pianobar

pianobar is a free/open-source, console-based client for the personalized online radio Pandora.

Features

• play and manage (create, add more music, delete, rename, ...) stations
• rate songs and explain why they have been selected
• upcoming songs/song history
• customize keybindings and text output (see configuration example)
• remote control and eventcmd interface (send tracks to last.fm, for example)
• proxy support for listeners outside the USA

Download

There are community provided packages available for most Linux distributions (see your distribution’s package manager), Mac OS X (via homebrew) and *BSD as well as a native Windows port.

The current pianobar release is 2024.12.21 (sha256, sign). More recent and experimental code is available at GitHub and the local gitweb. Older releases are available here:

• 2022.04.01 (sha256, sign)
• 2020.11.28 (sha256, sign)
• 2020.04.05 (sha256, sign)
• 2019.02.14 (sha256, sign)
• 2019.01.25 (sha256, sign)
• 2018.06.22 (sha256, sign)
• 2017.08.30 (sha256, sign)
• 2016.06.02 (sha256, sign)
• 2015.11.22 (sha256, sign)
• 2014.09.28 (sha256, sign)
• 2014.06.08 (sha256, sign)
• 2013.09.15 (sha256, sign)
• 2013.05.19 (sha256, sign)
• 2012.12.01 (sha256, sign)
• 2012.09.07 (sha256, sign)
• 2012.06.24 (sha256, sign)
• 2012.05.06 (sha256, sign)
• 2012.04.24 (sha256, sign)
• 2012.01.10 (sha256, sign)
• 2011.12.11 (sha256, sign)
• 2011.11.11 (sha256, sign)
• 2011.11.09 (sha256, sign)
• 2011.09.22 (sha256, sign)
• 2011.07.09 (sha256, sign)
• 2011.04.27 (sha256, sign)
• 2011.04.10 (sha256, sign)
• 2011.01.24 (sha256)
• 2010.11.06 (sha1)
• 2010.10.07 (sha1)
• 2010.08.21 (sha1)

Install

You need the following software to build pianobar:

• GNU make
• pthreads
• libao
• libcurl ≥ 7.32.0
• gcrypt [1]
• json-c
• ffmpeg ≤ 5.1 [2]
• UTF-8 console/locale

[1]	with blowfish cipher enabled

[2]	required: demuxer mov, decoder aac, protocol http and filters volume, aformat, aresample

Then type:

gmake clean && gmake

You can run the client directly from the source directory now:

./pianobar

Or install it to /usr/local by issuing:

gmake install

FAQ

The audio output does not work as expected. What can I do?

pianobar uses libao and most problems are related to a broken libao configuration. Have a look at issue #167 for example.

Can I donate money? Do you have a Flattr/Bitcoin/… account?

No, money is not necessary to continue working on pianobar. There are many other ways to support pianobar: Reporting bugs, creating cool stuff based on pianobar, blogging about it and the most important one: Keeping Pandora alive.

External projects

Addons

control-pianobar

Scripts that interact with pianobar entirely through notification bubbles and hotkeys

pianobar.el

Emacs interface for pianobar

pianobar-mediaplayer2

Control pianobar like any other media player through DBUS/MPRIS.

PianobarNowPlayable

Integrate pianobar with the Now Playing feature of macOS

Clients

pithos

Python/GTK desktop client

pianod

Pandora UNIX daemon, based on pianobar

Hermes

Pandora Client for OS X

Standalone devices

PandoraBar

Beagleboard-based radio device running pianobar

Pandora’s Box

Raspberry Pi-based standalone devices running pianobar