Linux Amazon MP3 Downloader Coming Soon (still)

I received an email this afternoon from Amazon asking if I would like to test the Linux version of the Amazon MP3 Downloader which is required for purchasing digital albums from their site. They say that they will initially be supporting Ubuntu 7.10, OpenSUSE 10.3, Fedora 8, and Debian 4. I had them send me the Debian 4 package even though my desktop runs the testing/lenny version of Debian. I was able to install it by manually installing some libboost libraries from Debian 4/etch.

The program is written in C++ and uses GTK. It automatically configured my browser to use the downloader and has worked well for me so far. I downloaded an album of remastered and alternate Talking Heads tracks because it was cheap and the soundtrack from Across the Universe just because I like Beatles covers and it includes one by Eddie Izzard.

I still think Amazon should have just made their download format non-proprietary to save the trouble of trying to support multiple Linux distributions but this is better than nothing. Or, say, better than the iTunes Music Store.