The scope of this guide is to repair or install MP3 support in (K)Ubuntu distributions. Why repair? The answer is very simple: a few days ago, after a recommended update offered via the Adept software, the MP3 support in my Kubuntu operating system suddenly disappeared. Amarok, Juk, Kaffeine and even the Audacious player did not want to play my MP3 files. Moreover, I tried to play an .m3u Live Radio stream and... guess what? Amarok did not load the stream; it complained about some .aac playback (I looked in the stream's properties and the stream was a live.aac file).

MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, also known as MP3, is the most popular audio format used these days by many people around the world. Unfortunately, the MP3 audio format is restricted in Ubuntu distribution because of copyright or legal issues in some countries. For more information you can visit the official Ubuntu Licensing web page.

The Fix

After some searching, I've found the fix for this problem and it is actually pretty simple. Please follow the instructions below exactly:

￭ Close your favorite player (Amarok, Juk, etc) ￭ Delete the .xine folder from your home directory. Beware that the folder is hidden and you must first activate the 'Show Hidden Files' option in your file manager. ￭ Open your audio player and enjoy all your MP3 music files

IMPORTANT NOTE: This will also fix the problem (if you have one) with the thumbnail generation of your video files in Konqueror.

The above fix is for systems with MP3 support already installed, but I think it's a good idea to let everyone know that Ubuntu doesn't ship with MP3 support and to fix this problem as well, follow the instructions below:

For Kubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft)

￭ Open Amarok and play an MP3 file. Amarok will ask if you would like to add MP3 support.
￭ Open Synaptic Package Manager and install the libxine-extracodecs package.

For Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)

￭ Open Synaptic Package Manager, search and install the package libxine1-ffmpeg.

Be advised that in Kubuntu 7.04 there is also a new package that contains some restricted software (Flash 9, JRE 6, Gstreamer Ugly plugins etc) called ubuntu-restricted-extras. You can install this package as well.