Wednesday June 6 2007 - Lights Camera Action!

I couldn't believe how easy it was to play both mp3 and wma sound files. I just clicked on the files and was prompted to install the appropriate codecs. The whole process was automatic. And it worked.

NB - first you have to add some extra repositories to Synaptic. There are guidelines at:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty#How_to_add_extra_repositories

Enabling DVD playback was only marginally more difficult. Following the instructions at:
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty#How_to_install_Multimedia_Codecs
I entered the following in a terminal:

sudo aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras libxine-extracodecs gstreamer0.10-plugins-base gstreamer0.10-plugins-good \
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-pitfdll

and pressed enter

(Note: The "ubuntu-restricted-extras" is a meta-package that installs : flashplugin-nonfree, gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly, gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse, msttcorefonts, sun-java6-jre and sun-java6-plugin)

Then I entered:

sudo aptitude install w32codecs

and pressed enter

To install DVD playback capability, I entered the following in a terminal, pressing enter after each:

sudo aptitude install libdvdread3
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
sudo aptitude install totem-xine
sudo aptitude install libdvdcss2

I popped "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" into the tray and hey presto - DVD playback in 'Totem'!