How to install Herrie on Arch Linux

In: How-To
Published on 2024-09-02
Written from the perspective of a machine learning engineer and business owner.

Herrie is the best music player there is! That is, if you're like me and you like minimal terminal applications.

screenshot of herrie, a minimal music player, running in a terminal

Whenever I get a new laptop and a fresh Arch Linux installation I immediately miss it -- once every 6 years, which is exactly long enough to forget how to install it. ;) It used to be in the AUR, but not anymore. So here's a cheatsheet for installing Herrie on Arch Linux in 2024, even though the application was last actively developed in the 00s. I think Herrie's longevity is a testament to the creator's superior programming skills. Thanks Ed! <3

# install dependencies
sudo pacman -S gettext dbus dbus-glib glib2 base-devel glib2-devel \
alsa-lib libao libcurl-gnutls libid3tag libmad libmodplug libsndfile \
libvorbis ncurses pulseaudio

# get the latest version of the repository
# NOT the latest official release herrie 2.2
git clone git@github.com:EdSchouten/herrie.git

# get libxspf from the AUR: 
wget https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/libxspf.tar.gz
tar xzfv libxspf.tar.gz
cd libxspf
makepkg -sri
cd ..

Sometimes the compiler is complaining about missing somefile_c.h files, even when you're sure you've installed the right package. The compiler might be expecting the files in /usr/include but sometimes they're in /usr/include/some_lib. You can create a symlink to fix that.

For example:

sudo ln -s /usr/include/libmodplug/modplug.h /usr/include/

Install herrie. Herrie defaults to using ALSA so if you use pulseaudio, don't forget to explicitly tell ./configure. Read the README for more info on the ./configure flags.

cd herrie/herrie
./configure pulse
make
sudo make install