I would like to use sites like last.fm, but because I'm often moving from OS to OS, and mostly listen to music on an mp3 player, most of my listening data gets lost.
Is there any way I can backup Banshee's listening history, and restore it on a new install?
The database is a SQLite db sitting at:
You can carry that around where you like with one caveat: You can never take a version that has run on a newer version of banshee to a computer that has an older version.
They constantly change the database layout and only provide one-direction migration code so once you run it on a newer version, that's it. All your computers need to run that version.
Oli is quite right, but as an alternative, if you go to Edit->Preferences with Banshee, on the General tab there is an option to "Write ratings and play counts to files".
This means you don't have to worry about moving Banshee's config files around - Banshee can read the play count directly from the mp3/audio file - whichever Ubuntu install you using.
(Note: your MP3 player, and programs other than Banshee probably won't look at this.)