Ubuntu – music player that doesn’t play video or show photos

DeadBeef is actively developed and in a way that brings it closer and closer to Foobar2000.

(what it lacks in Foobar2000-features (numbers of addons) it compensates in being light and up-to-the-point - the most straightforward and non-bloated music player/handler I have seen until now in Ubuntu).

With File browser plugin:

With Infobar plugin:

to install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alex-p/deadbeef
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deadbeef 

Or download as .deb and install (i686 or amd64)

To install plugins, wich are .so files, they should be put into a certain folder.

~/.local/lib/deadbeef/

or: /usr/local/lib/deadbeef/

For the static portable version it is deadbeef-versionnumber/plugins

Considering problems of incompatibility and other issues in using the plugins, see this related answer

To convert audio files, see this question+answer.

Considering memory use, Deadbeef is much lighter than other players that might be considered foobar-like.

The latest versions (now 0.6.2) bring it even closer to foobar by the 'Designer mode' feature (similar to the layout editing mode in foobar) by which built-in or plugin features (file browser, infobar etc) are integrated to the interface:

File conversion is now very close to Foobar2000's - see the link above on conversion.

Already mentioned in answers, a great alternative is Clementine.

vlc

The stable VLC in *ubuntu 14.04 is version 2.1. To get the latest stable version:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mc3man/trusty-media&&sudo apt-get update&&sudo apt-get install vlc

can do this via a specific addon.

Look up the page for instructions - among others:

Installation:

• put the file in the vlc /lua/playlist folder, by default:
• Linux (all users): /usr/lib/vlc/lua/playlist/
• Linux (current user): ~/.local/share/vlc/lua/playlist/

How to use:

• Copy the URL of the youtube video or playlist (must contain "list=PL...")
• Start VLC, press Ctrl+N, paste the url then click on "Play" (or Alt+P then Enter), the video /playlist should start

(In 'Media', 'Save Playlist to File' and may open it later in VLC.)

Now I see that this answer was already given here, although with a different link.

Also, I find interesting an application that runs in the terminal, Youtube Viewer (youtube-viewer) and uses mplayer or mpv to play the youtube video.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install youtube-viewer

More here.

By default it uses mplayer. To make it use mpv instead, run youtube-viewer --video-player=mpv. So, a desktop file with this content may be useful:

[Desktop Entry]
Exec=bash -c 'youtube-viewer --video-player=mpv'
Icon=youtube-viewer
Name[en_US]=Youtube Viewer
Name=Youtube Viewer
Terminal=true
Type=Application

When running the program, a terminal window opens, saying:

=>> Search for YouTube videos (:h for help)
> ^J> 

Running :h for help, you get a lot of options, amongst which

[playlist-url]    : display videos from a playlistURL
:playlist=ID      : display videos from a playlistID

This means that just pasting a playlist's URL will show the playlist in the terminal as a list. (Alternatively, instead of the whole URL, :playlist=ID, where ID is the last part of the URL (after list=). Then, to play it in the video player, type the numbers of the playlist items: for a whole playlist of 10 items, 1-10, etc.

If you really don't care about the video and want mainly the audio, you can take a look at this question on how to play only audio of youtube videos.

The idea is to use mps-youtube, similar to Youtube Viewer, but audio only. To see a playlist there, just type pl <url or id>. Then similarly, something like 1-10, and the sound will be played.

Youtube Viewer can be also used with audio only by adding a corresponding argument for mpv player: youtube-viewer --video-player=mplayer -novideo.

To use VLC without video, the arguments are:

cvlc --vout none <URL>
cvlc --no-video <URL> 

NOTE that for some reason not all youtube playlists can be accessed in this way.