Multimedia and DVDs in Ubuntu

This page in Spanish: Multimedia and DVDs in Ubuntu (Español)

Since downloading some of the following libraries may violate some Digital Millenium Copyright laws, this wiki page is for educational purposes only. Anyone who follows these directions for their computer does so at their own risk.

Instructions

In order to make Multimedia and DVDs work in Ubuntu, you need to add some additional software. This software is not installed by default because of licensing and legal issues.

• Make sure you are connected to the internet
• Install the following packages, either from synaptic or from the command line:
  • ubuntu-restricted-extras
  • vlc (optional)

To install from the command line, open a terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and type or paste the following:

For Ubuntu 8.04

sudo apt-get install vlc ubuntu-restricted-extras libdvdread3

For Ubuntu 9.04

sudo apt-get install vlc ubuntu-restricted-extras libdvdread4

Then open a terminal window and execute:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

or

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

depending on the version of libdvdread installed

This procedure adds a second media player (vlc) which will appear in Applications>Sound and Video as well as java, quicktime and some other media helpers and plugins. The install will ask you to agree to the java license as well as clicking or entering ok on a couple of informational screens. The installation may appear to stall part way through. Be patient. It will not currently work to install flash.

possible problems

• vlc has no installation candidate

Make sure that the multiverse box is checked in System>Administration>Software Sources

• "lock file"

If you get a message saying that another package manager is running, first make sure you have closed Synaptic and are not running apt-get in another terminal window. If you still get the error, run the following command and try again:

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock

Problems

• Occasionally Adobe updates their version of flash without changing the name of the file. In this case the flashplugin-nonfree package will download the flash installer, but not install it. (Test by going to youtube.com) The installer can be found in /var/cache/flashplugin-nonfree, or follow the tar.gz method at this page.
• Occasionally rebooting is necessary before things actually work
• Installing Java will not work if you do not agree to the license terms, so if java does not work you should try reinstalling and making sure of the license agreement. Test it by going to http://java.sun.com/applets/other/BouncingHeads.

Legal Issues

The legal status of libdvdcss2 is questionable, since it has never been brought to court, but some people believe it could be. Check out this link for a discussion, or the Wikipedia article on libdvdcss

Other links

• RestrictedFormats - Community Ubuntu Documentation