In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series we talked about updating your Debian Linux system and installing drivers, respectively. In this third part of the series we discuss Installing Media Codecs! Media codecs are important as they enable your machine to play media. Lets get your Linux install media ready!
Wait . . . what are Codecs again?
Codecs are important, they are algorithms that shrink a video to a smaller size (compress) and then decompress it so that your machine can play it in the highest quality. If your machine doesn’t have the codec that your audio/video file needs, then it won’t play. Debian/Ubuntu based distributions can easily add the proper codecs through a terminal command.
Open a terminal window, put in this command and press enter
sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras
Your terminal may show this output. If it does, type “Y” and press enter
In case you didn’t notice, a set of Microsoft Fonts was included in these packages. Therefore you’ll probably see this notice:
This is just legal stuff saying that you’re about to install proprietary content on your machine. Press tab until “ok” is highlighted, then press enter.
You’ll see another screen where you have to use your arrow keys until “yes” is highlighted and then press Enter
Once you press Enter you’ll see a bunch of computery stuff happen as the package installs
Once the installation finishes, you’ll see a screen that looks kinda like this
Easy Mode: VLC Player
Chances are you’ve probably heard of VLC Player, its pretty much the best media player you can use in terms of overall utility. Installing VLC player is also very easy in the terminal. To install it, open a terminal window and insert this command:
sudo apt install vlc
Like the last terminal flow, type “Y” when you see this window and press Enter
You’ll see a bunch of activity in the terminal window and then it will look something like this when the process is complete
Time to Test It!
Time to see if all of these processes worked! VLC player can play CD/DVD disks and a LOT of other video files. An easy way to try it is to click on “Media” and then one of the many “Open” options in that list:
Open the video or audio file of your choice and check to see (or hear) if it plays. I hope it works! If it doesn’t, comment below and I’ll help you as much as I can!
Wrap Up and Next Tutorial
In this tutorial we discussed video codecs, including what they are, why they are important, and how to download a lot of them for the best overall experience. We also downloaded VLC player to create a very well rounded video playback setup on our Linux system. in the next part of the series we will discuss Timeshift, a way to back up and roll back your Debian Linux system in case something bad happens. I hope you have a great day and see you on the next one!
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