Anyone that’s read many of my other posts probably remembers that I severely dislike iTunes and have done everything I can to get away from it. Turns out Amazon is helping a great deal!

I did finally download all of my lost iTunes music using a Win2K VM and then stripped all the DRM off of it. I love these shots of using iTunes in a VM on Ubuntu, observe:

iTunesSucks

So once I got everything off of iTunes I still had the problem of where to get quality, legal, digital music that satisfies my ultimately impatient desires to have everything NOW (I blame the Internet for that trait). Seriously, the idea of having to order a CD, wait for it to arrive, and then rip it, is excruciating!

Enter Amazon. Back in January, they inked a deal with Sony/BMG completing agreements with all of the major (and many smaller) music labels to sell DRM-free 256K MP3s for something on the order of $0.89 each, or $8-10 per album. The problem was, to get the album pricing you had to use Amazon’s MP3 downloader client which basically queues up a “playlist” of files to download. They only offered the client for Windows and Mac, with a Linux version “coming soon.” The only other option for Linux users was to purchase/download each file individually which could result in a decent cost differential if you have an album with 15+ songs on it.

But earlier this month, Amazon actually made good on their “coming soon” promise! They now offer binary-compatible installers for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and SuSE on their site. This morning I installed the Ubuntu client, and it works just like it did in Windows. It makes for one-click album purchases that download quickly and sound great.

With the rounded out catalog (they claim it’s the largest non-DRM catalog available), it’s finally easy to kick iTunes to the curb!