cross-posted from: programming.dev/post/36925956
Comments
- Hacker News.
Is there a “torrenting for absolute tech illiterate morons” guide out there?
Why I Ditched Spotify, and How I Set Up My Own Music Stack
Submitted 12 hours ago by Pro@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
https://leshicodes.github.io/blog/spotify-migration/
Comments
BarrelAgedBoredom@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
The absolute basics:
- Install qbittorrent
- Install a VPN and run it so that all your Internet traffic goes down it
- Open a Web browser and search for top torrent sites 2025. There are articles with lists of the big ones.
- Go to a torrent site and search for what you want.
- Download the .torrent file and open it in qbit torrent Or copy the magnet link and paste that into qbittorrent
Always use the VPN when searching and downloading.
There are lots of steps to make it more convenient - things like using a Virutal machine so the vpn and torrent do their thing while you do whatever else you want on your PC, or setting up a docker Servarr stack to make things more convenient, or setting up a Raspberry pi as a servarr stack. But for the basics all you need is a torrent client, a VPN and a Web browser.
Psythik@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
If you’re going to pay money to pirate, you might as well skip the VPN and qbittorrent and just get a Debrid service instead. This gets you direct downloads to any torrent at gigabit speeds, without having to wait for seeds. Debrid takes the torrent client completely out of the picture.
All you do is copy and paste the magnet link into the Debrid site, and then directly download the torrent from your browser. It’s cheaper and much faster than a VPN + torrent client. And safer too because your ISP doesn’t see you sharing any illegal content (seeding the files is how they get you) nor using a VPN, so you can still pirate in places where VPNs are illegal. They just see you downloading large files from the internet. And since you’re not distributing anything (seeding), you’re staying within the law in most jurisdictions.
bigb@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
Start out simple and stick with a basic BitTorrent client. Figure out where you want to download from and get a torrent client configured. I use an ISP that frowns upon piracy so here’s a quick overview:
- Look for public torrent sites. I’m out of this game so I don’t have any suggestions.
- Research private torrent trackers. I don’t think I can provide any help with this, but there are other corners of Lemmy who can.
- Find a VPN. Everyone has thoughts on this and Proton VPN is the one I’m currently using.
- Pick a torrent client. I’d recommend qBittorrent myself.
- Configure your VPN to include your BT traffic.
If/when you want to try Lidarr, you’ll be much better off knowing the basics of BitTorrent because *arr software is confusing in its own regard.
Usenet and soulseek are other alternatives.
superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
My issue is discovery. I’ll take a look at what they’ve done here, but ive never been able to implement a reliable discovery process into my workflow. I still use local music, but my wife is not going to switch until I get at least some reliable and effective discovery built.
SpatchyIsOnline@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I scrobble all my navidrome activity to listenbrainz, which gives a weeks playlist of recommendations. You might have to wait a few weeks before it can establish your tastes depending on how much music you play.
superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
But I need to get those recommendations to automatically populate into playlist in my music app so its all in one place. Thats the challenge. Providing a close to as good service as Spotify.
null@lemmy.nullspace.lol 6 hours ago
This is the way
vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 7 hours ago
If you’re fortunate enough to live near a well-funded library, you can peruse their new arrivals section for CDs. That’s how I discover new artists
ech@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
Friendly alert that it’s currently Bandcamp Friday - one full day that the site gives 100% of purchases to the artists. It’s a good way to support small artists and build up a personal collection.
Psythik@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
That’s some bullshit right there. Every day should be Bandcamp Friday. I understand charging a small 1-3% fee to cover server costs, but nothing more. Otherwise Apple is just another evil record label profiting off of peoples’ talent.
ech@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
From what I can find, BC takes 15% for most sales, 10% for high-sellers. Dunno if that’s good or bad, but it seems low to me.
Phegan@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I have also moved fully to navidrome. It’s slightly less convenient, but it’s worth it to deplarform
pressedhams@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 hours ago
Have they fixed the issues with Lidarr yet?
dmention7@midwest.social 10 hours ago
As far as I can tell, no. I haven’t been able to search or import releases since about April.
bigb@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
You’ll have to be more specific. :) I think it works well for organizing a music library unless there are issues with this feature that I’m unaware of. Using it to queue downloads was painful for me, so I resort to less automated ways to acquire music files.
