Winamp + KDE = Qmmp

These are times of Cloud music storage and players, when one can choose to store music on the cloud and listen to it anywhere from any device, or stream it from one of the available sites out there. Having said so, I guess there are still people like me, who also like to keep a local music collection and play it using more of a good old installed player. In fact, us Linux users are fortunate, because there is a plethora of audio players available in Linux these days. From the feature-full likes of Banshee and Amarok, to others that are maybe less powerful, but in turn lighter and faster, there is something for everyone.

Back when I used Windows as my only OS, I was a big Winamp fan, so I have always enjoyed using it in Linux. Nostalgia is a part of it, but also the fact that there are few others that work as fast. I usually go back and forth between the powerful media players and Winamp clones, but at the end of the day, I usually realize that I just need something that plays the music I like to listen to.

MEET QMMP

As far as Winamp clones go in Linux, there are a few alternatives, Audacious probably being the most popular one. However, Audacious is GTK based and I have experienced issues in the past when trying to make it work under KDE. QMMP is a much better option for KDE users, for it is QT based.

Click on image to enlarge.

Like others Winamp clones, Qmmp supports skins (unfortunately only the old .wsz ones, not .wal ones), which allow users to choose between a lot of beautiful options, as shown in these screenshots.