[Manchunian]

First off, well done Gives you a good feeling, doesn't it, when things start working! The trouble with Linux is that newbies are straight away faced with having to download and install some of the most complicated things (Java, for example.) It's usually much easier than this.

I don't know how to do this, but they were probably downloaded when I opened Automatix for the first time

No it didn't. Automatix won't do anything unless you ask it to. Look through Automatix and use it to install all the things you might think useful: Java, Flash...Also, you'll find the codecs you need there in the multimedia tab (Win32...). I don't know if Lame is there, but if it isn't download it with apt-get. This is what you need for mp3 files. Actually, I never use Automatix, and in many ways it's best to do everthing yourself, but it helps newbies get past the pain barrier and start using Linux. Once you see how Linux works and start to understart it, you'll probably want to start distro-hopping to see what Linux is best for you (and I advise you to do this in the end) and when this happens you can start doing things the long and proper way.

Are these the minimum hardware and software requirements to run the VLC player?

Not at all. This is my signature. I use this so that if I should need help, my machine specifications are all there ready to be seen.

You need to download mplayer - so:

apt-get install mplayer

You'll also need VLC player. This is stand-alone and will run anything. I think you'll find this in Synaptic - if not download it from the website. It's easier to install than realplayer!

Movie player is part of Totem. I believe it uses Xine.

Next, the upgrade. If you upgrade from apt-get it is slightly risky. The system could not work properly. This is unlikely if you haven't been using Ubuntu for long. Back up your data just the same.

[Manchunian]

Hello again,

I just wanted to expand what I said earlier on today about the system update: I ran out of time and I had to be (too) brief. The thing is this: when you do a system upgrade with apt-get, what happens is that apt checks all the applications and their dependancies for which it is responsible, to see if they need to be updated along with the system. Apt cannot check anything that you have installed by another method.
Let's take a concrete example: VLC. If you install VLC with apt-get, your system will verify and, if necessary, update any components of VLC which need to be modified as a result of the upgrade. If, however, you've downloaded VLC directly from the website, apt will not be able to submit it to this procedure. Now, for VLC this is unlikely to be of any importance; but for other applications it might be - particularly when they are compiled by hand. When you compile a programme, you do so for your particular kernel. This means that when your system is upgraded, if these programmes can in any way affect the stabilitly of your system, either directly or indirectly (by a knock on effect that can be produced through shared libraries or binaries), then the probability that you will encounter problems after an upgrade multilplies.
Hope you've followed all of that! (you can see why I didn't have time to go through it all this morning). You have only just started using your Ubuntu. This means that it is very unlikely that you will have any trouble, not unless you've been compiling lots of stuff, which I doubt very much. Nevertheless, prudence is always necessary with Linux. (I often advise people to get themselves an external hardisk so that they can learn and experiment freely and with confidence) Linux is amazingly stable and reliable, but when you don't know what you're doing you can do terrible damage. This is why I advise you to backup your precious documents before you upgrade.
Another thing, if you do intend to do the upgrade, don't install the NVIDIA or ATI graphics card drivers, not yet. If you do, you will be faced with a black screen and flashing cursor when you boot up for the first time. This is nothing serious, but you won't be able to deal with that right now.
So, before you upgrade ask yourself the following questions:
1) Is it worth it? Fesity isn't that old (the guy who started this thread was on Dapper, which is one year older than Feisty), and it'll be officially supported for a long time to come. Besides, you'll probably want to distro-hop in the future, so it might not be worth the effort anyway.
2) If you decide you want to upgrade, how are you going to do it? The cleanest way is to put a Gusty CD in your drive and start again - but it's obviously long and so apt-get offers you a pretty safe alternative.

PS - one of the advantages of Debian-based systems, in my opinion, is that because the number of programmes in the repositories is so huge, and because apt is so efficent, people who use these distributions are less likely to run into the problems I described above. Gentoo users think Debian is boring, maybe they're right, but I love its stabililty.
PPS - one of the (many) reasons I use pure Debian rather than Ubuntu, Mint or whatever, is that I prefer to upgrade my system from scratch, right from the beginning with a fresh install. This would be tedious with most of the other distributions, especially Ubuntu, as upgrades are so frequent (every 6 months in the case of Ubuntu.)

Hope this all makes sense to you.