Looking for a Podcast Manager

#1

My old Galaxy S3 is giving me fits – I hope it lasts until the L5 ships. The latest annoyance is that my podcast manager, Podbean app, is throwing protocol errors and no longer downloading what I assume are RSS subscriptions to my podcasts. I’ve had app after app break as they are updated and the S3 no longer supports some TLS/SSL feature or another. I’m guessing that Podbean is now dead to me. Well, it will probably be dead to me when I get the L5, in any case. :slight_smile:

So tonight, I begin my search for a podcast manager that will actually download episodes to my Linux Mint laptop and will install and play nice on the L5 when it gets here. I commute 2.5 hours/day, and the podcasts let me use that time to keep current on news, Linux and libertarian philosophy. Actual downloads are important to me because the daily podcasts I subscribe to seem to drop during my commute and I’ve timed it so that I pass through 4G LTE zones when they do. Without Podbean, I suppose that I’ll side-load the podcast mp3 files from the laptop to the S3. That is, until I find the perfect Linux podcast manager and it’s installed on the L5!

A cursory search found a list where I see that VLC seems to have more capability than I knew. Still, it doesn’t seem to do actual downloads.

Of course, I’m still looking, but do you all have any suggestions?

#2

I’m not saying that GNOME Podcasts is the best podcast app, but considering this you can probably expect at least one podcast app to be available at the release of the Librem 5.

#3

I use podboat with newsboat which is a nice CLI podcast manager.

#4

PocketCasts is pretty good. Although the mobile view of the webpage is messed up; however, if you request the desktop site it loads well enough to use.

#5

That’s funny that the demo video of GNOME Podcasts came out the day after my post. I will install it to my laptop this weekend to check it out.

I’ll even try out podboat/newsboat. The idea of a CLI podcast manager is intriguing, but while I expect it will be OK to use on the laptop, I wonder how well it will work on a phone that I expect to mount on my dash and operate whilst driving.

#6

I only find GNOME Podcasts as a flatpack, so I need to upgrade my Mint 18.2 to 18.3 to support. That will have to wait for the earthquakes in California to shake out – I don’t want to get cutoff in the middle of an upgrade. My internet connection has been almost as shaky as the ground… :grimacing:

So, I’ve seen a few posts mention flatpacks as an option for porting some apps to PureOS. Has anyone actually used a flatpack with PureOS?