PLEASE READ THIS AND CONSIDER BEFORE USING librefm

librefm is a hack to allow Amarok 1.4 users who wish to gobble tracks to libre.fm. It is not supported by Amarok or Libre.fm developers. It is intended as a stop gap measure until Amarok code is patched to allow configuration of scrobble/gobble servers.

How It Works

Librefm the Amarok plugin works by using lastfmsubmit which is part of the lastfmsubmitd package. lastfmsubmitd is a daemon meant to be used by Last.fm player plugins. Because from release 1.05 onwards it allows for configuration of the server URL. It is an easy matter to get it to gobble to libre.fm.

Procedure to Install

The following are the easy steps to getting Amarok to use the librefm plugin.

  1. Install the lastfmsubmitd daemon, you will be asked for your last.fm userid and password - enter your libre.fm userid and password
  2. Change the configuration for lastfmsubmitd -
    Change:
    [server]
    url = http://post.audioscrobbler.com/
    to:
    [server]
    url = http://turtle.libre.fm/
  3. Download and install the librefm plugin to Amarok
  4. In Amarok go to >settings>configure Amarok>last.fm and uncheck "Improve My Profile By Submitting the tracks I play". If you wish to continue scrobbling to last.fm leave this box checked
  5. Don't forget to ensue that the lastfmsumitd daemon is started automatically each boot up.

For users of lastfmsubmitd versions prior to 1.05

Step 2 above can not be done, as versions of lastfmsubmitd before 1.05 do not support the server configuration in the config file. It will be necessary to edit /usr/bin/lastfmsubmitd and change the following line of code:
HANDSHAKE_URL_BASE = 'http://post.audioscrobbler.com/'
to
HANDSHAKE_URL_BASE = 'http://turtle.libre.fm/'

NOTE It is not neccessary to change your etc/hosts file for this plugin to work.

Non Ubuntu Users

The librefm plugin assumes that lastfmsubmit (Notice the lack of the final d) is in /usr/lib/lastfmsubmitd. If your copy of lastfmsubmit is held elsewhere, you will need to edit the librefm plugin. This will be found in ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/scripts.

The line that needs to be edited is
/usr/lib/lastfmsubmitd/lastfmsubmit --encoding UTF-8 --artist "$ARTIST" --title "$SONGTITLE" --length "$TOTALTIME" --album "$ALBUM"
Which should be changed to
yourpathto/lastfmsubmit --encoding UTF-8 --artist "$ARTIST" --title "$SONGTITLE" --length "$TOTALTIME" --album "$ALBUM"

Important Final Instruction

One final point. I had to chmod 777 the following directories before I could get the lastfmsubmitd daemon to work.

Download The librefm Plugin

Download librefm Plugin for Amarok 1.4

Help, Report Bugs, Etc.

Email or IM bananabob(AT)gmail.com, and I will see what I can do. WARNING - You use this plugin and follow my instructions at your own risk.