are asked whether or not you wish to integrate the AppImage with your system. By agreeing, odio is added to your applications menu and icons are installed. Even if these are not important to you, you do want to accept. This is because many radio streams otherwise wouldn’t play on my Ubuntu and Manjaro systems.
With integration chosen, odio creates a directory in ~/.config/odio where it stores its cache, and settings.
If you prefer snaps, odio can be downloaded and installed from snapcrapt.io. You’ll need to have snapd running on your machine if you want to go down the snap route.
Your distro may also provide a convenient package to download and install the software.
Next page: Page 2 – In Operation
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Introduction / Installation
Page 2 – In Operation
Page 3 – Other Features
Page 4 – Summary
I’ve just tried out odio this afternoon. It’s interface is beguiling. Shame there’s no source code, as I’ve got a few features I’d like to add, or at least contribute the framework.
I agree, without the source code we cannot help the project, except in a very limited way. It seems the developer is uncertain as to what open source license to choose, he’s even asked on his GitHub page what license to choose.
Maybe LinuxLinks can take a look at an open source radio player like Shortwave (badly named but an interesting project). It was called Gradio, dunno why the name change?
Yes, I’ve written an article about Shortwave, it should be published this week.
“memory also ramps up here, approaching 1 GB of RAM”
Sounds like the application is “leaking memory” badly.
But with a closed source , binary image only program, who knows what else it is doing.
“what else it is doing” — for the avoidance of any doubt, there’s nothing to suggest that odio is doing anything nefarious.
Web technologies applications seem to prone to memory issues, this isn’t the first multimedia app that uses big globs of memory when running for a few hours. As you say without the source code, there’s not much anyone can do to see what is causing it.
It does not start here. Nor does it print error messages either. Nothing.
$ sudo snap install odio
$ snap run odio
Nothing appears.
What does this software do?
NO SOURCE CODE AVAILABLE !
I run:
$ lsb_release -a
Description: Ubuntu 18.10 64bit
Why dont you try the AppImage?
I’d like to use this app on PCLinuxOS but this distro doesn’t use systemd do snaps are out. I can’t find the AppImage that is mentioned – any clues as to where to find it, if it does actually exist? (I’ve got the snap running fine on openSUSE)
The AppImage is on the project’s GitHub
https://github.com/odioapp/odio/releases
Why on earth would Luke Baker make it up that an AppImage exists. Maybe you should open your eyes?
Thank-you very much, downloaded and installed successfully on PCLinuxOS.
page not found
Yes, the developer of odio abandoned the open source model and released a proprietary app under a different name.
Fortunately, there are free and open source (FOSS) internet radio apps that are way better than odio ever was. Here’s our roundup of the best FOSS graphical internet radio apps. There’s also a best FOSS terminal internet radio apps roundup too!