XMMS (X Multimedia System) used to be the most popular audio player in GNU/Linux for years. Lately, when apps like Amarok and Rhythmbox appeared, it started to lose the market share. The main reason for XMMS popularity among Windows users switching to Linux is that it resembles the popular Winamp app.

Rys 1. It’s not Winamp, it’s BMP
with the Aqua, MacOS-like theme

The main features of XMMS are:

• Support for MP3, OGG, WAV and other popular audio codecs through plugins
• Skin support (no Winamp skins support though, still there exist a lot of XMMS skins that make it look like Winamp in each version)
• A lot of plugins, i.e. for visualisation, additional codecs support like MPC (Musepack) or even video
• Simple ID3 tags editor
• The additional xmms-shell librarries allow for external control over XMMS (also remotely)

BMP (Beep Media Player) is a more modern clone of XMMS (first a fork, currently an independent app), which uses GTK+ for its interface and supports the Winamp skins. BMP is fast and looks nice. It still lacks a lot of features of apps like Amarok or Rhythmbox (like collection handling, integration with external services). However, if you just need a simple Winamp clone, both BMP and XMMS should do.