Totem Mozilla Plugin Unplugged

Since upgrading to Ubuntu Breezy 5.10, I found that video was broken in Firefox. I initially installed the MediaPlayerConnectivity extension I had used with Hoary 5.04 and disabled the Totem plugins for all video file formats. This worked well enough for everything except the trailers on Apple's web site. I suspect they're using the most sophisticated/"fancy" features of QuickTime, which causes Totem Mozilla Plugin—despite being disabled—to totally flip out and crash the browser. The Firefox UI doesn't provide any obvious way to uninstall the plugin, but it can be done. Here's how.

cd /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins
sudo rm *totem*

or, alternately

sudo rm -rf *totem*

I'm always wary of using forced recursive removal. I wouldn't recommend the second method, especially since the first seems to work equally well.

This should delete all files associated with Totem Mozilla Plugin. If you really wanted it back, I suppose you could reinstall the Firefox package. (You might have to use the one included on the Ubuntu installation CD.) The next step is replacing the Totem plugin with something else. The MPlayer plugin has improved considerably since Hoary, so that's what I'm using. The package is called mozilla-mplayer.* I opted to remove mplayer-386, which Synaptic will install by default, and replaced it with mplayer-nogui. I didn't want MPlayer cluttering up my Applications menu. I already had the necessary codecs installed because of xine. If you get a missing codec(s) error, you might have to download them from the MPlayer web site. Now everything works beautifully. Embedded media is a sweet, sweet reality for me.

* If I remember correctly, it's part of the multiverse repository. I can provide detailed instructions on how to enable repositories upon request.

X11: Xine United

Here's a puzzle for you. When I first tried to get embedded media working in Firefox, I installed the MediaPlayerConnectivity extension and had it open files in xine. I gave up on this plan because xine wouldn't play QuickTime (.mov) files, like the movie trailers at Apple's web site, forcing me to use MPlayer. So I used MPlayer for all embedded media until I predictably got tired of it, and then I switched to VLC for a while. When it became apparent that VLC wouldn't give me DVD playback without some serious reconfiguration, I returned to my original strategy in desperation. Except this time it was a flawless victory.



I wasn't sure whether to be overjoyed or furious. I mean, after all the time I spent trying to get embedded media to play correctly… Let's review the sequence of events.

1. Installed MediaPlayerConnectivity and xine.
   
2. Installed MPlayer (and XMMS).
3. Removed MPlayer, xine and MediaPlayerConnectivity.
   
4. Installed VLC.
5. Removed VLC.
6. Reinstalled MediaPlayerConnectivity and xine.
7. Holy shit, it works!

What happened between events 1 and 6 to cause event 7? For a while, I couldn't account for it. Then I remembered that Synaptic gives you two ways to remove packages, removal and complete removal. The latter removes all files associated with the package. With the former, "configuration files and user created data" remain untouched.

Maybe files lingering from one of the other packages made it possible for xine to play embedded media it couldn't play before. I doubt they came from VLC; it had more problems than xine did. MediaPlayerConnectivity doesn't include any codecs, and XMMS had been on my system before I ever tried xine. That leaves MPlayer.

I decided to investigate the xine documentation. It contains a section that recommends downloading Dynamic Link Libraries (DLLs) from the MPlayer site in order to play QuickTime files. On the other hand, it recommends a similar solution to playing Windows Media Video (WMV). I still can't play WMV in xine—or any other media player, for that matter. Eat my shorts, Microsoft. You and your proprietary video format can suck my USB dongle. In any case, I'm not willing to discount the MPlayer theory yet. I'll look into this tomorrow if I have time.

By the way, xine has beautiful DVD playback. All I had to do was get the libdvdcss2 package. I've seen suggestions that the use of this decryption library is illegal in the U.S. So it's illegal to play a DVD I bought with my own money in a computer likewise purchased? That's ridiculous. Nonetheless I feel obliged to warn you. Now here's how to install the package.

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

It's that easy. Go enjoy your favorite movie. You are big winner.

XMMS INXS

Enabling Ogg Vorbis and MP3 Playback in XMMS

I finally overcame my aversion to the unattractive XMMS interface long enough to install it and discover it doesn't work. I can add songs to the playlist, but as soon as I hit play the application stops responding. I opened the Terminal and tried running it from there. It greeted me with an error message.

libmikmod.so.2: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Apparently XMMS couldn't find one of the libraries it needs. I went into Synaptic and searched for "mikmod". I didn't find an exact match, so I decided to consult the Unofficial Ubuntu 5.04 Starter Guide. The guide includes a long list of multimedia codecs in a section appropriately titled, "Q: How to install Multimedia Codecs?" I located the gstreamer0.8-plugins package in Synaptic and installed it. This could also be done in the Terminal.

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.8-plugins

The error message didn't appear, but XMMS still refuses to play anything. Perhaps it's time to consult Ubuntu Forums. One poster suggests changing the XMMS output plugin. I pared his instructions down to three easy steps.

1. Options -> Preferences (Ctrl+P)
2. Audio I/O Plugins
3. Select a different output plugin from the list.
   

With gstreamer0.8-plugins and the output plugin set to ESD, I can play Ogg Vorbis and MP3 files. For AAC files, I'll need additional plugins not found in the default repositories. So I must add the necessary repositories.

Adding Repositories

Before I start, I should back up the file I'll be editing.

sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.bak
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Now I edit the file.

[…]

deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security universe

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary multiverse

## Backports
deb http://ubuntu-backports.mirrormax.net/ hoary-backports main universe multiverse restricted
deb http://ubuntu-backports.mirrormax.net/ hoary-extras main universe multiverse restricted

I save the edited file and update the package lists.

sudo apt-get update

AAC Playback

To play AAC files, I installed the gstreamer0.8-faad package. I used Synaptic again, but if you prefer you can use the Terminal.

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.8-faad

Ironically, after all the time I spent getting XMMS working, it turns out gstreamer0.8-faad provides an AAC decoder for Rhythmbox but not XMMS. I checked several forums, and they all seemed to indicate that AAC playback in XMMS has yet to be perfected. Oh, well. I'll use Rhythmbox as I originally intended. Now I can listen to music while I fiddle with Ubuntu. I call that a major victory.



Our Next Episode

This weekend Live Gnude Girls will reveal the secrets of Direct Memory Access (DMA) and Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA). In other words, I'm going to get my CD-RW/DVD running faster than ever and make it possible for multiple applications to play sound at once. I'm looking forward to it.