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[catflea]

Hope you guys might be able to help me here!

Whenever I try to open any form of media in Ubuntu (MP3, mov, wmv, mpg) all I ever get is "there are no decoders available to handle the stream"

how can I sort this out   (bear in mind I am an utter linux nooB)

[SpacemanSpiff]

Please bear in mind that I tried using Ubuntu and hated it.

But apparently, Ubuntu does not come with with the codecs necessary to decode these files. That might be because of license reasons, SuSE does that too.
What you want to do is this: Add a repository that has non-GPL packages as well.
I think Ubuntu already has those in packages-config utility, if I recall correctly, you just have to add them. If this isn't the case, check /etc/apt/sources.list (sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list). There should be some repositories there that have a # in front. Remove that, it should work then. But first ....

Maybe those repositories are also added and the necessary programs just weren't installed, you can check that by trying the installation first.

This website tells you how to do it, which saves me the trouble of typing it all. Check: Installing Multimedia codecs, installing DVD playback, installing XMMS (MP3 player) and installing MPlayer (video player). You can also try Xine (another video player), but personally, I prefer MPlayer.

[catflea]

Worked a Treat,  Thanks for the Help

[decklin]

In case you're curious as to why, here's the canonical (ha ha!) page on it:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats

For your own stuff, use Vorbis! I've ripped dozens of gigs of my music into my computer's library so far, and I love it. Sounds much better than MP3, and totally non-patented free.

Glad to see someone using Ubuntu here! Hope you like it.

[catflea]

I've never really gotten into vorbis.    What can i use to rip it in 'buntu?   and will rythumbox play it?

[Jenno]

The first thing I do on a new Ubuntu install is run http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=80295">Automatix, which basically sets you up with all the things you need that they don't distribute with the release.

[decklin]

Sound Juicer will default to Vorbis... probably everything in main will come that way as LAME is in the other repositories. Try this:

apt-cache search cd ripper
apt-cache search cd encode

I personally use abcde but that's because i am a command line FREAK. If you haven't added universe to your repositories, do that, there are lots more apps that those searches will turn up in there.

I must say if you do want to go with MP3, the quality of LAME is very good... almost indistinguishable to me, until you go into lower bitrates. However, I still use Vorbis as software patents are a personally important issue to me.

[iKitten]

He's talking about Ogg Vorbis, an audio codec, and yes, you'll most certainly find an encoder capable of handling it.  You may have to compile it, as I don't know if Ubuntu has any sort of a packaging system, though this Automatix sounds like it might be one.

[decklin]

Heh. Yes, Ubuntu does have a packaging system. It's Debian's dpkg, but they have their own repository.  A bunch of my Debian packages are in universe, along with pretty much every other worthwhile free-software program out there. All precompiled.

I am admittedly somewhat biased.

[iKitten]

Eh, we all have our own biases.  Mine tends towards Gentoo's Portage (similar and definiatively copied from BSD's ports, but hey, that's the name of the open source game).  You can get precompiled builds through Portage, but the default is source and automatic compilation.  Making ebuilds is the easiest thing, and even if the creator/distributor of a peice of software doesn't want to, the community will get it done before you know which way is up.  And unless I'm in a rush, I always compile from source.  Great functionality and the ability to get as close to the bleeding edge as you want.

[decklin]

This is true. I run FreeBSD on a spare computer and I appreciate having the ports system. On this, my main box, I'm usually doing something in the foreground so there's not much CPU left for compiling. (This is a what... 500mhz... yeah.)

[iKitten]

During such a case, Portage always has the precompiled binaries to pull from.  It's what I love about it.

[starkruzr]

Eh, we all have our own biases.  Mine tends towards Gentoo's Portage (similar and definiatively copied from BSD's ports, but hey, that's the name of the open source game).  You can get precompiled builds through Portage, but the default is source and automatic compilation.  Making ebuilds is the easiest thing, and even if the creator/distributor of a peice of software doesn't want to, the community will get it done before you know which way is up.  And unless I'm in a rush, I always compile from source.  Great functionality and the ability to get as close to the bleeding edge as you want.

Gentoo is terrific - if you have a machine on which it isn't incredibly, incredibly painful to compile everything from source.  The system I run Linux on is a PII/400