Install mpd using your package manager (apt for Debian or Ubuntu users, yum for fedora and so on). Now comes the part of configuring it. If you would run mpd as root, it would read the configuration files from /etc/mpd.conf or otherwise from ~/.mpdconf . You won’t need to make any big changes in the conf file other than the location of music directory. Open up the conf file in an editor and see the line that reads music_directory. Just change the directory to your audio collection. As you would notice, the conf file is commented and it says ‘You can put symlinks in here, if you like.‘ This is pretty useful if your collection is spread over multiple directories. You can always start it by typing mpd at the terminal and kill it using mpd –kill. Remember it would read the appropriate conf file depending on how you are starting the process i.e. as a normal user or as the root.

Note: Your home directory ~ may not contain a .mpdconf directory by default after mpd is installed. In that case create one and for an example conf file, copy the mpd.conf file from /etc/ to ~/.mpdconf

anomit@deadbox:~$ cp /etc/mpd.conf .mpdconf/


Now comes the part of installing a client that would interact with the daemon and play music for you. Install ncmpc, a ncurses based client for mpd using your package manager. Then just start it using ncmpc at the terminal. There is also a GTK+ based client called Sonata which would appeal to you if you are more of a GUI person.

If you would like your current track to be displayed in your pidgin status message and also scrobble to your last.fm account if you have one, install mpdscribble using your package manager and download music tracker, the plugin for pidgin from here.

Configuring mpdscribble
To configure it, you need to compute the md5sum of your last.fm account password. Execute the following at the terminal:

$ echo -n "your-password"|md5sum>file-name.txt
Get the md5sum value from the file and add the follwing lines in the /etc/mpdscribble.conf file

username = user-name
password = md5sum


Now just type mpdscribble at the terminal whenever you want the scrobbling service to start and press Ctrl+C to end it.

Installing musictracker plugin

Extract the contents of the file and cd to the directory where it has been extracted. Run the following commands to install it:

./configure
make
make install

Just check the plugins list in pidgin and enable the musictracker plugin. Configure it according to your wishes.

P.S. By default mpd runs on port 6600 on your system. Could someone try connecting to a running daemon using ncmpc from another laptop on your lan? The appropriate command would be:

ncmpc --host=ip-address --port=6600
where ip-adress would be of the system running the daemon.

GETTING LINUX ALTERNATIVES OF YOUR SOFTWARE
So if you really want to switch to Linux, try to get accustomed to Linux alternatives of your software. If you were using Winamp, the alternative is XMMS or Audacious. The replacement of Internet Explorer is Firefox and IceWeasel though Firefox is also available for Windows. It would be better if you spend a week or two using softwares which are available for both Windows and Linux. Some of the examples are:
Firefox- an award winning and largely loved Web Browser
Thunderbird- a portable Mail client
VLC- a highly portable and excellent Media Player
Pidgin – Multi protocol Instant Messenger
Abiword – a lightweight Word processor
OpenOffice – An office suite, installed by default on most Linux distributions
FileZilla – an Open Source FTP client like CuteFTP etc

THE EASE OF INSTALLING SOFTWARES
Installing softwares on windows is claimed to be very simple. You just need to Click on Next and Next and Next. Why click Next so many times if you can install a software with just 2-3 clicks? That even when on windows you have to google desperately on the net to download your software? People usually think that installing software on Linux means compiling from source. I claim this to be a big myth! A really big one! That’s not the case. You also get pre-compiled software packages to just double-click and start, and the better thing is that you wont have to click Next a hundred times.

SOFTWARE PACKAGES
In Linux softwares come as packages. They are not installers in real sense, they contains data which is taken up by the packages installer and now its the packages installer which takes care of the further task. This prevents the package from harming the system if it has some malicious code. It is the work of Package installer to check that malicious code is stopped from executing. Probably the biggest drawback for windows method of installation is the executable installation method, viruses and other malwares may attach themselves to setup files which get executed when you try to install them.

In Ubuntu we have a package manager called APT which is an abbreviation for Advanced Packaging Technology. This utility takes care of all the packages listed on your system. There is another term called repository known as repo in short. Repositories are actually sources of packages, call it as a storehouse. When you add a repository to your package manager and update the list, it fetches the index/list of the softwares present on that repo. It now shows up on the Package manager. Now if you select to install that package it will be fetched from that repository and installed on your system.
A repository can be available anywhere. It can be on a CD, on a website, or a folder on your hard disk.The official Ubuntu repository is very large containing more than 20,000 packages, so one point is very clear “Most of the packages you need will be in the official repo”. This means you wont have to compile any software from source.

There are many package managers available, others being Red Hat Package Manager which is used by Red Hat and its derived distros. Ubuntu is derived from its father distro called Debian which was one of the pioneers in the development of Linux.

METHOD OF INSTALLING
There are two ways of installing any package – Command line way and Graphical way! Its upto you to choose between the two. Each have their own plus and minus points. Graphical method is recommended for a beginner but everyone should have atleast a basic knowledge of command line to deal and cope up with disastrous situations. This is not windows and you wont be reinstalling Linux even in worst situations.

The plus point with graphical method is that its really easy for a beginner to start using and installing any software package. The minus point is that we have to click on search, enter the package name, click on OK, when list comes, select the package, click on Apply and then again OK. It may take time and if you are a bit comfortable with Linux and want to do all these stuff quickly you may prefer command line.
Using command line you may have to just type one command and the software installation starts. You dont need to search,OK, Apply and all those headache. The biggest drawback with this method is that it is a bit tough for a beginner who has never even seen the world of commands on windows.
A Point to note: In future in life you may get stuck up anywhere and may ask help from an expert. Dont expect him to give solutions in graphical mode, rather you will get the solution in commands. The reason is quite obvious – “Why would he type so much like “Click System”, then Package Manager, then enter password and all those long long methods”. You may even get stuck somewhere and say that you didnt find that option. To get over this problem too commands come to rescue. Just copy-paste the command to your terminal, no hassles even, if he tells to give the output, just copy-paste back the output. Its so simple, a single command did all that was required even though you might have found that command very absurd and unusual to look at.

SOFTWARE UPDATES
In windows you had needed to update each application separately, this is not the case in Linux. Here updates arrive via the central “Update Manager” just like “Windows Update”. Unlike windows software updates, kernel updates, security patches and software patches, all comes via this method. If you had installed a software say “ABC” from a official repository “XYZ”, then when an update arrives on that repo, the Update Manager fetches the index of the updates and notifies you. This is an excellent way rather than checking and updating each software manually