I frequently hear comments that K3b doesn't support burning MP3's to an Audio CD. These comments are puzzling because K3b is supposed to support the MP3 format. My curiousity piqued, I checked my own Kubuntu install and discovered that the comments were correct. Fortunately there is a fix, and it's a simple one.

I specifically called out (K)Ubuntu in the title because my Debian install I usually use for CD burning works correctly. (K)Ubuntu appears to break MP3 support out into a separate package that Debian doesn't have, and apparently doesn't need.

The missing package is called libk3b2-mp3 and it can be found in the universe section of the repositories. Simply install this package using the following command or through your package manager of choice.

sudo apt-get install libk3b2-mp3

Once the package is installed, start up K3b and you're ready to go. To confirm that the update worked you can select Configure K3b from the Settings menu and then click on Plugins. Under the AudioDecoder section you should now see a listing for the K3b MAD Decoder. If it's there you are enabled to drag and drop MP3 files to an Audio CD project.