Spotify in Wine

There is unfortunately no officially supported Spotify client for Linux, however we do have a Linux for Spotify preview you can try. Users have also reported that it is possible to get the Windows version running, using Wine. It has been known to work in many different Linux distributions and FreeBSD too.

The section explains how to install Spotify in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, but is probably helpful for other distributions too.

Running Spotify in Wine is great and if you like it, please help other wine users by being active in our wine forum. It’s also a great place to start if you are having problems. User participation is great, especially at this time when we don’t provide e-mail support for platforms where we have no official client.

Overview

• Install and configure wine
• Install Spotify
• Wine version required?
• Playback stutter
• Playback sounds distorted, a metallic noise, noticable on high frequencies
• Playing local files
• Import friends from Facebook
• Opening spotify links in web browsers
• Clean environment

Install and configure wine

Start Ubuntu Software Center

Search for Wine and install it

Configure Wine

Select the Audio tab and make sure only OSS Driver is checked in the driver list. In the frame DirectSound below, make sure Hardware Acceleration is Emulation and Default Sample Rate is 44100 and Default Bits Per Sample is 16.

Install Spotify

Download the Windows version of Spotify

Save the installer

When it is downloaded, right click on Spotify Installer.exe and select Open with Wine Windows Program Loader

When the installer is done you can find Spotify in the Applications menu under Wine / Programs or you can start it with the following command in a terminal:

wine "C:\Program Files\Spotify\spotify.exe"

Wine version required?

Version 1.0 and later seems to work ok. You can see which version you are running with the following command in a terminal:

wine --version

It is recommended to install Wine that comes with your Linux distribution, but sometimes upgrading to a newer version help if you are having problems. The latest version is available on the Wine Homepage.

Playback stutter

Make sure OSS driver is the only selected driver in the Wine configuration (start it from Applications menu or enter winecfg in a terminal). If that does not help, check if any of the other drivers work better. Most people experiencing stuttering are running a recent version of Ubuntu which is running Pulseaudio and use the ALSA driver in Wine.

Playback sounds distorted, a metallic noise, noticable on high frequencies

It is probably caused by a bad resampling from some audio component in the audio chain from Spotify to your soundcard, via Wine and sound servers and drivers. It might help to set Hardware Acceleration Emulation, Default Sample Rate 44100, Default Bits Per Sample 16. Most music in Spotify have a sample rate of 44.1kHz and many soundcards today play only 48kHz.

Playing local files

Spotify uses the native mp3 decoder in Windows instead of including its own. The mp3 decoder in Wine makes Spotify excessively unstable on quite a few mp3 files, including some from our purchase partners. We are therefore blocking codecs with the identifier “WINE-MPEG3″ until the Wine system works satisfactorily.

For instructions on how to enable local files in wine, please see the help topic Spotify under Wine unable to playback local files.

It goes without saying, but please don’t import any music into Spotify that you don’t legally own.

Import friends from Facebook

If you can’t import friends from Facebook in the client it is probably because of problems with the embedded web browser in Wine. It is possible to import your Facebook friends from your account overview on the Spotify website.

Opening spotify links in web browsers

The installer adds keys to the registry in Wine so that web browsers can handle spotify links, but this is not picked up by web browsers in Linux.

Create an openspotify script by pasting the following commands in a terminal: (\ means line wrap)

echo '#!/bin/sh' > $HOME/bin/openspotify
echo 'exec wine "C:\Program Files\Spotify\spotify.exe" /uri "$@"' \
>> $HOME/bin/openspotify
chmod 755 $HOME/bin/openspotify

Configure Firefox/Chrome

Firefox and Chrome use xdg-open to open external protocols, which you can configure by pasting the following commands in a terminal: (\\ means line wrap)

gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/spotify/command \
 "$HOME/bin/openspotify %s"
gconftool-2 -t bool -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/spotify/needs_terminal false
gconftool-2 -t bool -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/spotify/enabled true

Configure Opera

Open Preferences. Select the Advanced tab and then the Programs tab. Click “add” and enter spotify in the protocol field and select the openspotify program as the handler program.

Clean environment

It might help to clean the Wine environment if you are experiencing issues. Move your current wine directory:

mv $HOME/.wine $HOME/.wine.bak

and redo the installation again.