client VS Clementine

Try Clementine -> https://www.clementine-player.org/

I'm not sure what point you're making. I run plenty of 5 year old software. My music player hasn't been updated in 7 years and works totally fine.

I have used k3B, Asunder and SoundJuicer for ripping music on Linux. I still don't think the flac decoder is installed by default on linux so: sudo apt install flac. I use MusicBrainz Picard for metadata and organization and Clementine for playback. There main branch of Clementine hasn't been updated for years, but you can get the newest build off of github or Strawberry is a fork of the Clementine project without the milk visualizations.

Clementine is nice!

One unsung feature I've always liked about PCs that consoles don't have is that if you don't like a game's music you can just switch it off and run a media player in the background. So I was hoping to do the same on the Steam Deck. I want one that can both: 1. Play internet radio stations, spotify, etc when at home and having access to wifi. 2. Play MP3, OGG, etc music files from the SD card for when I'm away and don't have internet. Searching the discovery store in desktop mode I found exactly one media player that can do both, the Clementine Music Player. https://www.clementine-player.org/ So questions: Has anyone here tried that one and can confirm it runs nicely in the background without causing issues?

Clementine control: Control Clementine.

I prefer Clementine. It is being actively developed. They haven't had a stable release since, I think 2016, but they are still working on it. Their release clients for 1.4 are quite stable. If you want to use Clementine: https://github.com/clementine-player/Clementine/releases/tag/1.4.0rc1-871-g982d8fbb6 here is the current RC release from last week. Strawberry is a good player too. I tend to use the visualizations when listening to music on fullscreen, which can be added to the system, but I just like them included with the player.

Here's my long list from 2021 that I have yet to update again with some new finds (always adding to it). I create playlists that are matched to situations (home, Combat Zone, various districts, venues, etc) and then load them up in Clementine Player which makes it easy to tab from one playlist to another (+ automatic crossfade)