[GUIDE] How to use Musicbee on Linux (Archlinux/Debian based distro)

[HaploVoss]

I don't know if this will help anyone, but I just tried using Steam "Add a Non Steam Game" option.
Browsed to executable and selected it.
Then chose properties of that item in the list, chose Compatibility and chose Proton (Specifically, I have Proton GE 7.20 that I've installed for other games I chose).
I launched it, ran through setup without issue.
The first launch, it is in an annoying, bordered window so you can't see much of the title-area.
- So, I clicked on the nib of the menu I could see, and changed skins to my favorite dark skin. It automatically restarts. Bang, borderless window as it should be.
- I notice there are some skins and the default skins that the border still appears around, but... I'm sure there are some config switches that could be used.
I've only been playing around with it for a few hours, but my radio stations work, all my files are fine (on "Z" drive) - I LOVE this.
NOTE: Once you've used it and closed it - you need to redo your shortcut so it doesn't keep trying to re-run the setup file:
Open your file manager
- Search your steam folder for 'musicbee'
- Locate the MusicBee.exe in the steam pfx directory similar to this:
--> "/home/username/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/compatdata/2464933901/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/Desktop/MusicBee/MusicBee.exe"
- copy that location, then paste it into the 'TARGET' field of the steam properties, and then the same location (minus the filename itself) in the 'START IN' field.

Then, if you want to get creative / cure your OCD like I do... grab an icon and an image from somewhere, and dress up your launcher icon and backdrop lol

So - just an option throwing it out there just in case.

Thank you again to MusicBee for my favorite player ever!

[rioUSteC]

Everything is working fine, If I follow this guide, except for syncing to a virtual device. I have created a virtual device on Z:/ on the same mountpoint as the Library is. Setup itself was no issue. But when I try to sync, i get the message, that the device is not available. Any idea?

[MetalGeek]

Latest Musicbee is up and running.  I took a slightly different route. I haevn't touched wine in years so I cannot confirm if any of these steps are not needed or deterimental. Any feedback is appreciated.  I'm running the latest Pop_OS.

Verify i386 support
 Verify 64-bit architecture. The following command should respond with "amd64".

Code

$ dpkg --print-architecture

See if 32-bit architecture is installed. The following command should respond with "i386".

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$ dpkg --print-foreign-architectures

If "i386" is not displayed, execute the following.

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$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Recheck with.

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$ dpkg --print-foreign-architectures

Install wine staging
Install WINE on Ubunto

Install .NET

Create prefix for MusicBee and .NET

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ wineboot –init 

Install .NET 4.0 and corefonts

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ winetricks --force dotnet40 corefonts

Install xmllite and gdiplus

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ winetricks –q xmllite gdiplus

 
set wine to win7 compatability

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ winetricks win7 

Install .NET 4.8

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/  wine $HOME/Downloads/ndp48-x86-x64-allos-enu.exe /q 

Install Music Bee

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/  wine $HOME/Downloads/MusicBeeSetup_3_5.exe 

I did not remove the Win7 compatability setting after installing .NET 4.8.  Not sure if this matters or not.  I let the Installer drop a shortcut on my desktop which works without issue.  Running on an ultrawide 3440x1440 display without making any wine config changes and cpu isage is <1% listening to flac files.

Sources:
Install Wine on Pop_OS
Install wine on Ubunto
Install .NET Framework

[jojo2357]

I got Discord Rich Presence for musicbee running on Linux!

MB Version: 3.5.8447
System info: Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS, 64 bit.

I used a plugin I wrote a while ago which simply reports over localhost the media being played, and so all I had to do was write a simple script to read, respond, and report to discord that info.

If i get some requests Ill post a how-to (get DRP, not install MB cuz I dont remember much anymore)

[Bifidusse]

Latest Musicbee is up and running.  I took a slightly different route. I haevn't touched wine in years so I cannot confirm if any of these steps are not needed or deterimental. Any feedback is appreciated.  I'm running the latest Pop_OS.

(...)

Awesome ! Thank you !

I tried several solutions posted here to run MB on Linux, this one is the first I managed to get working. I tested it running a VM (Mint 21.1 on Windows).

Seems to work flawlessy. Plays APE, FLAC, MPC, categories are still defined, special characters are displayed correctly (û, ç etc), cover art are there...

The only issue so far is rating. Flac ratings are displayed as they should, but MPC and APE (APE v2 tag) are wrong if they contain a half-star. So 4,5 becomes 2,5 and 3,5 becomes 2...
No issue with half-star ratings with flac files.

It's quite strange, I mean it's the same program, even if run with an emulator like Wine. Maybe I need to check MB configuration.

Last issue before I install Mint on my laptop instead of Windows

[Chrishd]

Thank you MetalGeek

It works for me, the only problem is that my audio is totally distorted.
Any suggestions?
TY

Christian

[ikhebgeenaccount]

Disclaimer : English is not my native language. Feel free to correct me if I'm not clear.

Hi,

I lost a LOT of time tinkering with native linux music managers, trying to make them suitable for me. I should have directly tried to use Musicbee through wine. Musicbee is clearly the best music manager out there !


I'm not the only one to try this out but some posts I read on the forum aren't really updated and they encourage people to install useless wine dependencies.  


