I want to make the big switch from Windows to Linux.

I use my computer mainly for Music. I have over 10,ooo songs. I've been an avid user of Winamp all my life. It is the most powerfull media player for me with all it's tools and convience it offers. Alot of people will ask me why I don't just stay with Windows, but as much as I am dependent on Winamp I want to use Linux. So, can anyone please tell me what I should do about solving my media player problem for Linux? I need one that is as powerfull as Winamp.

Here are the things I used most in Winamp:
Media Player Library
The plug in where you can rate your songs with "****"
The Playlists
On line music Streaming
The Search function in the playlist witht the letter 'j'
The option to enque a song with a click of the mouse wheel
FLAC files
Viewing the recentlying played lists
The plug in that allows me to exclude songs
The plug in that allows me to delete songs from the hard drive
The replay gain option in the FLAC plugin.

Can anyone help find a Linux media player that can do these options?

I think amarok can do most of what you want although I admit I haven't used it that often. I guess its confession time: having switched to linux 4 months ago the only application that I could not replace was foobar2000 (as of version 5.5 Winamp would be good enough too) but despite the plethora of audio players available for linux I am still running foobar2000 through WINE. For me the can't-live-without-features are:

gapless
replaygain
resampler (my soundcard only outputs 48kHz)

It would be nice to have something like the advanced limiter and about a million of foobar's other functions too but these are the deal-breakers. So far I have yet to find a single linux player that can do all three. Several of the features you are looking for, like the trick with the mouse wheel, strike me as somewhat more archaic then my list, but try amarok, it may be able to do everything you need out of the box (for all I know), or with a little bit of coaxing.

If amarok doesn't do it I have found many other linux players, none of which meet my needs, but I list them off in case any work for you:

I would try these first, if I were you
as they are winamp clones:

XMMS
Audacious

Others:

Rythmbox
Quod Libet
Banshee
BMPx
Exaile Music Player
Helix Player/RealPlayer
Muine Music Player
Songbird (still in alpha but looks promising)
Aqualung

. . . . Thats all I can think of off the top of my head, hope at least one works for you!

-Tyler

if you really want a WINAMP like application, stick with AUDACIOUS. There are several forks from XMMS but XMMS is GTK1, many distributions gave up on it or haven't got it on the main repositories. AUDACIOS is a fork from XMMS but with new exciting features, there's even a converter (not ever near like foobar2000's though).

foobar2000 can be run through WINE, but you gotta have a NICE soundcard to outperform the deficiencies of WINE sound emulation system.

Same for me, actually. I still use foobar under wine. Linux has some nice players but they all have their disadvantages (not gapless, no (proper) replaygain, no replaygain + FLAC, etc etc).

Actually this is half the fault of WINE and half the linux kernel. Foobar runs under WINE with no skipping at all if you have kernel version 2.6.23 or newer. For ubuntu users Hardy Haron will fix this, on my gentoo machines it is already working flawlessly.

That is good news!

You guys should try MPD. It supports all of the above perfectly (tested with MP3, Vorbis and FLAC), it can use libsamplerate (SRC - Secret Rabbit Code) for re-sampling and it's very lightweight. All you have to do is pick a decent front-end. GMPC should be good. It comes with the possibility to use plug-ins -- check the website to see which are available. In case you don't like GMPC there are a lot more front-ends (clients) to choose from: Link.

You can use both. So if you're really attached to WinAmp ...

Is there any reason why you can't dual-boot? If you're contemplating making the change, you must already have a Windows licence. You may have ideological/ethical/aesthetic reasons why you don't want to use Windows, but you already paid for the licence (directly or indirectly), so you already contributed to MS's coffers, so if that's a problem for you the damage is already done. It would be a different situation had you said, "I like WinAmp, but I'm considering buying a machine with Linux pre-installed".

But removing Windows now seems rather like bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted. I'd keep it there while at least for now. If you dual boot you can try other software when in Linux and boot up Windows and use WinAmp as and when you please.

But perhaps it's not my business to comment on that aspect of your post, and disregarding everything I've written may be right for you.

What you might do is state which desktop environment you'll be using -- presumably either GNOME or KDE. There's no reason why you can't, for example, install the very popular choice Ubuntu (which uses GNOME) and still opt for Amarok (which is a KDE app). But it might be better to look first at what's written with the desktop you'll be using in mind and with its native technologies.