7 ms·

Pianobar command-line Pandora client

27 points by nirmal 16y ago

SageRaven 16y ago
Damn, I love this site! It's even in FreeBSD's ports -- how awesome is that? Kudos to the developer!
nirmal 16y ago
Should probably have linked directly to the github repo https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar
talleyrand 16y ago
Love pianobar! Use it daily.
gilesc 16y ago
I like and use it, but it's based on reverse-engineering Pandora's encryption keys, so every once in awhile (when Pandora changes the keys), it breaks the client, which is annoying.
mickdarling 16y ago
I use it as well, and have been meaning to dig into the code to setup automatic login and playing. I think the stream that it accesses is completely advertising-free too. But I would gladly listen to the pandora ads on it since it runs with SO MUCH LESS memory and CPU than any other player.
- btucker 16y ago
  Make a config file: ~/.config/pianobar/config that looks like this: user = me@example.com password = mypassword
- naner 16y ago
  I think the stream that it accesses is completely advertising-free too. I don't think it has to do with the stream. When an ad comes up it just fetches a new playlist.
swirlee 16y ago
Interesting. As gilesc points out, this is only possible by reverse-engineering (i.e. decompiling) the Flash client to get the encryption and decryption keys (crypt_key_input.h and crypt_key_output.h [1]). It's actually pretty easy to do this--I did the same thing a few years ago as a weekend project. So why didn't I release it? Well, IANAL, but I think there are potential legal repercussions to this kind of reverse-engineering. And, as gilesc also points out, Pandora regularly changes their encryption keys, which makes maintaining this kind of software kind of obnoxious. (The solution to that problem, I think, is to make the software download and parse the .swf file on startup or just on failure to yank out those fresh encryption keys itself, but I never tried it.) I just cringe a bit when I see these sorts of apps, not because I think they shouldn't exist (seriously, Pandora, just release a goddamn API), but because I'm just picturing the lawsuit hammer coming down on the well-intentioned developers who are just Pandora fans. Regardless, I applaud PromyLOPh's work and am keeping my fingers crossed for his continued lack of legal fees. [1]: https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/tree/master/src/libpiano https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/tree/master/src/libpia...
carterschonwald 16y ago
its worth mentioning that mac homebrew already has a formula for installing this, and it builds and runs without a hitch.
- snprbob86 16y ago
  Forgive the totally off-topic thread, but is Homebrew generally considered mature/stable? I remember reading about it a year or so ago and being slightly skeeved out by the chmod and chown voodoo you had to do to install it. Skimming over the Homebrew install script seems like it does a lot of similar stuff, which seems strange for a package manager that claims isolated installation of packages in user-land. And is it intended to completely replace MacPorts, or do they place nice together?
  - wfarr 16y ago
    It makes /usr/local owned by the current user rather than root. Not much in the way of voodoo. ;) It's basically a replacement for MacPorts.
    - snprbob86 16y ago
      See this section of the hierarchical filesystem guidelines for unix-like OSes: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEUSRHIERARCHY http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEUSRHIERARCHY and in particular: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRLOCALLOCALHIERARCHY http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRLOCALLOCALHI... Isn't root supposed to own that?
      - wfarr 16y ago
        They're guidelines. In the case of OS X laptops, they're almost uniformly used as single-user machines. This just takes the hassle of having to sudo to do it. There are a few other reasons they specifically opted for /usr/local instead of other paths here: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/installation https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/installation
  - 16y ago
mhd 16y ago
In a similar vein, shell-fm[1] is a command line client for last.fm streaming. Supports remote control, too (IIRC it uses a socket whereas pianobar uses a named pipe). [1]: http://nex.scrapping.cc/shell-fm/ http://nex.scrapping.cc/shell-fm/
siong1987 16y ago
If you have homebrew installed, just simply "brew install pianobar".
nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
If you're running Linux and/or Gnome, I have two projects to plug: Pithos is a Gtk client that uses the core libraries from Pianobar to provide a very nice GUI client for Pandora that fully integrates with the latest Gnome/Ubuntu desktop. http://kevinmehall.net/p/pithos/ http://kevinmehall.net/p/pithos/ The second is a set of scripts that I wrote that build on top of the Pianobar client itself to implement media keys and notify-osd support for Ubuntu, although it is incomplete because I myself have switched to using Pithos instead. https://github.com/jreese/pianobar-python https://github.com/jreese/pianobar-python
naner 16y ago
I've used the pianobar client for a long time. (I'm on Linux and there's no official native client.) It breaks every so often and you have to wait a day or so for it to get fixed. A 'feature' of this unofficial client is that it doesn't play any of the ads on free Pandora accounts. So Pandora probably isn't very happy with that.
dcreemer 16y ago
I love pianobar- I use it daily and love the fact that it uses very little emory especially compared to the Flash-based official clients. I'm not sure what the official Pandora position regarding pianobar is, but I did hear from an employee that they have worked to disable it in the past.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

27 points by nirmal 16y ago

Damn, I love this site! It's even in FreeBSD's ports -- how awesome is that? Kudos to the developer!

