Install All Multimedia Codecs via a Single Command in Ubuntu!

Not only Ubuntu, but many GNU Linux distributions (except very few) does not include support for proprietary multimedia codecs such as mp3, mpeg, etc. Even though in comparison with most other distros, Ubuntu does make installing some of those codecs pretty easy, still there could be some file playback support missing for which you'll have to manually locate and install.

But, now using a single command (in your Terminal of course), you can install almost all of the popular proprietary codes which makes the above process a hell lot easier. So open your terminal and issue the following command,

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

When asked for the password, give your user password and make sure you have administrative privileges (if you're using the user account that was created when installing Ubuntu, then you have those privileges by default).

So after installing this, you'll be able to play not only mp3, DVD, or other major file formats, but the above command will also install Microsoft fonts (be aware that, if I'm not mistaken, Microsoft does not allow you to use their fonts other than Windows), Java run-time files, Flash support, and many others as well.