How to Listen to Podcasts in Your Linux Terminal With Castero
Podcasts are a great way of keeping up with the news, comedy shows, or topics you’re interested in. you’re able to listen to the latest episodes on your phone, while you’re stuck in traffic, or while you’re trying to get off to sleep.
But what if you live your life on the command line? Castero is a terminal app for Linux to help you listen to the best audio podcasts available online.
Why Listen to Podcasts in Your Linux Terminal?
Anyone can make a podcast. The barriers to entry are virtually non-existent, which means that there are literally millions of podcasts out there.
Alongside professionally produced high-value productions, such as MUO’sReally Useful Podcast, you’ll find people discussing their hobbies and obsessions, local issues, and niche passions.
Regardless of what your interests are, there’s a podcast out there somewhere that meshes with them perfectly, and which can keep you gripped, enthralled, and anxiously awaiting the next episode.
While there areseveral podcast clients available for Linux, these tend to be GUI-driven, which means that if you prefer terminal interactions, you are out of luck.
But by opting for a terminal-based podcast client, you’re giving yourself fewer distractions, and a keyboard-driven interface means that you can easily access the controls with a keystroke—without switching applications or touching the mouse.
Castero is a Linux podcast client designed to run in the terminal and offers a clean terminal user interface (TUI), simple controls, and a full range of features.
How to Install Castero on Linux
As Castero is a Python app, you need to have Python and PIP installed on your Linux system. Check if you have it installed by typing this command into any terminal:
If you see a “command ‘pip3’ not found” error, you need toinstall Python and PIP.
You can now install Castero with:
If you prefer to install Castero manually, first clone the Castero GitHub repository:
Use the cd command to move into the Castero directory:
Now install Castero with:
Use Castero to Listen to Podcasts in the Linux Terminal
Start Castero by entering:
You will be immediately transported to the TUI, which is conveniently divided vertically into three sections:Feeds,Episodes, andMetadata.
The first time you launch Castero, these sections will be blank, as you haven’t added any podcasts yet. To add a podcast feed, press theakey on your keyboard, write or paste in the address of your podcast feed, then hitEnter.
Castero will fetch the feed, and you’ll note that there is now a single entry in theFeedssection. Hurray!
TheEpisodessection will show a list of available podcast episodes, with the most recent entry highlighted, and theMetadatafield will show metadata associated with the highlighted episode. This will include information such as the title, a summary, the publication, date, episode URL, copyright, and download status.
To select an episode, press theRightarrow key on your keyboard to switch to theEpisodescolumn, then use theUpandDownarrows to change the highlighted episode. When you’ve found the one you want to listen to, pressEnter.
The title of the episode will appear along the top of the TUI, along with the current play time, and total episode length.
If you want to pause the episode while you make a cup of tea, you can press eitherporkon your keyboard; the same keystrokes will resume play.
Other useful shortcuts include:
For a full list of commands, press thehkey.
You Can Listen to More Than Just Podcasts on Your Terminal
Podcasts are great if you want to listen to fascinating opinions and news on your favorite topics, but sometimes, you just want to kick back with some more general listening.
Fortunately, it’s also easy to listen to streaming internet radio on your terminal!
There are several graphical internet radio apps for Linux. But what about users who want to listen to the radio from their terminal? Enter PyRadio.
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