Tauon music player (once known as Tauon Music Box) now offers native PipeWire audio playback on Linux — albeit experimental for the moment.
Fans of this streamlined music player have asked for native PipeWire support for a while, and the app developers have been working on it accordingly. Now, keen to get it out there, the latest Tauon 7.8.1 release ships with native PipeWire support.
Now, in case you’re wondering, Tauon already worked with PipeWire through the pipewire-pulse compatibility layer. This update doesn’t require that; Tauon can now interact directly with PipeWire, accessing and benefitting from all of its features.
Bugs and outlier quirks causing a crash remain so, for now, the native PipeWire backend is not enabled by default. It’s there for those who want to test it, as well as those who are hitting issues with the default PulseAudio settings.
Other changes in Tauon 7.8.1 include:
.aifffiles now import correctly- Improved compatibility for parsing CUE sheets
- Jellyfin library imports are now faster
- Tweaks to how albums are grouped in the gallery view
And that’s this update in a nutshell (a bunch of other new features were added in the 10 year anniversary release earlier this year).
“Why should I use Tauon if {alternative player} does everything I need?” – Eh, this is just a news article about the latest update, not an opinion piece or general review.
I will say that Tauon is a powerful, playlist oriented music player leveraging GStreamer. It offers a wide set of features, integrations, and customisations, as well as solid support for media servers like Jellyfin.
The big ‘stickler’ for most, is its custom UI. It’s the kind of user interface that often gets described as “opinionated”, i.e., not native thus not to everyone’s tastes (which is fine; UX consistency is an important thing for many, but not everyone uses GNOME Shell).
Yet the custom UI means the app has a number of really cute ‘mini modes’ that Linux eye candy fans may find a sweet alternative to a separate ‘now playing’ Conky config or standalone app, as well as support for themes – no Yaru one, yet!
Want the latest release?
Linux users can get Tauon on Flathub, or compile it from source by fetching the source code from Github page. Those on Windows will find official installers linked on the project website.