Hello, i've been thinking about using soulseek for the very first time to download some music and such. I had a couple of questions from the c/piracy community.

Do i need to stay logged in on soulseek even if i am or am not sharing stuff? Obviously i can't be online and have my pc powered on 24/7 as i have a life outside the web (and other things aswell). so i hope that's understandable as to why i asked, i was worried i'd get banned if i don't be online like all the time.
Would a vpn work just fine with soulseek even if the vpn has support for port forwarding? There's an obvious reason as to why i'd use one.
Which soulseek client should i use, Nicotine+? or soulseek's actual client (i use Linux Mint, in case y'all were wondering. I might move to debian though!)

That's all i want to ask for now, hopefully these aren't dumb to ask. I'll be waiting for replies (might not reply to all of them so i apologize), thanks!

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[–] harmbugler@piefed.social 29 points 6 days ago (1 children)

No.
Yes.
I've only used Nicotine+ and it's fine.

[–] Sentry64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 6 days ago

Straightforward.. i like that! thanks for your reply!!

[–] paequ2@lemmy.today 20 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Obviously i can’t be online and have my pc powered on 24/7 as i have a life outside the web

You... don't have to sit in front of your computer while it's on... leave it on and go to work/school/sleep. Sharing is caring. 🙂

[–] Sentry64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Fair enough, i think i will try to keep my pc powered on and share at least something!

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 3 points 5 days ago

This is why I picked up an old SFF desktop. Idle power is about 12 watts. I can live with that - my previous box idled at 100w.

[–] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Love soulseek but please do try and share some stuff and leave you computer on from time to time so that other people can search / download what you are sharing. Whilst it isn't a requirement and you won't get banned for not doing so it is basic etiquette in my opinion and without people sharing resources like these will slowly die.

In terms of clients I would suggest trying both out. The majority of people recommend nicotine+ but personally I don't understand it, I find the official client much better even though it has a few quirks mainly due to searching and navigating others files seems to be a lot better in my experience.

[–] Sentry64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'll try to share what i have! Out of curiosity, would people from soulseek care if my music came from torrent sites? Alot of my flacs i grabbed was from PIMEDIA which are the people uploading some songs onto various torrent sites. I was thinking about sharing those but was worried if the users on soulseek would not like that very much, hope it isn't silly to ask haha-

[–] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

I doubt anyone cares at all. You get a fair amount of snobs who will lock their files up and ask for specific trades or for bandcamp vouchers in exchange for access to what they have but I don't converse with those types personally. If I see them I usually block them from downloading anything of mine out of principle because I can't stand that attitude.

However everyone else I've interacted with there are more concerned about the quality and don't really care of origin or anything like that.

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Nicotine+ is great.

If Docker is your thing, slskd is good.

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I could not figure out how to actually log into slskd

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Per the readme,

Once the container is running you can access the web UI over HTTP on port 5030, or HTTPS on port 5031. The default username and password are slskd and slskd, respectively. You'll want to change these if the application will be internet facing.

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Ha sorry, wasn't specific, to the soulseek network after, it errors out with: Failed to reconnect: "Username may not be null or an empty string (Parameter 'username')

I remember creating an account... Somewhere? (it's been months since I initially attempted lol)

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 4 days ago

Ah, hmm. I just set my account with the vars SLSKD_SLSK_USERNAME and SLSKD_SLSK_PASSWORD

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

And Seeker if on Android.

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I’ve been using soulseek for like 20 years and it’s awesome. You don’t have to be logged on constantly, never had an issue with it before, basically only turn my computer on if I want to download something.

Not sure about the VPN, but I don’t think it’ll matter.

I use the base soulseek client. It’s simple and easy and works great. Never tried another one though.

[–] RheumatoidArthritis@mander.xyz 2 points 5 days ago

I like soulseek-qt more than Nicotine, which feels buggy to me. So here's a vote for the base client.

[–] Arkhive@piefed.blahaj.zone 7 points 6 days ago

I’m going to mention SLSKD if you’re at all into self hosting. I run that on a crap laptop at home, and can access it via wireguard/tailscale, then from my phone handle adding new downloads. This is borderline a required feature for me because I learn about a lot of music via word of mouth and being able to go grab it on the spot is great functionality.

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 7 points 6 days ago

Check out slskd its a self hostable web based soulseek client that rocks.... Sits on tour PC or server and do the fun for you.

[–] cannon_annon88@lemmy.today 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'm not sure about question 1, but I think the answer is yes, you do need to be logged in to share unless you have some other setup going on like a dedicated server or something. I just use it on my PC and try to leave it on when I can, but nobody ever seems to download from me, haha.

I use a VPN, haven't had any issues or had to configure anything for it specifically.
I do use nicotine+ (also on Linux) because I had some issues with the actual program downloaded from their website. Not sure what it was because I didn't really try to fix it after I found out about Nicotine+. It works great.

[–] Sentry64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

alright noted, thanks!! and tbh i mainly asked about question 1 cause i was worried if i'd get banned if i don't be online 24/7 (i'll find a way to edit my post actually to clarify). anyway sorry for my yapping, thank you again for answering!

[–] cannon_annon88@lemmy.today 2 points 5 days ago

No problemo! The only thing I've run into with regards to being banned by other users is to not have anything or very little available for download. I got a warning from someone I downloaded from when I first joined because my library was very small and I didn't have my filesystem figured out yet so I was sharing the wrong folders.

Also on my end, when I have a download queued for weeks or sometimes months, and the user never seems to log in, that can be frustrating. But I'm like you I don't have my computer on 24/7, just try to be available when I can and have my whole music folder available for sharing, haven't gotten any complaints yet.

[–] lunsjentilanette@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Is "i use Linux Mint, in case y’all were wondering" the mint variant of "i use arch btw"?

[–] Sentry64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No, i just thought when i said something about a soulseek client i kinda thought someone would ask "wait what operating system do you use?" and i thought it would've been alright to clarify about that. Putting that in the post wasn't supposed to be some variant of the arch btw meme.

My apologies for the confusion.

[–] lunsjentilanette@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Sorry i was only making a joke, not hating on you :)

[–] Sentry64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago

Oh, no no i wasn't saying you were hating on me. I apologize if it seemed like i felt that way- i was just trying to calmly explain why that sentence was added in haha-

[–] stevedice@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Come to think of it. Mint and Arch users do have that in common.

[–] Sentry64@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

That would be kinda funny lmao, speaking of linux.. i might probably move over to debian! i heard that new debian update came out (which is Debian 13) and i just thought it wouldn't hurt to use that one, i have used debian too in fact! debian 12 felt cozy much like how mint is cozy. (And debian is also where i tried KDE for the very first time and loved it ever since!)

I have also used arch before for a good while, but i moved back to mint for a bit cause i kinda got tired of constantly having to update stuff every single time. I loved arch too though! However, i usually used archinstall to just install arch. I never really bothered with manually installing arch myself much like how i've seen many arch users do