May
11

How To Play Any Multimedia File In Ubuntu Hardy (32-bit)

Ubu on May 11th, 2008
Ubuntu Hardy Heron is a great operating system, but what you get straight out of the box really needs to be customized to your preferences.  One of the very first things I do is set my computer up with all available codecs so that I am able to play just about any audio or video file.  Here’s how I do it (with a special thank you to the Ubuntu Forums!):
Required Packages - The first thing that needs to be done is to get all required packages, and to make sure you have all the necessary repositories enabled in Synaptic.  The simplest way to do this is through the command line.  Open up a terminal window and enter
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list
wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update
After enabling the extra repositories, be sure to update synaptic by entering the following command
sudo apt-get update
Adobe Flash - To install the Adobe Flash plugin for Firefox, and for many people there has been issues with flash, it might be better to remove any flash packages already on your system before reinstalling. From the command line enter
sudo apt-get purge flashplugin-nonfree gnash gnash-common swfdec-mozilla
After removing any residual flash packages, reinstall the flash plugin with libflashsupport, a package required for flash to work properly with the default pulseaudio sound system. Again from the command line enter
sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree libflashsupport
This will get Adobe Flash to work for most people. If you encounter problems with Flash and streaming media you will more than likely have to enable a workaround. One way to fix this is to use ndiswrapper with the 32-bit Flash plugin. Details on doing that can be found from Markus Theilmann.
Get The Goods - Now is the time to download and install most of the packages you need.  These packages will enable you to play, rip, or convert music and video and they will also enable java on your system.  You can do this in synaptic, but it is much quicker to just copy and paste the following lengthy command inside a terminal window
sudo apt-get remove icedtea-gcjwebplugin openjdk-6-jre && sudo apt-get install alsa-oss compizconfig-settings-manager faad gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-pitfdll libflashsupport liblame0 sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin pulseaudio-utils unrar w32codecs
This will take a little time to complete, and you will have to answer a thing or two for the java packages to install.
Streaming Video With Firefox - MPlayer is a fine plugin for watching streaming video in Firefox, but there is a new plugin called Gecko Media Player that works just a little better in my opinion. Installation is simple, just enter the commands to remove any former media plugins and install the Gecko Media Player plugin
sudo apt-get remove kaffeine-mozilla mozilla-helix-player mozilla-mplayer mozilla-plugin-vlc totem-mozilla xine-plugin
sudo apt-get install gnome-mplayer gecko-mediaplayer
Restart Firefox and you should be good to go.
DVD Playback - To enable DVD playback abilities in Ubuntu you need to install the proper codecs. Using VLC as your media player wouldn’t hurt either, as VLC is, in my opinion, the best media player.
sudo apt-get install vlc libdvdcss2 libdvdread3 libdvdnav4 build-essential debhelper fakeroot
After installing these packages for VLC and DVD playback, you will need to enable them by entering
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
By following everything listed above, you will have enabled your Ubuntu system to play almost every format of audio and video. Hope this helps you enjoy all the multimedia flavors out there.

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