How to run Foobar2000 on Linux
Foobar2000 is one of the most popular music player apps for Microsoft Windows. The reason Foobar2000 is universally loved is that it is highly customizable, versatile, and has dozens of excellent features that allow users to create their own experience. It’s also very light on hardware usage and doesn’t take up a lot of space.
The app has never been ported to Linux, though there are clones of it on the platform ( the DeadBeef music player, Qoob, and a few others). However, it is possible to run the Windows version of Foobar2000 on Linux. In this guide, we’ll show you how to get it working.
Foobar2000 – AUR package
If you’re an Arch Linux user looking to use the Foobar2000, you’re in luck. As it turns out, there is an AUR package that automatically sets up the app in Wine and gets everything working.
Note: Running Foobar2000 on Arch Linux through the AUR is possible, but may not work in all cases. If you have issues running this app, consider trying the Snap instructions instead.
To start the installation of the Foobar2000 app via the AUR on Arch Linux, you must install the “Git” and “Base-devel” packages. These packages are critical, as it is not possible to interact with the AUR without them. Use the Pacman command to get them set up.
sudo pacman -S base-devel git
After installing the “Base-devel and Git” packages on your Arch Linux PC, use the git clone command to download the Trizen AUR helper. Trizen will make installing Foobar2000 much easier, as it automatically takes care of all required dependencies, rather than requiring the user to do it by hand.
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/trizen.git
Once the Trizen AUR files are done downloading, move the terminal into the “trizen” directory with the CD command.
cd trizen
Using the makepkg command, compile and build the Trizen AUR helper on your Arch Linux PC.
makepkg -sri
Now that the Trizen app is fully installed, use it to load up the latest version of Foobar2000 on your Arch Linux PC.
trizen -S foobar2000
Foobar2000 – Snap package
Foobar2000 can run on any Linux distribution with very little fuss thanks to the fact that it was recently added to the Snap package store. The best part? It comes with Wine pre-installed, so it’s incredibly easy to get going.
To start the setup of Foobar2000 through the Snap package store, you need to be running the Snap runtime. To do that, open up a terminal window and install the “snapd” package. Alternatively, if you need help getting everything set up, follow our in-depth guide on how to set up Snaps here.
Once you’ve got the Snap package system up and running on your Linux PC, it’s time to install the Foobar2000 app. Open up a terminal by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T on the keyboard. Then, with the terminal window ready to go, use the snap install command below to install the package.
sudo snap install foobar2000
Let the package download from the Snap store, as it has a lot of things to set up. When it’s done downloading, launch Foobar2000 from your app menu. Or, run foobar2000 in the terminal.
Manually installing Foobar2000 with Wine
Those not using Arch Linux and unable to use Snap packages can still run the Foobar2000 music player. However, it’s much more involved. To start the installation process, you will need to install Wine, a tool that can make it possible to run Windows programs on Linux.
To install Wine on your Linux PC, open up a terminal window and install the “wine.” package. If you need guidance setting up Wine on your Linux PC, follow our in-depth tutorial on Wine.
When you’ve finished installing the Wine app on your Linux PC, the next step is to download Foobar2000. To do that, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard and running the following wget download command.
wget https://www.foobar2000.org/files/0f27ec2e066aebebb5f4c0a8bc02c22d/foobar2000_v1.4.8.exe
After downloading the Foobar2000 EXE file with the wget command, start it up for the first time with the wine command to initiate the setup process.
Go through the setup process for Foobar2000, and read everything carefully. For best results, during the installation, select the “Portable” version. It will write all app data to the application folder and is known to run better on Wine.
Once the installation is complete, Foobar2000 is ready to use on your Linux PC. To launch it, open up the app menu on your desktop, select “Wine,” and click on the Foobar2000 app icon to start it up.
