A fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) comes complete with Firefox, the Rhythmbox music player, and the Totem movie player. You may find, however, that some websites don’t work correctly because Flash and Java are missing, you may also find that a lot of your media files do not play. This is because Ubuntu (for legal reasons) only comes with support for free and open source audio and video formats. Many technologies such as Flash, MP3 and DVD are proprietary or patent encumbered and can not be included on the Ubuntu CD.
Thankfully, it’s extremely easy to set up your new Ubuntu system to play just about any media file you can throw at it. All you need to do is install one software package from the Ubuntu Software Center and your system will be configured to enjoy all of your media files and the whole internet. The software that we need to install is called “Ubuntu Restricted Extras.” This package, in turn, will download, install and configure Flash, Java, core Microsoft fonts (the fonts used on many websites), MP3 support, DVD support (for unencrypted DVDs) and support for just about every other audio and video format you can imagine.
To install this package, open the Ubuntu Software Center (by clicking Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center) and search for “Ubuntu restricted extras.” You should see the “Ubuntu restricted extras” package in the search results, then just click “Install” and let Ubuntu’s built-in package manager do all the hard work for you!
Because this package downloads and installs a lot of other packages (many of them not located on Ubuntu’s servers), it can take some time to finish downloading. Just be patient and let the process finish. It’ll be worth it in the end.
Once the package has been installed, you can restart Firefox and you should now be able to access all your favorite sites, like YouTube, that require the Flash plugin, play any multimedia files you may have, and watch non-commercial DVDs.
Bonus: Installing support for commercial DVD playback
Due to many varying laws around the world, Ubuntu can not ship support for commercial (encrypted) DVD playback. To install support for commercial DVDs, all you need is to install one file which can be found at Medibuntu called “libdvdcss2.” Medibuntu is a software repository that contains several restricted multimedia related applications, and you can follow the instructions on their site to install this repository on your computer. In our case, we just want the libdvdcss2 file, so we can install it manually. Just visit this page and download the libdvdcss2 package for your computer (either 32-bit or 64-bit). Once you’ve downloaded the file, simple double click it and follow the instructions to install. You should now be able to watch all your favorite DVDs on Ubuntu!
Legal Warning: Check with your local laws to make sure usage of libdvdcss2 would be legal in your area.
Hello there
First of all thanks for all the great info in your web site.
I have Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit and I installed the restricted extras exactly the same way you have in your video. They never worked correctly, video was choppy and they just didn’t work right.
So I did an uninstall and following some direction I found online, I opened a terminal and typed “sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras”.
The installation was allot quicker and the codecs worked with out a hitch.
I don’t know if it has to do with my hardware or not. I have build my own desktop with an AMD Athlon 630 ( quad core 2.8 Mhz, 8 gig of DDR3 Ram and I use the build in graphics that comes with my AMD 785 Northbridge. I used Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit. I also installed the AMD restricted drivers but found out that my system is faster and works better without them.
Padster,
Installing via apt-get should be exactly the same as installing through the Software Center. I’ve never found a difference with the codecs. The only problem that I’ve sometimes found is the extremely long time it can take for the MS fonts to download. Glad you got things fixed though!
Jim
Two easy steps for DVD playback:
sudo aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
Read http://crackednoodle.com/2010/04/dvd-playback-for-ubuntu-10-04/
Thanks,
Brad
I followed your two steps for improved multimedia playback; however, I cannot play DVDs through the Totem player. I keep getting the following error…”pa_stream_writable_size() failed: Connection terminated”. I did a bit of research on this error, and apparently I’m not the only one who’s had this same problem.
Take a look at Launchpad errors 496616 and 532586 – which indicates there may be some type of Pulse Audio conflict in Ubuntu 10.04.
Have you run across this error since you wrote your article on Ubuntu Restricted Extras?
I have not seen that issue before. I have 4 systems and they are all working just great. Try another Player like Xine or Mplayer. Let me know if that works.
Brad
Thanks a lot. I was installing each of these separately, this saves me a lot of time in my net cafe.