How-To: Compile and Install Amarok 2.1.1 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Amarok 2.1.1 was released on June 17th and it includes several bug fixes and a few new features compared to 2.1. Among the new features worth mentioning: there is available support for compilations with over 60 artists, there is an option to hide the context view now. For a full list of changes and bug fixes, have a look at the announcement on the official website.

Kubuntu 9.04 ships with 2.0, so to get the latest Amarok you can either use the PPA repository (which can be a little delayed) or compile from source. Here are the steps you need to follow in order to compile 2.1.1 from source:

1. Install the development libraries
In Konsole or GNOME Terminal, type:

sudo apt-get build-dep amarok

This will fetch and install the development packages needed to compile the latest Amarok release. Also, install these packages too:

sudo apt-get install libtag-extras-dev libmysql++-dev libgdk-pixbuf-dev libgtk2.0-dev

2. Get the source tarball
Download the Amarok source tarball from here, then uncompress it:

tar -xjf amarok-2.1.1.tar.bz2

3. Compile and install Amarok
You may need to remove your existing Amarok installation first:

sudo apt-get remove --purge amarok

(Notice that this will erase your entire Amarok settings, scripts, ratings etc. *Skip* this step if you want to keep those!)

rm -rf ~/.kde/share/apps/amarok/
rm ~/.kde/share/config/amarok*

Then, make sure the current working directory is amarok-2.1.1 and type:

cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
make
sudo make install

For the last command you will need to enter your user password. This should be all, just fire up Amarok and 2.1.1 should be running now.

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