Simply put, the *arr software concept works well for downloading movies and TV shows (Radarr and Sonarr). Music just seems to be a little more difficult and I have lots of issues with Lidarr finding music out on Usenet and trackers. I hope that’s user error on my part.
dmention7@midwest.social 10 hours ago
I think the issue they are referring to is that Lidarr’s API or interface with the MusicBrainz database has been broken for a few months now, which means it’s impossible to search or add new artists/releases to your Lidarr library.
And as far as I can tell, it’s still down. I have been unable to use Lidarr for anything since about April, except for finding releases that I had already added to my local database.
pressedhams@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 hours ago
So, no. They did not fix it.
watty@piefed.social 5 hours ago
It's getting there. They've been taking a progressive improvement route. Searches sometimes work, mbid searches more so. They are building a cache/index of some sort, so it's taking time for that to populate, and it'll have a higher success rate as the progresses.
Pzulu@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
It is laziness on my part. I want to tell the Google home to play music.
I should just get a Bluetooth speaker and do this, shouldn’t I
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
You need the software, but there’s nothing about that request that should require access to the Internet.
I have a LLM chatbot that controls my Home Assistant and Kodi players. It’s all done locally and the response time is under a second.
On my PC(Arch, btw) I have a global hotkey so I can hold the key to record a message and when I let go of the key it uses a local model to do speech to text and sends the result to the chatbot.
I could probably use a wake word but I’d need to mic up my house and I’d rather not do that. A bluetooth lapel mic and a single button Bluetooth “keyboard” about the size of a key switch (using an ESP32C3 microcontroller) give me the same functionality.
ProfessorScience@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Does navidrome support Chromecast? I’ve had a hard time finding a self hosted music solution that will actual cast. I do have a public facing domain name with certs that, as far as I can tell, is working correctly.
Bucky@okaythen.lol 6 hours ago
If you really want to kick this up a notch, install Sonarr and slskd and let it just churn on your library and drip music into your folder. No solution for the spotify discovery algorithm, at least not a good one. But this stack is solid.
TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
I thought Lidarr is for music. Sonarr is for series.
Downloading music illegally avoids giving money to the bad companies but the artists still need to get paid. They can’t work for free. They deserve our money. So please share music, but also support the artists. Through bandcamp for example.
Bucky@okaythen.lol 2 hours ago
What I meant was Soularr. Sorry there are just too many of these apps with similar names. Soularr is a python script that runs in docker and it checks Lidarr (I believe) and then sends that info back to slskd. It was checking my artist list in my navidrome dir and then checking slskd and downloading absolutely everything I didn’t have by that artist. It ran for a few months, but I was kind of a novice at self hosting and a lot of duplicate files were created because I didn’t have the volumes mapped properly in docker. Then I wrote a script that accidentaly created an infinite loop that started copying all the files one level deeper then would repeat . I stopped it after like 4 iterations. Long story short I have four copies of a bunch of files and I got lost with Beets and plan to start over from scratch with the original source library.
thetrekkersparky@startrek.website 5 hours ago
Instead of slskd I recommend using nicotine+. I found slskd worked fine, but was a pain to set up. I found a Nicotine docker that works just like the app inside a web UI. Much less of a learning curb for someone who’s not familiar with servers.
Bucky@okaythen.lol 4 hours ago
Interesting. Thanks for that. I started this project a few months ago then got sidetracked and am about to get back into it.
dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
I wish I was the kind of person who would do this.
muhyb@programming.dev 6 hours ago
I guess I can be proud of not getting into Spotify at the first place. Instead of discovering new music, I discover older ones which I find more reliable since new music industry mostly suck. Oh, also Bandcamp is fine for discovering indie.
TheMinister@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
There is so much music today. To say new music sucks is wild
muhyb@programming.dev 5 hours ago
That’s my nostalgia talking but what I hear in public is bad, I mean in malls, stores, shops etc. maybe they have a bad taste though. By the way I said the industry sucks not the music. Because of the industry, they’re much shorter now (thanks to Spotify I guess), I hardly find a 45 minutes album with whole great tracks.