dvd/audio player help

[smokeyone]

A helpful wireless forum member solved my connection problems with my Ubuntu 9.04 installation on an acer laptop so I am hoping someone here can help me
along with the audio/dvd player. I understand the dvd player needs added
plugins so as to not to upset copyright laws. I have already tried to add VLC -
opened a terminal and typed in this

sudo apt-get install vlc vlc-plugin-esd

Although VLC is listed in Applications/sound & video - not a lot happens...
As a newbie you'll have to explain everything in detail.

Thanks very much

[reed9]

First enable the medibuntu repostories. Copy and past this whole chunk in the terminal

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

Then do

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras libdvdcss2 w32codecs

That should take care of pretty much everything you need to play non-free media.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

[smokeyone]

Success, thank you again. Have tested on a cd & dvd and all seems fine.

[reed9]

No problem. Just so you know, this is all possible to do without using the command line, but it's much much easier to help you do it from the command line than it is to try and direct you through a bunch of menus and programs.

Lest you think linux is dependent on arcane console commands.

[smokeyone]

You seem to be helping out with all my laptop problems but there again - not too bad for an unknown installation. Actually 9.04 finds usb flash hd's quicker than another well known os with a new version just out.

So how do you find out about command lines - just use linux for years I suppose..

[reed9]

I don't know about years. I still shy of my 2 year anniversary using linux. That's coming up in December, I think it is. And I don't have a background in computers, educational or professionally.

I just learned by doing. I tried a lot of different distros at first, before switching to Arch about a year ago - which is aimed at intermediate to expert users - I learned more from Arch than from all the previous distros.

But reading these forums and helping here has taught me the most, I think. Since my computers pretty much run without incident now, researching and trying to solve other people's problems keeps me fresh and learning.

[smokeyone]

I tried Mepis a while back on an HP laptop and although I liked Mepis the HP did not. No internet connection, no sound (not the player) the list went on. 9.04 seems to be almost fine - hope I am not speaking too soon.
Now looking for a forum heading for a very easy query......