A: I've found Audacious (http://audacious-media-player.org/).
I've been searching for a usable audio player for quite some time.
I intentionally won't say best one, but rather usable one, as my player of choice during the years keeps changing :)
My (current) requirements
Might be quite user specific, but still, here they are:
- runs on linux (windows would be a plus, however since my recent job change, I don't need windows neither at home nor at work)
 - free, or better open source licensed (rather my decision, than a need)
 - integrates lyrics into the UI
 - can be minimized to system tray (by closing it)
 - playback can be controlled by the keyboard (when in the player UI), as I hate those, that can be controlled by mouse only (I consider mouse beeing much slower input device for the specific actions that keyboard)
 - shouldn't eat all my resources just to play music in the background
 
Well, as far as I remember during these years of my music listening experience I've been using following (more less chronologically)
winamp (http://www.winamp.com/)
- was quite some time ago, in my "windows ages"
 - I still like it's original look and consider it's UI designers unbeated (with respect to idea and it's realization)
 - major blocker was for me however no linux port
 
xmms (http://www.xmms.org/)
- worked well for me on linux
 - supported winamp skins => more less same look
 - not available any more in the most linux distros these days
 - in the time I've been using it I needed windows port as well, there was no such, but winamp did the job there
 
songbird (http://www.getsongbird.com/)
- I liked the UI integration of all the song related stuff, but finally I've found myself using only lyrics in my daily life
 - this was the first one, when I started to be OK with no winamp-like look (so it was very valueable for me for my future choices)
 - there were quite some problems with linux port, these made me believe there has to be an alternative:
 - first: no official packages in major linux distros
 - then: officially announced discontinued support for linux
 - nightingale (it's linux port http://getnightingale.com/) - had no stable/usable release for quite some time
 - in the meantime I changed already
 - moreover was quite resource consuming
 
amarok (http://amarok.kde.org/)
- worked well for me on linux
 - I even wrote a small plugin for it: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php?content=137205
 - had nice lyrics integration
 - ubuntu notifications worked/looked well
 - however I've come to conclusion that there should be some more lightweight/performant player available (for the simple needs I have)
 
clementine (http://www.clementine-player.org/)
- worked well for me on both platforms
 - as I've been used to amarok this was to me only a more performant version (as they forked old amarok version)
 
audacious (http://audacious-media-player.org/)
- works well for me these days
 - fulfills all my requirements I mentioned in the prio section
 - the greatest advantage to clementine I see is the lower CPU usage
 
Now the question is: What is your audio player of choice?
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