I run Archlinux but I don't think it really matters. Here is what I've done :


1) Install wine-staging and winetricks. If you're on arch, I think you know how to do this...  

Code

sudo pacman -S wine-staging winetricks

Note : wine-mono package is useless (it just downloads wine-mono.msi but doesn't install it for wine) and you don't need wine-mono for Musicbee anyway.

Archlinux is easy.  

For Debian-based distro, it's a little bit more annoying : https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu



2) MS .NET 4.8 doesn't work with a 64bits wineprefix yet so you'll need to create a new 32bits wineprefix for MusicBee ! It's better to use distinct wineprefix than just one wineprefix for all your windows softwares because if you mess up with wine components, you can simply delete the wineprefix and start again.

Code

WINEARCH=win32 WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ winecfg

Note: If you're new to Linux, you of course need to change path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefixwith a valid location. For example, I created this wineprefix in a hidden folder in my music library:  WINEPREFIX=/home/mreve/Musique/.wine32MBee/

Note 2 : If you have a 4K screen, I suggest you to change the screen resolution to 240ppp in the tab Display.


3) Install Musicbee dependencies

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ winetricks -q dotnet48 xmllite gdiplus 

4) Download the latest Musicbee version (take the full download) : https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?board=6.0

5) Unzip and install Musicbee

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ wine MusicBeeSetup_3_3.exe

Et voilà !


You can then create an alias to easily launch Musicbee. Here the command line to do this :

Code

echo "alias Musicbee='WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ wine path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ /drive_c/Program\ Files/MusicBee/MusicBee.exe'" >> ~/.bashrc

Close your terminal and open a new one to use the new alias. Don't be afraid of all the errors in the terminal. It's normal when using Wine. The main thing is that Musicbee is perfectly running !

Current issues (WINE staging 4.20 - Musicbee 3.3) :

1) Error when dragging playlists into a folder from the left panel
WORKAROUND : Arrange the playlists from the file manager (in the Musicbee library folder)

2) Crash when trying to change settings in File converters section
WORKAROUND : None but It is still possible to use the format conversion feature (Menu-->Tools-->Convert Format)

3) You say to me

This worked perfectly for me on Manjaro 6.9.5-1 to get MusicBee working, However, the wine 32 prefix would only have alsa as a sound driver (winealsa.drv), which only saw HDMI audio outputs, and setting it to pulse would not show any audio outputs at all. I needed to install lib32-libpulse:

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sudo pacman -S lib32-libpulse

(per https://forum.manjaro.org/t/howto-find-system-information/105212) to be able to use pulse as audio driver and set it through

Code

WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ winetricks sound=pulse

and then all my audio outputs show up, as well as showing MusicBee in PulseAudio Volume Control.

[nameless]

Dude I only made an account here just to tell you THANKS SO MUCH!!1! I've been craving for musicbee in linux for YEARS! (In my case I had to search for the correct target because I couldn't find any like the one you suggested, mine ended up like this: "/home/username/.var/app/com.valvesoftware.Steam/data/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/2957395375/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/MusicBee/MusicBee.exe") thank you so much again! 👍️🐝

[Fool2222]

Hello everyone! I wanted to add my experience doing this in garuda (arch, it should be the same for any flavor) I personally used wineGUI, but it's no different from wine and winetricks, after getting MusicBee itself, i made a 32 bit wineprefix and installed allfonts, dotnet48, and xmllite, with this i was able to run the program without any crashes or glitches, but it was sort of "blurry" i mean the play icon and thumbnails looked jagged like 2001 graphics, but this was solved by installing gdiplus (which is for some reason broken if you do it via winetricks, so install it via console and voila) and now it's been stable and looks decent (fonts still suck because i haven't looked for a better one)

[carcassonne]

I also thought I'd chime in. I am new to Linux, and had problems with not being able to login to Last.Fm and scrobble my tracks / synchronise playcounts.

What fixed the problem for me was installing gnutls, to allow for https connections. I am not sure why some musicbee features work (like fetching artist pictures) while others don't.

I am running an arch setup, installed via EndeavourOS.

Steps:

Code

sudo pacman -S gnutls

Alternatively, if you are using a 32-bit wine prefix:

Code

sudo pacman -S lib32-gnutls

Add it to your relevant winetricks:

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WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ winetricks lib32-gnutls

Restart your system! I had to restart before it worked.

Now start up MusicBee with the wine prefix:

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WINEPREFIX=path/to/whereYouWantYourWineprefix/ wine musicbee

After doing this once it all worked, maybe the last step is redundant, I am not sure.
This should make it possible for MusicBee to establish https connections.

[Potatoes]

Hey folks, first things first huge thanks to the creator of MusicBee for such an awesome piece of software. Just wanted to preface my first post here with this  

Running MB successfully through Wine as OP instructed, so far so good. Cannot report any significant sound distortion apart one slight "pop" that happens several seconds into the playback once you hit play. No pops when playing continuously, only when you stop the playback and start it again, anyway it's not really bothering me. Had a few crashes but anyway, even in this state, MB is miles better than anything Linux music players have to offer.

Having trouble figuring out one issue though - I can't get MusicBee to play audio CDs. Seems like Linux does not "mount" CDs like window does, so MB can't see the disk drive and play the media. Anyone figured this out?