Should probably have linked directly to the github repo https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar

talleyrand 16y ago

Love pianobar! Use it daily.

gilesc 16y ago

I like and use it, but it's based on reverse-engineering Pandora's encryption keys, so every once in awhile (when Pandora changes the keys), it breaks the client, which is annoying.

mickdarling 16y ago

I use it as well, and have been meaning to dig into the code to setup automatic login and playing. I think the stream that it accesses is completely advertising-free too. But I would gladly listen to the pandora ads on it since it runs with SO MUCH LESS memory and CPU than any other player.

btucker 16y ago
Make a config file: ~/.config/pianobar/config that looks like this: user = me@example.com password = mypassword
naner 16y ago
I think the stream that it accesses is completely advertising-free too. I don't think it has to do with the stream. When an ad comes up it just fetches a new playlist.

swirlee 16y ago

Interesting. As gilesc points out, this is only possible by reverse-engineering (i.e. decompiling) the Flash client to get the encryption and decryption keys (crypt_key_input.h and crypt_key_output.h [1]). It's actually pretty easy to do this--I did the same thing a few years ago as a weekend project. So why didn't I release it? Well, IANAL, but I think there are potential legal repercussions to this kind of reverse-engineering. And, as gilesc also points out, Pandora regularly changes their encryption keys, which makes maintaining this kind of software kind of obnoxious. (The solution to that problem, I think, is to make the software download and parse the .swf file on startup or just on failure to yank out those fresh encryption keys itself, but I never tried it.) I just cringe a bit when I see these sorts of apps, not because I think they shouldn't exist (seriously, Pandora, just release a goddamn API), but because I'm just picturing the lawsuit hammer coming down on the well-intentioned developers who are just Pandora fans. Regardless, I applaud PromyLOPh's work and am keeping my fingers crossed for his continued lack of legal fees. [1]: https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/tree/master/src/libpiano https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar/tree/master/src/libpia...

carterschonwald 16y ago

its worth mentioning that mac homebrew already has a formula for installing this, and it builds and runs without a hitch.

snprbob86 16y ago
Forgive the totally off-topic thread, but is Homebrew generally considered mature/stable? I remember reading about it a year or so ago and being slightly skeeved out by the chmod and chown voodoo you had to do to install it. Skimming over the Homebrew install script seems like it does a lot of similar stuff, which seems strange for a package manager that claims isolated installation of packages in user-land. And is it intended to completely replace MacPorts, or do they place nice together?
- wfarr 16y ago
  It makes /usr/local owned by the current user rather than root. Not much in the way of voodoo. ;) It's basically a replacement for MacPorts.
  - snprbob86 16y ago
    See this section of the hierarchical filesystem guidelines for unix-like OSes: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEUSRHIERARCHY http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#THEUSRHIERARCHY and in particular: http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRLOCALLOCALHIERARCHY http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html#USRLOCALLOCALHI... Isn't root supposed to own that?
    - wfarr 16y ago
      They're guidelines. In the case of OS X laptops, they're almost uniformly used as single-user machines. This just takes the hassle of having to sudo to do it. There are a few other reasons they specifically opted for /usr/local instead of other paths here: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/installation https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/installation
- 16y ago

mhd 16y ago

In a similar vein, shell-fm[1] is a command line client for last.fm streaming. Supports remote control, too (IIRC it uses a socket whereas pianobar uses a named pipe). [1]: http://nex.scrapping.cc/shell-fm/ http://nex.scrapping.cc/shell-fm/

siong1987 16y ago

If you have homebrew installed, just simply "brew install pianobar".

nuclear_eclipse 16y ago

If you're running Linux and/or Gnome, I have two projects to plug: Pithos is a Gtk client that uses the core libraries from Pianobar to provide a very nice GUI client for Pandora that fully integrates with the latest Gnome/Ubuntu desktop. http://kevinmehall.net/p/pithos/ http://kevinmehall.net/p/pithos/ The second is a set of scripts that I wrote that build on top of the Pianobar client itself to implement media keys and notify-osd support for Ubuntu, although it is incomplete because I myself have switched to using Pithos instead. https://github.com/jreese/pianobar-python https://github.com/jreese/pianobar-python

naner 16y ago

I've used the pianobar client for a long time. (I'm on Linux and there's no official native client.) It breaks every so often and you have to wait a day or so for it to get fixed. A 'feature' of this unofficial client is that it doesn't play any of the ads on free Pandora accounts. So Pandora probably isn't very happy with that.

dcreemer 16y ago

I love pianobar- I use it daily and love the fact that it uses very little emory especially compared to the Flash-based official clients. I'm not sure what the official Pandora position regarding pianobar is, but I did hear from an employee that they have worked to disable it in the past.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]