Just making an update to this thread after running Linux for about a week now. First off, Linux is awesome...
Linux support for .wv music files (wavpack) is lacking. The only way to run them is either by using a beta, buggy plugin for XMMS or use Wine to emulate winamp, which unfortunately has been ported to Linux yet.
So, I converted all of my .wv music files to FLAC, which is a popular, widely supported codec across all platforms and even portable audio players. I did like wavpack, it's too bad it isn't in wide use yet.
I am able to use a number of programs on Linux that run prettymuch every other codec besides wavpack, however. I've found the video players do audio just as well as the audio players. Mainly I've been using Kaffeine, Mplayer, and VLC for all of my audio and video needs. I'm not sure which I like more, so I've been using all 3 for a while now. Amorak has problems reading some of my FLAC files.
I had three sounds cards in my system when I installed linux: onboard 8-channel sound, SB Live! 5.1 and Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. Suse 10.1 Linux could not run audio from any of the soundcards with the SB Live! 5.1 in the pc. I had to take the Live 5.1 card out. After that everything worked immediately. I'm using the ALSA sound driver for my Logitech Z-640 5.1 speakers and HD 595 headphones, and let me tell you, the sound is GREAT!(from the headphones anyway... the speakers are crappy to begin with
) I can change a lot of aspects of the sound through the YaST sound card settings. Not only that, but Linux has a ton of DSP proggies to choose from. I haven't used any of those yet, however.
I guess my point is that Linux is definitely a viable option for a computer source component. It, in my opinion, beats out windows.