How to use Headset to play YouTube music on the Linux desktop

YouTube has a lot of music uploaded to it every day, and all of it is free to listen to. Unfortunately, on Linux, there is no official YouTube Music app like on mobile that makes it possible to use it as a music player.

Since there is no official YouTube Music app for Linux, the community has taken up the cause and provided some excellent apps to listen to songs from YouTube on the desktop.

In the past, we’ve talked about Magnesium; it’s a great app that can playback YouTube playlists on Linux. In this guide, we’ll be talking about Headset, another exceptional Linux tool that brings YouTube music to the Linux desktop. Here’s how to set it up on your system.

Installing Headset on Linux

The Headset application must be installed on your Linux PC before we can demonstrate how to use it to listen to music on the desktop. Thankfully, the app supports a wide variety of Linux operating systems, so setting it up isn’t difficult.

Officially, Headset supports Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSUSE. However, thanks to the Arch Linux User Repository, it is possible to install Headset on Arch Linux as well.

To start the installation process for Headset on your Linux PC, launch a terminal window. You can launch a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, once the terminal window is open, follow the command-line instructions outlined below that correspond with the operating system you currently use.

Ubuntu

On Ubuntu, the Headset app is straightforward to install, as the developer has provided a downloadable DEB package. To get your hands on this DEB, use the wget command below.

wget https://github.com/headsetapp/headset-electron/releases/download/v3.1.0/headset_3.1.0_amd64.deb

After downloading the latest Headset DEB package to your Linux PC, use the following Apt command in the terminal window to get everything working.

sudo apt install ./headset_3.1.0_amd64.deb

Debian

On Debian, it is possible to install Headset, as the developer provides a DEB package on their website. This DEB is most likely targeted to Ubuntu users, but Debian is similar, so there’s no issue getting it working.

To get your hands on the DEB, go to the terminal and use the wget tool to grab the latest Headset DEB package for your Linux computer.

wget https://github.com/headsetapp/headset-electron/releases/download/v3.1.0/headset_3.1.0_amd64.deb

Once the DEB package is done downloading to your Linux computer, use the dpkg command to load it up.

sudo dpkg -i headset_3.1.0_amd64.deb

Finally, correct any missing dependencies that may have occurred during installation by running the apt-get install -f command below.

Note: for more information about dependency errors on Debian, follow this guide here.

sudo apt-get install -f

Arch Linux

Headset is installable on Arch Linux thanks to the AUR. To start the installation, use the Pacman command and install the “Git” and “Base-devel” packages in the terminal.

sudo pacman -S git base-devel

Following installing “Git” and “Base-devel,” use the git clone tool to download the Trizen AUR helper. Trizen will make it much easier to install Headset, as it does everything automatically.

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/trizen.git

Next, install Trizen with makepkg.

sudo makepkg -sri

Finally, install Headset with Trizen.

trizen -S headset-bin

Fedora

To get Headset working on Fedora Linux, you must download and install an RPM package file. Thankfully, as the Dnf package manager supports installing directly from online sources, it is possible to get Headset running with a single command.

sudo dnf install https://github.com/headsetapp/headset-electron/releases/download/v3.1.0/headset-3.1.0-1.x86_64.rpm

OpenSUSE

If you’re using OpenSUSE Linux, you’ll need to download an RPM package file to use the Headset app. To get the RPM, use the following wget command in a terminal window.

wget https://github.com/headsetapp/headset-electron/releases/download/v3.1.0/headset-3.1.0-1.x86_64.rpm

With the RPM downloaded, install it on the system with:

sudo zypper install headset-3.1.0-1.x86_64.rpm

Play YouTube music on the Linux desktop

To play music on the Linux desktop with Headset, start by launching the app from your program menu. Alternatively, start the Headset app by pressing Alt + F2, and then writing in the command below.

headset %U

Once the Headset app is open, follow the step-by-step instructions below to learn how to play your favorite YouTube music on the Linux desktop.

Step 1: Find the profile icon in the top-right corner and click it with the mouse to reveal the login page. From there, create a new account for Headset. Be sure to click the blue bar at the bottom to verify your email address.

Step 2: Click on the search box at the top with the mouse. Then, type in the name of your favorite song, band, or album.