Sound has been my one big disappointment since moving to Linux. I cannot believe how broken it is - a hodge-podge of half-built mini tools that don't play nice

Sound has been my one big disappointment since moving to Linux. I cannot believe how broken it is - a hodge-podge of half-built mini tools that don't play nice together and don't add up to anything close to a decent audio environment. I installed Rosegarden on Ubuntu 9.04 with high hopes, but after hours of monkeying around with it, it flat-out will not play music. Likewise, I installed timidity and what I had read was a kick-ass soundfont, only to discover that about a third of the instruments are simply missing. Arrgh!