The Totem Movie Player application is a movie player for the GNOME desktop (default on Ubuntu Linux) based on GStreamer framework and xine library, and enables you to play movies or songs. You can watch Youtube video or listen BBC streams (podcasts) with this player without installing anything else such as Flash.

Totem Movie Player is simple and easy to use player. It provides the following features:

1. Support a variety of video and audio files.
2. Provide a variety of zoom levels and aspect ratios, and a fullscreen view.
3. Seek and Volume controls.
4. A playlist.
5. Complete keyboard navigation and much more

How to watch / listen BBC videos in the Linux?

Start Totem by visiting Applications > Sound & Video > Movie Player

Make sure Youtube and BBC content enabled. Click on Edit > Plugins:

Fig.01: The Totem Movie Player Plugins

Make sure you place a check in the box labeled ‘YouTube browser‘ and ‘BBC content viewer‘ > Click Close to save changes.

How do I view BBC content under Ubuntu Linux?

To see all BBC content, select BBC from the box located in upper right side of Totem. A list will be fetched for you. Double click a podcast to listen:

Fig.02: BBC Content Under Linux

How do I view YouTube Video under Ubuntu Linux?

Simply select YouTube from the box located in upper right side of Totem. Type a search such as “Quantum of Solace James Bond” and hit [Enter] key. Totem will search YouTube.com for your keywords. It will load results in sidebar. Simply double-click a video to watch it:

Fig.03: Watching Youtube Video Using Totem

Important keyboard shortcuts for For Totem:

Command line options

To view other command line options that are available, type totem –help or read man page:
$ totem --help
OR
$ man totem

Use ‘cvlc’ to use vlc without interface. This is useful for command line playing or ripping using shell scripts. This will save lots of time.
cvlc '/path/to/my.mp3'

Adobe flash player version 10 (code-named “Astro”) has been released and available for download. It has many new features such as:
+ Visual performance improvements
+ 3D effects
+ Custom Filters and Effects
+ Advanced Text Layout
+ Enhanced Drawing API
+ Performance improvements and much more.

You must uninstall any currently installed Flash Player before installing the beta under Linux or Mac / Windows computer. Open Firefox and type following at url box:
about:plugins

(Fig. 01: Flash Player 9 installed)

Method #1: Install Ubuntu flash 10 Player

Visit this url and grab .deb file. Uninstall old flashplayer 9 ( if installed ):
$ sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree
Now, install Flash 10 (make sure Firefox is not running):
$ sudo dpkg -i install_flash_player_10_linux.deb
Start firefox and type about:plugins. You should see list of plugins including Flash 10.

Method #2: Install Flash Player 10 Final in your home directory

If you need to install flash plugin in your home directory, type the following commands. To uninstall type the command:
$ cd ~/.mozilla
$ rm flashplayer.xpt libflashplayer.so
Visit adobe website to grab flash player 10 tar.gz (tar ball). Download and install flash player 10 (please exit any browsers you may have running):
$ cd /tmp
$ wget http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
$ tar -zxvf install_flash_player_10_linux.tar.gz
$ cd install_flash_player_10_linux
$ ./flashplayer-installer
Sample output:

Copyright(C) 2002-2006 Adobe Macromedia Software LLC.  All rights reserved.

Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux

Adobe Flash Player 10 will be installed on this machine.

You are running the Adobe Flash Player installer as a non-root user.
Adobe Flash Player 10 will be installed in your home directory.

Support is available at http://www.adobe.com/support/flashplayer/

To install Adobe Flash Player 10 now, press ENTER.

To cancel the installation at any time, press Control-C.

NOTE: Please exit any browsers you may have running.

Press ENTER to continue...

----------- Install Action Summary -----------

Adobe Flash Player 10 will be installed in the following directory:

Mozilla installation directory  = /home/vivek/.mozilla

Proceed with the installation? (y/n/q): y

NOTE: Please ask your administrator to remove the xpti.dat from the
      components directory of the Mozilla or Netscape browser.


Installation complete.

Perform another installation? (y/n): n

Please log out of this session and log in for the changes to take effect.

The Adobe Flash Player installation is complete.

