media player

Play mp3 and dvd and other stuffs under Ubuntu using Medibuntu

First please install https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

You need to have extra repositories enabled..

Please first enable the universe and multiverse repository:

Open System → Administration → Software sources → [ Tab Ubuntu software ]

enable "Community-maintained Open Source software ( universe )"
enable "Proprietary drivers for devices ( restricted )"
enable "Software restrictecd by copyright or legal issue ( multiverse )"

Close and confirm the repository reload.

Then open a Terminal from the menu Applications→Accessories→Terminal

Tip: right click with mouse on the terminal title caption and select the item "Always on Top" doing this you will force the terminal window to stay on top of the other windows and you will find very easy to copy single row from this web page into the terminal...
Something more about using the terminal https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingTheTerminal

Then type or better copy and paste a row a time then press enter:
(Tip: select the single row to copy then right click into the terminal and to quick paste click with middle button of mouse )

and type or better copy and paste:

sudo aptitude install vlc smplayer mplayer

To get better dvd playback and optional packages here the medibuntu available software list http://packages.medibuntu.org/
you need to add the medibuntu http://www.medibuntu.org/ repository to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:
( here the medibuntu howto https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu but see below )

In short please open a Terminal from the menu Applications → Accessories → Terminal and type or copy and paste:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/`lsb_release -cs`.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list; sudo apt-get -q update; sudo apt-get --yes -q --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring; sudo apt-get -q update

-- give your user password when requested, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter

Now to install, type:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras libxine1-ffmpeg
sudo aptitude install libdvdread3 libdvdnav4 libdvdcss2 regionset gnome-mplayer
sudo aptitude install non-free-codecs w32codecs
sudo aptitude install gstreamer0.10-pitfdll gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
sudo aptitude install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

give your user password when requested, you don't see nothing when you type it, then press enter.

You can also install other Medibuntu repository provided optional software http://packages.medibuntu.org/ :

Also optionally you can also install googleearth ans skype:
sudo apt-get install googleearth
sudo apt-get install acroread

Hope this helps

@marcobra a couple of comments on your directions:

1) there is no package libdvdread3, it's libdvdread4

2) libdvdread4 installs the libdvdcss2 package from medibuntu (without adding the repository) so you only need to use 1 - either install libdvdread4 and run the script OR install libdvdcss2 from medibuntu - but you don't need both (they are the same)

3) non-free-codecs will install either w32codecs or w64codecs depending on your architecture - so you would only need "sudo aptitude install non-free-codecs" which would install w32codecs on a 32bit machine

Thorough answer however,
George

@George Thanks