Unhappy with current state of Linux podcasting receivers

[Wally Balljacker]

I'm not sure if anyone else feels the same way, but it seems like it's damn near impossible getting a decent podcatching client with a functional GUI running on Linux. CastPodder works great, but I can never get the damn thing installed. I always end up getting the same module missing bug, no matter what distro I'm installing it on. BashPodder is great for what it is, but it's alittle too limited for me, and I'm no scripting master, so that's not really an option. Ipodder is dead, Juice Receiver is Windows and OS X only. Podracer, and Hpodder don't have enough features. Democracy is a bloated pig with way too many bugs to be usable. Is there anything out there with the functionality of CastPodder, that isn't such a pain to get up and running?

Arrrg! I just tried PodNova, and I get the same exact error CastPodder spits out!

Code: Select all

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "iPodderGui.py", line 17, in ?
    import wx
ImportError: No module named wx

[TankCatNinjaFish]

well that "wx" is for the wxWidgets gui library; so get the latest version from wxWidgets.org and also wxpython. But yea, bashpodder or firefox for me.

[Patrick]

You could try Kpodder:
http://www.leonscape.co.uk/linux/kpodder/index.html

[Wally Balljacker]

well that "wx" is for the wxWidgets gui library; so get the latest version from wxWidgets.org and also wxpython. But yea, bashpodder or firefox for me.

I did that on my Debian system. I apt-getted every single Python, and WxWidgets package that was available, and it didn't help. Still barfed on that error.

You could try Kpodder:
http://www.leonscape.co.uk/linux/kpodder/index.html

Does Kpodder have the ability to select individual files from a feed? Thats my biggest problem with BashPodder, is that it attempts pull down every single episode on the feed, and when I have something like DL.TV in there, with 15 episodes at 200MB each, I end up filling my hard disk up before it finishes all the feeds. It's also handy when I run a client on a different computer, and I can skip an episode if I've already listened to it.

[CptnObvious999]

I have to agree that the amount of good GUI podcatchers is very small. I personally use peapod. It is a small program that with catch basically any feed and is fairely customizable. It runs every hour and when it gets a new file it will download it and stick it in the right folder in my Podcasts directory so whenever I feel like listening to some podcasts I just open that up and check what is new via the download.log in ~/.peapod. The only thing I don't like about it is that I have to open up that file each time I want to check what is new, it would be nice if it could give me a notification or something. Maybe I can make a karamba that will list the latest downloads...something for another time I guess. Anyways peapod suites me, but for others it might not. I did a bunch of research a while ago and couldn't find a good GUI one that worked. I found Kitty which looks real cool, but it wouldn't compile for me

[Chess]

Thats my biggest problem with BashPodder, is that it attempts pull down every single episode on the feed, and when I have something like DL.TV in there, with 15 episodes at 200MB each, I end up filling my hard disk up before it finishes all the feeds. It's also handy when I run a client on a different computer, and I can skip an episode if I've already listened to it.

Some of the user-contributed versions of Bashpodder solve this problem in various ways. One of them, I forget which one, adds a switch that will do a "dry run" and add a list of all the episodes in a text file that it references before downloading (to avoid re-downloading an episode). You can get all the episode filenames into this text file, then remove the ones you want bashpodder to actually download, and then rerun it without the switch. It works well.

[Wally Balljacker]

Thats my biggest problem with BashPodder, is that it attempts pull down every single episode on the feed, and when I have something like DL.TV in there, with 15 episodes at 200MB each, I end up filling my hard disk up before it finishes all the feeds. It's also handy when I run a client on a different computer, and I can skip an episode if I've already listened to it.

Some of the user-contributed versions of Bashpodder solve this problem in various ways. One of them, I forget which one, adds a switch that will do a "dry run" and add a list of all the episodes in a text file that it references before downloading (to avoid re-downloading an episode). You can get all the episode filenames into this text file, then remove the ones you want bashpodder to actually download, and then rerun it without the switch. It works well.

Yeah, I took Pat's suggestion and tried Kpodder, which is based on BashPodder, and I'm pleased to find out that it has checkboxes next to all the episodes. Now when I add a new feed, I can skip all the old episodes.

[hellonorman]

Castpodder also has a binary installation.

[snarkout]

Amarok does not work well for me. Gpodder works well for me, but I liked amarok's catcher better. Too bad I can't use it.

***edited to reflect reality.

[schotty]

I use iPodder on linux and juice on windows/macs. The same program really, but it works really nicely. I am running it right now on my Ubuntu lappy and desktop, and on most of my test vms (Linspire, Freespire, Fedora, CentOS) just fine.

