Playing mp3 files on a Linux system

Due to patent issues, many of the Linux distributions does not support mp3 files out of the box.
This is old news, but if you want to support for playing mp3 files, you can simply download xmms-mp3 for the xmms player, or use the excellent mplayer (movie player) from http://www3.mplayerhq.hu. The mplayer is movie player but it can use several kinds of codecs, and is usable from the command line for playing mp3 fles etc.

Make sure you download the Windows Codec Binaries and add them to your /usr/lib/codecs or what ever directory that fits your Linux system. You will need to be root user if you choose the /usr directory.

mp3 support to xmms for Fedora or Red Hat.
# yum install xmms-mp3

Command line syntax for playing mp3 files with xmms or mplayer

$ xmms file.mp3
$ mplayer file.mp3