Ubuntu Linux in my humble opinion is one of the most user friendly Linux distributions around these days and anybody even remotely interested in switching to Linux should really give it a go. I myself was new to linux and I know first hand how difficult it can get when your first starting out learning something new (especially coming from a strong windows background).
One thing in particular was trying to figure out how to get mp3 playback in Rhythmbox (default ubuntu music player).
Here is the solution:
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.8-plugins
No problem at all was it.
NerdyLoft 
Pretty sweet. I’d love to make the move to linux. My friend runs it on his x-box, hehe.
It didn’t work
very nice blog!mary
didn’t work here:
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
E: Couldn’t find package gstreamer0.8-plugins
probably needs definition in that package manager first.
n00b out
Check your repositories. Chances are, if this isn’t working, you’re missing repositories.
Only worked when I installed the fluendo plugin seperately for me.
You need the metaverse/universe repos added to see these packages
great fishing site
I’m running Gutsy and I had to install the fluendo package from the synaptic package manager before anything would work.
For Hardy (8.04) I did $sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3
You can do a $sudo apt-cache search gstreamer