[gorkon]

I have the same beef about Bashpodder too. Back in the beginning, it wasn't so bad but when some people have 100's of shows in the feed it automatically grabs all of them. I haven't had the time to hack around and find the right combo of scripts on that side to give me what I want.

I used Rythmbox for a while, but it would not pick up some shows sometimes. I think the problem it has is something to do with some of the recent iTunes changes that people have been making in thier feeds.

iPodder on Ubuntu and Juice on windows both had the same problem....trying to import a OPML feed did nto work properly.

I have not tried Kpodder yet. Gpodder is strange and doesn't work right either. I guess it isn't cool to work on podcatchers any more.

[CptnObvious999]

I have the same beef about Bashpodder too. Back in the beginning, it wasn't so bad but when some people have 100's of shows in the feed it automatically grabs all of them. I haven't had the time to hack around and find the right combo of scripts on that side to give me what I want.

I used Rythmbox for a while, but it would not pick up some shows sometimes. I think the problem it has is something to do with some of the recent iTunes changes that people have been making in thier feeds.

iPodder on Ubuntu and Juice on windows both had the same problem....trying to import a OPML feed did nto work properly.

I have not tried Kpodder yet. Gpodder is strange and doesn't work right either. I guess it isn't cool to work on podcatchers any more.

Try peapod, I have never not had a feed work with it. Also KTorrent just got RSS support in the SVN, right now it is buggy but it seems like a nice interface for podcasts.

[Gomer_X]

I have the same beef about Bashpodder too. Back in the beginning, it wasn't so bad but when some people have 100's of shows in the feed it automatically grabs all of them. I haven't had the time to hack around and find the right combo of scripts on that side to give me what I want.

This isn't really a bashpodder problem. It's a problem with people being too stupid to properly manage their RSS feeds.

Since bashpodder's purpose is to be simple and reliable, it's OK with me that it doesn't have any more features than necessary. Not everyone wants to hack a bash script to get what they want, but for me it works perfectly.

[gorkon]

I have the same beef about Bashpodder too. Back in the beginning, it wasn't so bad but when some people have 100's of shows in the feed it automatically grabs all of them. I haven't had the time to hack around and find the right combo of scripts on that side to give me what I want.

This isn't really a bashpodder problem. It's a problem with people being too stupid to properly manage their RSS feeds.

Since bashpodder's purpose is to be simple and reliable, it's OK with me that it doesn't have any more features than necessary. Not everyone wants to hack a bash script to get what they want, but for me it works perfectly.

How is this a problem with people managing their feeds? I disagree with that point. Actually, this is where Bashpodder's behavior can be good. For example, if one wanted to grab every show that has ever been done and they have every show in a ever growing RSS feed...in this cash, bashpodder is good. However, in normal every day use where you usually get rid of the files you have already listened to, then it fails miserably.

One other point which is related to the way you manage a feed is when you move your media file to another server. Libsyn does this and the URL never changes in the feed, but sometimes others change the URL because the server where the file resides changes. In this case, Bashpodder will grab a old show (or it did in the past). Granted, I could hack at it and probably should do that, but hell with all the crap happening at work and in my personal life it's difficult at best to get the time I would need to do this. Plus I would rather be producing podcasts then hacking on bash code.

[Linc]

How is this a problem with people managing their feeds? I disagree with that point. Actually, this is where Bashpodder's behavior can be good. For example, if one wanted to grab every show that has ever been done and they have every show in a ever growing RSS feed...in this cash, bashpodder is good. However, in normal every day use where you usually get rid of the files you have already listened to, then it fails miserably.

One other point which is related to the way you manage a feed is when you move your media file to another server. Libsyn does this and the URL never changes in the feed, but sometimes others change the URL because the server where the file resides changes. In this case, Bashpodder will grab a old show (or it did in the past). Granted, I could hack at it and probably should do that, but hell with all the crap happening at work and in my personal life it's difficult at best to get the time I would need to do this. Plus I would rather be producing podcasts then hacking on bash code.

Bashpodder will not re-download a file that has already been downloaded - *unless* the URL of the feed changes. The difference between BashPodder and the rest is that BashPodder is a PodCatcher, meaning that it does just that - downloads them or whatever is included in the enclosure of an RSS feed. It does this automatically.
The rest of the programs you guys keep referring to are PodBROWSERS. They let you have a picklist of things you can look through and choose what to download when you want to do it.
They are two similar but different things.