I just installed Linux Mint 5 w/KDE on my laptop last night. So far, I'm very impressed. Wireless for my Broadcom chipset was fairly simple to get working (for those with Broadcom chips, you know how linux-unfriendly they can be). The interface is very pleasant. The only problem I can't seem to figure out, which is a trivial one, is why I can't get Audacious to play MP3s. Amarok is the default player, but if I open an MP3 with Audacious, it will show it in the playlist but the counter stays at 00:00 and no sound. I attempted to make Audacious my default player by right-clicking an MP3 and selecting "Open with" and then checking the "Use for all" checkbox, but when I try to play another song, it defaults back to Amarok. At first I thought it might have been a permissions problem or something so I logged in as root and reset Audacious to default, but the same thing happened. I eventually tried uninstalling Audacious and reinstalling as per the advice I read on another forum, but it didn't fix the problem. Something that might be worth mentioning - I also installed Limewire (after this problem was already present) and the preview function in that won't play music either. So hopefully somebody more knowledgeable with Linux than me can give me some ideas as to what the hell is going on.

Zack

Linux Mint is Ubuntu-based.
You may well find the answer by checking out the Ubuntu forums, searching for 'audacious amorok'.

This may well be enough if you just want to play back MP3s and other audio formats. You may also need to get at the 'settings -> repositories section in Synaptic Package Manager, and enable some of the non-free multimedia resources to get at various codecs.
If you are really into hardball audio production, have very capable soundcard hardware, then you might like these links.

Introduction to Linux Audio
42 of the Best Free Linux Audio Software
10 Best Linux Audio players