My phone is broken and I neeeed to listen to my podcasts while this is resolving. I thought it would be simple enough but I have been banging my head for days now.

There are lots of rss readers and podcatchers.

Ideally the downloading and listening would be integrated. Failing that, I can put up with 2 separate steps.

I can do the downloading although it’s kind of clunky. Best for this are RSSGuard and Gpodder. But once you get the files, things totally break down.

minimally require:

  • track listening status
  • properly access metadata, not just going by filenames.
    • most crucially: name of podcast, episode title, published date, download date
    • maybe the downloader has some role to play in writing file/metadata correctly but the ones I have tried don’t seem to do it
  • don’t need to make an account/server to do the above

I tried everything in arch/aur repos. A few of them had totally broken UIs not sure what the deal is. I am open to TUI options but none seemed viable.

manjaro/xfce

  • Dr. JenkemEnglish
    7•1 year ago

    I use audiobookshelf for both audiobooks and podcasts. It can handle the podcast metadata well, show pictures and descriptions, track your listen progress, etc.

  • @[email protected]
    6•1 year ago

    I think you have correctly described state of open source podcast aggregators.

    While it seams like non important matter, with control YT has on content, podcast are becoming incrisingly important for me.

    • @cmbabul
      2•1 year ago

      I’m a bit ignorant to this subject, love FOSS and have used it often over the years but have only really started wanting to use it as exclusively as possible. Is it just YT that makes a podcast RSS or aggregator difficult, seems like it wouldnt be a big ask. Sorry if this is a dumb question

      • @[email protected]
        4•1 year ago

        I am not sure what is the question, but will try.

        I don’t think YT is making it difficult, just that because of YT peope are not motivated to use and, by extend, make good podcast agreggators.

        Btw. IMHO Gpodder is the way to go, and connect it with some music player.

        • @cmbabul
          2•1 year ago

          Thanks that makes some sense I think, sorry for the unclear phrasing

  • @ozymandias117English
    2•1 year ago

    Maybe more setup than you want to do for a temporary solution, but I use MPD and the Cantata front end, which supports podcasts well

  • thejevans
    2•1 year ago

    I know it’s not what you really want, and I haven’t tried it yet, but I think your best bet is probably podfetch. I don’t know if you’ve looked into it yet, but it’s basically a gpodder server with a web podcast frontend tied to it. It’s the next thing I’m going to try.