Too Many Bad Linux Media Players

Houston, we have a problem. The problem is that there are no less than 10 media players for Linux, and every one of them sucks. That's right. They suck.

Linux die-hards will respond to that by saying "Why don't you write a media player then?" There are two reasons I won't write a media player. For one, I am not a programmer, so I can't. The other reason is that there is no reason to create media player no. 11 which also sucks.

The current crop of media players for Linux have one thing in common: most of them do not have an equalizer. The one that does sport a nice equalizer is a copy of a program that was popular for Windows 95 which has an interface more suited to managing 5 music files rather than 5,000.

What's up with the lack of equalizers? The writers of these media players say that equalizer functions should live in the sound system of the operating system, not on the media player. Funny - every stinking Windows media player out there has an equalizer in the application, not the operating system. The guys who write the sound system move pretty slow and are held up by lack of industry cooperation. They can't even get the years-old X-fi sound cards working in Linux yet.

The other problem with Linux media players is the lack of a decent user interface. Has anyone out there used CompizFusion anytime recently to switch applications? That nifty graphical changer is reminiscent of another really cool interface - the iPhone. The iPhone and iTouch have an awesome graphical browser for media.

So does Windows Media Center.

Yet Linux media players are basically lists of text in boxes - 20th Century technology.

Linux developers, we need a decent media player. Some requirements:

1. The media player needs a really cool 3-D interface to flip through albums.
2. How about some very soothing beeps when you click on albums and songs
3. The cool 3-D interface needs to be theme-able so that we can design new color schemes for it
4. The 3-D interface should be usable both full screen and windowed
5. The 3-D interface should allow several types of motion for albums - horizontal, vertical, free-for-all, flipping, and they should spin in a circle like a jukebox.
6. Throw in an equalizer
7. I should be able to hook up any mp3 player or ipod to my PC and have this media player interface with it
8. The media player should have audio and data cd/DVD burning built in.

A really, really cool media player for Linux would be very nice right now. Having a cool media player is apparently enough to drive up sales on a ridiculously over-priced, under-powered telephone and make it the technological sensation of the century. Quick! Hurry! Before they fix Vista and Linux fever starts to die down, serve up Ubuntu with a media player that makes the iPhone look like an unconfigurable piece of junk!