Amarok 2 not only delivers a software update, but does so with a fresh start. The developers announced that the reason they made this move was that it was becoming harder to work within an existing framework where Amarok was moving in unanticipated directions.

The playlist software uses the newest KDE4 components Solid, Phonon and Plasma. The scripting API and plug-in support were also improved. Better integration with Web services include connections to such services as GetHotNewStuff and Kde-apps.org.

The redesigned GUI is not only more attractive, it provides more features. You can customize the context view and decide what information to show for the song titles. You can also integrate with online services such as Magnatune, Jamendo, Mp3tunes, Last.fm, Shoutcast and Ampach.

The Biased Playlists are a neat update to the Dynamic Playlists in previous Amarok versions. You can set biases for random playlists so that what you get starts growing closer to your biases. You can even set "fuzzy" biases such as "around 1976" and "haven't played in a while."

The new Amarok is not without its limitations. Some of the features in Amarok 1.4 didn't make it into version 2, for a number of reasons. Playlist filters and queues won't appear again until a future version. Visualizations and support for portable media players will have to wait for some more work on the KDE4 framework. Related to these complications is the fact that only MySQL databases are currently supported.

Mac OS X and Windows users will get a not yet fully supported beta version due to work still being done on KDE4. Meanwhile, downloads are available for various Linux distros, including Debian, openSUSE, Fedora and Kubuntu.