Shortwave – Modern GTK+ Internet Radio Player for Linux

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Want to listen to free internet radio in Linux? Try Shortwave, a native GTK+ internet radio player with modern user interface.

Shortwave is an internet radio player written in Rust and GTK+ 3. With the database of Community Radio Browser, it provides access to over 25,500 stations. And it is compatible with the Librem 5 via libhandy library.

The radio player comes with ‘Discover’ tab (see top pic) that lists most voted stations, and a ‘Search’ tab to search and discover new radio stations.

Other features include:

  • Create your own library where you can add your favorite stations
  • Automatic recognition of songs, with the possibility to save them individually
  • Responsive application layout, compatible for small and large screens
  • Play audio on supported network devices (e.g. Google Chromecasts)
  • Seamless integration into the GNOME desktop environment

How to Install Shortwave in Linux Desktops:

The player is available as Flatpak, universal package format that works on most Linux Desktops. The downside is that it runs in sandbox, and takes a few more hundred MB disk spaces due to requirement of Gnome platform.

1. Setup Flatpak framework.

Some Linux Distros (e.g., Linux Mint >= 18.3, elementary OS >= 5.1) comes with flatpak support out of the box.

For Debian, Ubuntu, and Raspberry Pi OS, open terminal and run commands:

sudo apt install flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

For Fedora and CentOS 7, run command in terminal:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

For OpenSUSE:

sudo zypper install flatpak
flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

For Arch Linux, run command:

sudo pacman -S flatpak

For other Linux, see go to this page for how-to setup flatpak.

2. Install Shortwave flatpak package.

Once you got flatpak setup on your system (some Linux need restart), run command in terminal to install Shortwave:

flatpak install flathub de.haeckerfelix.Shortwave

And you can update the package, if a new release is out, via command:

flatpak update de.haeckerfelix.Shortwave

(Optional) To remove Shortwave internet radio player, run command:

flatpak uninstall de.haeckerfelix.Shortwave
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