Spotify is the most popular streaming music service in the world. Plenty of people rely on it for almost all of their music. While it’s totally possible to listen from your web browser, it’s much nicer to have an app directly on your desktop.
Spotify has actually been supporting Linux for quite some time, now. While most distributions don’t include it in their main repositories for licensing reasons, it’s really not hard to get the official player installed on your Linux PC.
Also read: 15 Useful Spotify Tips & Tricks to Get the Most Out of Your Spotify Account
Install Spotify
Spotify technically only packages for Debian distributions and via a Snap, but other distributions have dedicated package maintainers that have taken up the task of packaging Spoitfy for their favorite distribution. Follow the set of instructions that best matches your version of Linux.
Ubuntu/Debian
The Spotify developers actually maintain a package repository for Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu and Linux Mint. You can add the repository and automatically receive the latest updates direct from the source.
First, add the repository key to your system.
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 931FF8E79F0876134EDDBDCCA87FF9DF48BF1C90
Create a new document “spotify.list” at “/etc/apt/sources.list.d/.”
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/spotify.list
Place the following line inside.
deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-freeNow, simply update Apt and install the Spotify client.
sudo apt update sudo apt install spotify-client
Alternatively, Ubuntu users can install Spotify via Snap.
Also read: 6 Web Apps to Supercharge Your Spotify Experience
Fedora
Fedora doesn’t have an official Spotify package, but the RPM Fusion repository absolutely does. That said, in testing for this article the RPM Fusion method was a complete disaster. Don’t go that route. Instead, you can skip down to the Snap, or you can make use of Flatpak, which tends to be better supported on Fedora.
sudo dnf install flatpak sudo flatpak install -y --from https://flathub.org/repo/appstream/com.spotify.Client.flatpakref
Arch Linux
Spotify is available for Arch through the AUR. If you don’t have an AUR helper, you can clone the repository found on its AUR page and build with makepkg.
cd ~/Downloads git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/spotify.git cd spotify sudo makepkg -si
Otherwise, install it with your AUR helper.
sudo pikaur -S spotify
Confirm and install.
Snap
Of course, you can bypass all of this on any system that can install snaps. Install the official Spotify snap instead.
snap install spotifyUsing Spotify
The client is a graphical application. You can find it under the “Sound and Video” or “Multimedia” section of your desktop environment. GNOME systems list it alphabetically under “Spotify.”
When you launch Spotify for the first time, it will prompt you to log in or sign up for Spotify. Enter your account info, and you’ll arrive at an interface similar to the one you’re used to online and on other platforms.
Congratulations! You’re ready to listen to your favorite streaming music on Linux!
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