A linux controller is needed.

Personally I think long term a web server running on the Sonos would be a better idea for desktop use (as others have mentioned) as it would be cross platform and be supported on anything that ran a browser. Instead of maintaining multiple desktop code bases (Mac/Linux/Windows) it would just be one. For ease of use for non-technical people (who don't know the IP address or how to find it) they could have a simple locally running tool for each platforms that hunted out the Sonos on the network and launched a browser pointing at the right place.

Well, could be, but that's more of a design descision for sonos, is it? A webbased-on-sonos sollutions has other problems (you might need much heavier hardware for things like spotify search?) so it might not be the best solution. In the end there should be a way for a linux user to easily reach all the functions you need, and this topic is because I (and some others) prefer a native solution -> not everything should be webbased because we can. the windows native client is very nice to work with and has options that could be hard to implement well in a webclient...

About hardware, I think that a Sonos component like the Bridge may or a similar futur product may provide such service. After about the IP that is not known by everybody, a Sonos WebServer may register its self on the local DNS or by using the Samba protocol that publish some name over a network. WebServer or Native controller ? All function must be accessible from a WebBased controller because the association is no more required after that. And local mp3 sharing can be configured manually by the user with a short user guide. Music indexing can be asked from a WebBased controller to be done by any Sonos device. So WebServer of Native Controller : one of those is better than nothing... but I prefer a WebBased controller that is not specified for an Operating System. ... still waiting for a Sonos solution.

It could be possible to port it through Mono, which support .NET 4.0. I would happily port it to QT myself, if there is an API to access all features current Sonos Controller has. Another possible solution could be to make it HTML5 and JavaScript. It would make it 100 % plattform independent.

I'm not sure why webbased is coming back here. It's not that hard to make a native solution and that is the reason this topic was made! We could be all "ow, if it is too hard, you could do it in html", but it isn't that hard. It just needs some effort, but a webbased solution does as well. You'd have browser compatibility and all that stuff for instance. I agree that webbased would offer a feature that might be usefull for a great deal of usecases, some which are the same as the usecases for a native linux client, but they do NOT overlap 100% Lets agree that we are talking about a linux version of the available windows and mac controllers.

I agree a native client would be best but I am getting fed up with the non existence of the product and found that the Purple web-interface isn't ever so friendly and responsive. So I've started this project https://github.com/bencevans/soyes if anyone's interested in giving us a hand, please get in touch!

Would love a cross platform player I have a variety of OS's running and would love to be able to use sonos control panel on all.

Just posting to +1 this. It would be great to have a native SONOS controller for my linux machine, right now I can only control from my android phone.

Would also like a Linux controller. I originally chose a Squeezebox over Sonos because of Linux compatibility, but would like to migrate to Sonos without buying an expensive server.

Another one for a controller which can be used from Linux, please.