Replace Celluloid with a modern Mediaplayer Mint Cinnamon 22.1

[PurpleSmurf2]

The version used is 0.21 from 22 May 2021 and the most current version is 0.27 from 24 June 2024. Many annoying bugs have been fixed in the new version, such as the automatic adjustment of the window size, which is still incorrect in version 0.21. If I understood correctly, celluloid is no longer updated for Mint, so it's time to change the media player.

[LinuxOnTheDesktop]

@PurpleSmurf2

You seem to be saying that, because Mint is using a superseded version of Celluloid, Mint should change to a different media player altogether. But why should Mint not instead use the newest version of Celluloid? That which you write does contain an implicit answer to that question, that answer being that the newest version of Celluloid is itself old.

[Fantu]

I don't follow development of all forks done by Mint, for example I not follow at all the one of celluloid.
Anyway, if is needed rebase only (or mainly) for bugfix I think can be easier and faster to do a backport of single upstream commits that fix the important bug you need fixed.
The Mint team doesn't have enough time and people to consistently rebase all forks, nor optimally maintain all forks that have been made.
So I think it helps even with small occasional contributions, for example backporting some fixes and testing to be sure there are no regressions or other issues would be helpful.

[C3lly91]

I think VLC should be standard.

[LinuxGuy-cyber]

Play a video with VLC > Pause it > Click the seekbar at any other place except where it is at that moment.
Do the same in an mpv frontend, e.g. Celluloid & compare the two.

You'll see why VLC should NOT be the standard.

[Fantu]

I also have VLC as default on installations I do, anyway to put it as default for a distro there are other things to consider, for example in many cases a more minimal and light software is preferred as default.

[PurpleSmurf2]

@LinuxOnTheDesktop
There is nothing wrong with celluloid. I appreciate its sleek design and great compatibility. As far as I'm concerned, it's welcome to stay. Unfortunately, it is simply so that it is totally outdated and must first be ported to the latest version. It is doubtful whether this will happen in the near future.

[Jopp-gh]

Some user guides discourage to remove apps added through Mint's standard installation.
Since Celluloid wasn't able to play some of my videos and or caused artifacts when playing, I uninstalled Celluloid in favour to another minimal app: Clapper.
Works well for me.
I didn't install VLC instead, bc too complex for my usage.

[C3lly91]

VLC just get always good updates and is by far the fastest and the one with highest compatibility.

[cplittlfield]

@PurpleSmurf2 I'm confused. You write as though the fact that Celluoid comes with Linux Mint prevents us from installing any other application we like better.

What would you recommend in place of Celluloid?

[PurpleSmurf2]

Personally i'd prefer an updated version of celluloid. But this won't happen i guess. I am not up to date with the current music players. There might need to be a poll on which slim and modern player most users would prefer. Some of the suggestions I have seen in this thread are also very old.

[pewgar]

setting up mpv and mpvacious can be quite annoying

[goyalyashpal]

though this doesn't make sense here, but i am so glad to be using nixos with cinnamon DE. it has got the latest celluloid v0.27.

i tried linux mint distribution in month of 2024.05, and coming from windows, the app versions were so old. i knew that was worst time to be trying lm due to how its release cycle works, but still.
so, i switched to distro which offers latest version of apps in its repo, while still being able to use the same DE.

[ghost]

I'd be happy for KDE's Haruna (Qt) fork for Mint's Cinnamon (GTK) ...
Haruna is simple, and the fastest (even faster than VLC or mpv themselves) full of features, but not standing in the user's way.
One this I really love in Haruna, is the preview while mousing over the seeker bar (just like on yourube) so I know where I'm about to seek. Since I work with a lot of media, I approve this idea!

[goyalyashpal]

qt apps are slow to launch initially, and theming them to make them look even usable is sometimes very hard on GTK.

[ghost]

That's why I said fork, in order to backport Qt into GTK, thus not even use Qt

[goyalyashpal]

ohw.. such thing is even possible? wow. i didnt know. niice 👍

That's why I said fork, in order to backport Qt into GTK, thus not even use Qt

[moloch1994]

I actually use SMPlayer, which can be configured to have the same layout as Celluloid, and it has an incredible amount of features. Mainly, I can't do without its selection of aspect ratios that other players seem to lack.

However, one problem is that it's Qt. And, while it can use your GTK theme, it can't be set to always prefer dark. It does have a dark theme in it, but the window borders will always match your general theme. In the past I just used themes with dark borders, but I got tired of them breaking with new Cinnamon updates, so I'm just sticking with defaults now, and having to switch to the dark mode every time I watch a movie or something.

[Axel-Erfurt]

from https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_wilma_whatsnew.php

In Ubuntu 24.04, a number of GNOME applications moved to libAdwaita and stopped supporting the system theme.
Since selecting a theme is a core part of the desktops shipped by Linux Mint (Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce), apps are required to support it.
As a result, the GNOME Font Viewer was removed and the following applications were downgraded back to GTK3 versions: Celluloid, GNOME Calculator, Simple Scan, Baobab, System Monitor, GNOME Calendar, File Roller, Zenity.

Maybe that will change

https://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=4840

[goyalyashpal]

We added libAdwaita stylesheets in Mint-X and Mint-Y and made a few changes in libAdwaita to not use its own stylesheet.

In the GIF above, gnome-calendar, gnome-characters and foliate are libAdwaita applications. They integrate really well.

If we apply these patches to libAdwaita we probably won’t need to continue to downgrade the GNOME applications.

Upstream and long-term, if we continue to use libAdwaita applications we probably need an XApp platform lib similar to libAdwaita, either in the form of a soft-forks (libs and/or apps which are often rebased on upstream) or in the form of an extension library (something that extends libAdwaita, similar to libGranite).

- Monthly News – April 2025 - The Linux Mint Blog

[Kyuyrii]

Even with some color changes, it's still clear that these apps don't fit into the Linux Mint look.

And it will become even more noticeable when users start using other GTK themes.

[Secret-chest]

It would be nice for Lm to ship a patched libadwaita that allows theme authors to provide libadwaita/gtk.css

[Kyuyrii]

I ended up here by accident, my recommendation would be to use Parole, the XFCE video player.

It uses the GTK theme without any problems, as does Celluloid version 0.21.

The only problem I've seen so far is that it hasn't been fully ported to Wayland yet.

It would also make sense to use other XFCE and Mate apps, instead of Gnome apps that are purposely outdated.

[LinuxGuy-cyber]

I miss MPC-HC (now offered by K-Lite Codec Pack), the best media player of all time. It's only for Windows.

[Kyuyrii]

I ended up discovering this video player called Phantom Player, which uses VLC as its base, but has a GTK interface that follows the system theme.

It works on Wayland and, like VLC, can also use external subtitles.

At the moment, it is probably the best option available.

https://phantom-player.rsm92.dev/

https://github.com/rsm-gh/phantom-player

This is what Phantom Player looks like on Linux Mint using Papirus icons.

[Kyuyrii]

[goyalyashpal]

hi @Kyuyrii ! please add these things in your prior comment. github allows to edit comments.

creating new comments on effectively the same point makes the discussion hard to follow.