Fortunately that is not difficult. And even more fotunate, here are the instructions.

The first thing you need to is close out all applications that might want to make use of an mp3 file. This could include Ryhthmbox, Amarok, Banshee, or xmms. Now open a terminal window because you are going to be issuing some commands in a moment. Once the terminal window is open you will first need to su to root. With root privileges it is time to get down to business.

The first set of commands to run will install the necessary repositories for yum to use. First issue:

rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Once that command completes issue:

rpm -ivh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rmpfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm

Now it’s time to install the actual plugins for support. Issue the command:

yum -y install gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly xine-lib-extras-nonfree

Now your system will allow mp3 playback in the major players. But there is still no xmms. To install xmms with mp3 support issue the following command:

yum install xmms xmms-mp3

Once this is finished your machine is all ready for full-blown mp3 playback in just about every type of application.

Final Thoughts

Yes it’s true it would be nice if the major Linux distributions could ship with mp3 support built in. But that is not the case due to licensing. Fortunately getting this working is as simple as a few commands.

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Some of you will remember my post a little while back about favorite music players. For most people on Linux, Amarok rules hands down. In fact, Amarok has gained a reputation as ‘the player’ and made a lot of Windows users sit up and take notice, myself included.

The developers at Amarok have been working hard over the months to put forth a new version of the software. The result is Amarok 2.0. The new version is radically different from the previous version and includes a whole new bunch of features.

Amarok doesn’t just have a new look, it also has a new interface. Another new addition is the PopUp Dropper, which lets you add files to a playlist, copy them to an attached device or edit tags, all using simple drag and drop. Apart from that, you can also extract tags from filenames as well as integrate your online music into the player including Last.fm, Jamendo, Magnatunes, etc.

The biggest thing of note is that this version of Amarok is the key to getting this player to work with other OS’ like Windows and Mac. Since only alpha versions are being released presently, you can still only download the source code. However, one developer has already managed to build a test Windows version and it works fine.

I expect to see Windows binaries within a short time and I can’t wait to finally try out this player. Currently, I’m using Winamp 2. What about you? Do you already use Amarok? If not, are you planning on trying it? What do you like best about this player? Let me know in the comments.

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Luckily, the guys at Amarok have decided to give the Windows users a taste of what this music player is all about. The process of porting Amarok to Windows is well under way and seems to be going quite well.

All their hard work is paying off. They recently released a version of the program for Windows users to take out for a test run. There is one small thing though. You can’t just download the program. You also have to have the KDE installer and all its binaries.

Techbase has posted a full tutorial on how to go about setting up Amarok for Windows. The first thing you do is download and run the KDE installer. This will allow you to run all KDE apps (like Amarok) on your Windows machine. Apart from the installer, you will also need to download some libraries. Otherwise you’ll wind up with ‘missing dlls’ and other similar error messages.

Once you’ve set up KDE on your machine, do a test run to check if it is working properly. Once past this stage, download the Amarok package and run it on your machine. Amarok will be installed and all ready for you to try out.

I’m not quite jumping for joy yet. The KDE installer and its binaries are well over 200 MB to download, which is huge for me since I don’t have a very fast connection. Plus I’m pretty much command-line challenged and I’m a little scared that I’ll screw something up and suffer the wrath of the other folks who use the machine. Basically, I haven’t decided yet. Maybe I’ll give it a shot over the weekend.

Are you going to give Amarok a try? What did you like / not like about it? Linux users, what’s the best and worst thing you’ve noticed about Amarok? Let’s hear your voices in the comments.

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Amarok is just like any quality Linux app really, it integrates well into the desktop, it has a simple, clean and easy to use interface and can do almost anything you want, all this for free of course. The main feature that sets it apart from its rivals is the native support of lyrics and Wikipedia search. When you play a song you can click a tab in the sidebar to view the Lyrics, and the next tab to view the Wiki entry of the Band. I actually found myself using the feature a lot since I play the guitar and sing, and it’s easier to just load a song I like and get the lyrics instantly.

Radios are also supported of course, and there’s built in support for Last.fm too, you can easily skip tracks from the panel icon, simple and effective. I also like the way you can set Amarok to display the song being played in different ways. The default stays in the center of the screen for a bit too long for my taste, but you can set it to display in the lower portion, for less time. You can even set fonts and so on, very flexible.

While looks are a bit on the simple side I like them, but of course skins are available on KDE-Look, or you can make your own if you want to. Overall I love this music player and it’s a great addition to my Linux desktop. I’m loving my Ubuntu more and more every day, it’s awesome that free software is better than paid ones.

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