I've got Crossover Office running iTunes and it works perfectly. I tried to get Amarok working (SuSE Linux Pro 9.3) and nada. I installed the gstreamer plugin, nada. I select the aRts engine, nada. I select the xine engine, nada. What happens is I click "play" and it acts like it begins to play the first track in the playlist, and just skips to the next one with no error messages or any details. I get "the gst-engine claims it cannot play mp3 files" when I re-open Amarok, with the engine set to gstreamer. I cannot believe it could be this hard to get audio to play. I decided this past Friday that I was done with Windows, yet I still need Crossover Office to run (windows app) iTunes just to listen to all the mp3's I've invested a ton of money in. NOTE: I'm not trying to plan iTunes files, I'm trying to play mp3's I ripped from my own CD's. What's the point of being in Linux if I've got to use Windows apps to have simple things like music (which I need playing 24/7 while I'm coding) to work?
Sorry about my pessimism, I'm so frustrated right now I wanna yell obscenities . . .

Not to mention half my hardware doesn't work on my pavilion dv4000 laptop (card reader for one) . . . I really *do not* want to go back to Windows, but may have to . . . somebody please help!!

I got it working haha

I downloaded "Multimedia Option Pack 1" from YOU in SuSE 9.3, then set my engine to xine . . . still took 3hrs, still longer than I'm comfortable with . . . nevertheless, I'm listening to music right now . . .

I'm also having some problems with Amarok with SuSE (version 9.1 personal). You may try a different distro. If you like KDE you may try Arch (not for beginers but great for learning about Linux), Slax (live cd), or Dynebolic (live-cd with audio/video in mind that installs with a copy-paste of a directory of the cd).

I got Amarok working, and I can live without the cardreader for now . . . Its just so frustrating that as far as Linux has come to the desktop, it still seems so far away . . . Windows XP supports all the hardware on this laptop without any special drivers, yet I've got "Unknown Device" all over the place in the SuSE hardware manager . . .

don't think that "missing hardware" necesarily is a linux or windows thing.

true, windows usually comes OEM pre installed what amkes it easy for the maker of your hardware to add in all the required drivers, but i wonder what happens when i install my brothers laptop install cd on my desktop.

what i learned till so far with linux is that basically all the software is the same for every distro and you can almost always get everything to work,
the trick according to me is too find the distro that has the coolest logo and find out how to fix those things in that particulair distro.

I agree - that's why I chose SuSE 9.3. Its definately the cleanest and most polished distro I've tried. I just wish these stupid manufacturers would support their products. HP saying their Laptop doesn't support Linux is like Chevrolet saying their cars don't drive on Snow. Its the silliest thing in the world, and yet they all get away with it.

for running amarok please follow these steps, I used them on SuSE 9.3 and 10
and on both I got them worked:

1) uninstall the xine package included in SuSE distro.
2) compile xine-lib that you downloaded yourself (mine is old version 1.1 but it works)
3) now go to the source directory of your downloaded amarok and run ./configure;
this way, amrok will find xine engine and support it for compiling.
4) install amarok. amarok now should list xine as an engine and play
smoothly, but in case it doesn't, go find a plug-in suitable for
your xine and amarok versions
(just google sth like amarok-engine-xine-1.3.3-4.2006.SoS.i586.rpm),
manually install it (eg, rpm -i PLUG-IN_NAME_HERE -nodeps ) and re ./configure
and compile amarok. Now you will definetly have it working.

and about HP not supporting Linux...it is really redicioulus that HP base
the whole QuickPlay technology on Linux and then shamelessly say "we don't support or
reccomend retail operating systems like Linux". who knows, maybe they use Linux as the OS
and MPlayer as the whole multimedia engine for QP, and if you say'em I'd love to have my 6-1 card
reader sing in Linux, they say: Oh we're sorry, but we really can't help you about this.
it is simple, all is because of $$$...