There are no shortage of audio players in Linux. It has everything from command line MP3 players(mpg123) to RAM eating GUI players(like Amarok). With easily available codecs, linux supports almost all available formats.

This is the final post on a series about MP3 Players in linux. This series focuses on dedicated audio players – not video players that can handle audio as well(like mplayer). Without further ado, presenting the top 10 Linux MP3 players…

1. Amarok

amaroK is currently the player of my choice – it rocks. Everything I ever wanted in a MP3 Player and more. It is the clear winner in this field. In my opinion, there is nothing that beats amarok even if you look at Windows and Mac MP3 players as well.

• Amarok MP3 Player
• Five Amarok Tips and Tricks
• 5 Improvements for Amarok

More Information on Amarok MP3 Player

• Official AmaroK site
• Wikipedia Entry
• AmaroK Blog

2. XMMS

A Winamp clone. Simple and user friendly, it is very popular on linux. It does not have a large feature set – but I am going to give it second place due to its popularity.

• XMMS – X MultiMedia System
• Global HotKeys For XMMS using KHotKeys

Official Sites for XMMS Player

• XMMS
• XMMS – Wikipedia

3. RhythmBox

Rhythmbox Music Player is a music player and library for tagged files, that support various music formats. It was inspired by Apple’s iTunes. Although it is designed to work well under the GNOME Desktop, I had no issues with it in KDE.

RhythmBox – Gnome Music Player

Official Sites

• Rhythmbox – The music management application for GNOME
• RhythmBox – Wikipedia

4. Exaile

Exaile is a music player aiming to be similar to KDE’s Amarok, but for GTK+ and written in Python. It incorporates many of the cool things from Amarok (and other media players)

Exaile – Music Player for Gtk+

Official Sites

• Official Site
• Review: Exaile Media Player
• Exaile Media Player

5. Audacious

Audacious is not among the ‘star media-players’ in Linux – so many people never try it out. But those who have tried it out like it. For the sake of the article, I installed it – and I liked it. I even considered switching from amaroK to Audacious.

Audacious Media Player

Official Sites

• Audacious
• Features of Audacious
• Audacious Media Player

6. Banshee

Banshee is an MP3 players for Gnome. You can import, organize, play, and share your music using Banshee’s simple, powerful interface.

Banshee – Music Management and Playback for GNOME

Banshee Official Sites

• Banshee
• Banshee (music player)

7. SongBird

SongBird is an MP3 player built on the XUL framework. It’s a desktop media player mashed-up with the Web.

SongBird – The Firefox of MP3 Players

Official Sites

• SongBird Official Site
• Songbird (software)

8. Juk

An audio jukebox that supports collections of MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files. It is a part of the kdemultimedia package.

Juk

9. mpg123/mpg321

mpg123 is a fast, free, minimalist, console MPEG audio player software program for UNIX and Linux operating systems.

mpg123/mpg321 – The Command Line MP3 Players

Official Sites

• mpg123 Homepage
• mpg123 Wikipedia Page
• mpg321 Homepage
• mpg321 Wikipedia Page

10. Other MP3 Players and Media Software…

Instead of putting the last MP3 Player here, I am going to list the MP3 software that did not make it to the list…

• Beep Media Player
• X-platform Music Multiplexing System 2 – XMMS2
• SnackAmp
• Decibel Audio Player
• Aqualung
• Cactus Jukebox

So, which is your favorite MP3 Player? Leave a comment…

Update: I reviewed two more players…

• Listen – Gtk MP3 Player
• MPD – Music Player Daemon