Now open Firefox and type about:plugins:

(Fig. 02: Flash Player 10 installed)

You can now view any flash based site (see featured demos and videos on official site) or video from Youtube video sharing site 🙂

(Fig.03: Flash 10 demo featured at official site)

Flash 10 64 bit Linux version

However, there is no 64 bit version of Flash 10 exists for Linux systems. You can install and use Flash, Java, Real Player 32 bit plugins under 64 bit Linux Firefox version

mplayer lacks an option for selecting files in a reverse order. So here is a quick way to playback all mp3 files in reverse order:
$ ls -1 -r *.mp3 > mp3.rev
$ mplayer -playlist mp3.rev
Where,

• -r reverse order while sorting
• -1 list one file per line
• -playlist file : Play files according to a playlist file

Let’s hear your shell hack in the comments.

If you see error that read as follows while playing video files:
It seems there is no Xvideo support for your video card available.

Try mplayer command as follows:
$ mplayer -vo xv file.avi

Under XFree86 4.0.2 or newer, you can use your card’s hardware YUV routines using the XVideo extension. This is what the option -vo xv uses. Also, this driver supports adjusting brightness/contrast/hue/etc. Type following for other (non-xv) video out drivers list:
$ mplayer -vo help

Linux is capable of running a big iron server, routers, tiny devices, supercomputers and ATMs. However the million dollar question can Linux finally crack Microsoft Corp.’s hold on computing’s most visible domain — mainstream PCs?

I think Linux has the ability and the rise of inexpensive machines such as Asus EEE Pc ($300 notebook PC) is fine proof of concept. Over last few years I had worked with government and private project involving Linux on desktop. Many Indian state and union (federal) government supports Linux as desktop operating system. Linux is perfect for

• Browsing / Internet / Chatting / Email
• Office Application
• Programming / Database etc

My personal experience shows that Linux can cut cost by 40 to 50 percent over comparable Windows computer.

This Yahoo news article provides further insight into current Linux desktop scenario:

Of course, prognosticators perennially say Linux is on the verge. It gets high marks for security and stability and is widely used behind the scenes in corporate servers, making it a natural candidate to steal desktop thunder from Microsoft’s dominant Windows. And yet Linux PCs still represent less than 2 percent of the market.

This time, though, there’s actually evidence of momentum.

While the best features in the latest Windows release, Vista, require top-notch configurations that can quickly ramp up a PC’s price, one of the hottest segments of the industry involves inexpensive computers.

What do you think? Is Linux ready for prime time?

A nice guide for installing common multimedia software under a fresh Ubuntu Linux:

You’ve just download the latest and greatest version of Ubuntu Linux and it didn’t cost you a thing. You breezed through the installation and a brand new desktop is staring you in the face — now what?

There are a few things you’ll need to do if you want to get the most out of your Linux desktop. But don’t worry, none of this is too complicated. In fact, it’s much easier than trying to do the same on Windows or a Mac.

=> Optimize Fresh Ubuntu Installation

BMPx is the successor to the Beep Media Player. BMPx has simple user interface which is simple to use while being very powerful under the hood.

It can play all standard media file such as mp3, vorbis, ac3, wma and other popular formats. You can listen to shoutcast and icecast radio (internet radio or stream) using BMPx. It offers a list of thousands of free web radio station. Just pick your radio satiation and you are good to go.

GStreamer is a multimedia framework used to drive BMP’s audio backend. GStreamer is a library that allows the construction of graphs of media-handling components, ranging from simple Ogg/Vorbis playback to complex audio (mixing) and video (non-linear editing) processing. Everything that is playable under GStreamer is automatically playable in BMPx as well.

Install BMPx Audio Player

Simply use apt-get command to install BMPx:
$ sudo apt-get install bmp
Alternatively, you can grab BMPx source code here.

(Fig. 01: BMPx playing my favourite radio station)

One of the best thing about this software is it just works out of box – without constant crashes or weird behavior. Other bmpx cool usage:

• Listen CNN or BBC news / radiopod
• Use Last.fm’s service
• Use correct and canonical metadata

BMPx project home page

• More information about BMPx software available at official project web site.