Last Updated on May 22, 2022
4. Video/Audio Codecs and TrueType Fonts
Due to patent and copyright restrictions, support for proprietary media formats (codecs for common audio and video files) are not configured “out of the box”. Instead, Ubuntu produces an Ubuntu Restricted Extras package that lets you install software which is not already included due to legal or copyright reasons.
The Ubuntu Restricted Extras package is installed by entering the following command in a terminal:
$ sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras
Note: To install this package, you must accept a Microsoft End-User License Agreement (EULA), as the package installs Microsoft’s TrueType core fonts.
If you want access to proprietary media formats but don’t want to accept the Microsoft EULA, you should install the Ubuntu Restricted Addons package instead by entering the following command in a terminal:
$ sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-addons
The Ubuntu Restricted Addons package is automatically installed when installing the Ubuntu Restricted Extras package.
To play DVDs, you need to install libdvdcss by entering the following command in a terminal:
$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
Next Page: Page 5 – GNOME Tweaks
Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Initial Update
Page 2 – Install Drivers
Page 3 – Enable Backups
Page 4 – Video/Audio Codecs and TrueType Fonts
Page 5 – GNOME Tweaks
Page 6 – GNOME Extensions
Page 7 – Install BleachBit
Page 8 – Night Light and Summary
All articles in this series:
Why only cover Ubuntu?
From independent surveys Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro. Ignore the charts you see on some web sites that often have fairly obscure distros top. Their fanboys just vote them up using bots, partly because they are very passionate about them.
Interestingly, Linus Torvalds (the creator of the Linux kernel) has never even tried Ubuntu.
What about the command line? Newcomers shouldn’t only use GUIs in my opinion.
How about what to do when app doesnt have a package?
How about as a Linux user you whine, cry and criticize ever tutorial and article ever printed? It really gets old. I use Linux, I use Ubuntu, I use other OS’s. I appreciate people with the skill and knowledge to write tutorials and articles that can help others. No article can cover ‘everything Linux”. Thank you Steve.
We welcome suggestions what information you think is helpful for newcomers to Linux. When you’ve been using Linux for as long as we have, it’s easy to overlook things which would help beginners.
We will be covering the command-line in a later part of this series. But there’s a few important areas we need to cover first.