Amarok

There's no shortage of audio players for Linux, and I certainly haven't investigated enough of them to say which ones are the best. Since I started out using the KDE desktop, the first audio player I became comfortable with was Amarok, and I've had no reason to switch to something else.

In Windows XP, I liked using Windows Media Player. Linux takes a different approach than what you'd find in WMP, because in Linux they like to have different applications for different things, while WMP is sort of an all-in-one app. For example, in Linux I've used Amarok, Rhythmbox, Juk, and Exaile for listening to my collection, but I usually use K3b for ripping and burning CDs.

Also, the audio players in Linux aren't generally much to look at. It's definitely function over form, and Linux folks are happy to keep things as light-weight as possible, not hogging your computer's resources with unnecessary things.

The music files in my collection are made up of .ogg, .wma, and .mp3 files, and Amarok handles them all. It has great search features, allows you to create nice playlists, comes with visualization effects if you want them, and handles my mp3 player. Here's a screen shot:



That screen shot is from Ubuntu. Rhythmbox is the default music player for GNOME in Ubuntu, but I always install KDE's Amarok and use that instead.