Linux is a very multimedia-friendly operating system. And this is no joke. There are multiple audio and video players and recorders out there – both simple multimedia apps and advanced programs enabling stream processing and broadcasting. Everyone should find something interesting. In this article, we’re going to describe the state of multimedia in Linux, especially when it comes to home use. The popular engines, available codecs and multimedia applications are on the board.

There are three types of programs/libraries responsible for multimedia processing. In order to understand the difference between the engine, the codec and the multimedia player, the free software approach „one app for the single task” needs to be understood. In a nutshell, the engine is responsibe for displaying the decoded multimedia stream. Decoding of the stream is done by specific codecs. And the player just provides a nice user interface to the engine, allowing the user to get the most of the features provided by those (often one player can use multiple engines and codecs depending on the task).

Codecs

Audio and video decoders and usually referred as codecs. They enable us to fit the popular movie or the whole discography of our favotite band on a single CD. DivX, Xvid, AC3, MP3, OGG… these acronyms are well-known to most of the computer users. All of them can be decoded and played in Linux. Some are however harder to get working than others.

The free codecs (free as in freedom) like OGG Vorbis, Theora or Xvid are usually supported by default in most of the modern Linux distros. There are no legal issues with using them since they are fully community-friendly. Most of the codecs are however non-free, thus most of the distros do not provide them by default. This concerns MP3, Divx, QuickTime, RealVideo and all the Microsoft codecs. Don’t worry then. All of those can be easily installed with just a few commands.

You can read about adding MP3 support in Linux and the restricted formats: How to add MP3 support to your Linux Distribution? The approach of multiple distros to the restricted formats is described (with the appropriate links) in the „Restricted formats support” section of the Linux distro comparison column on our vortal.

All in all it is the best solution to migrate your whole MP3 library to OGG format. This way you won’t be trapped into the so-called vendor-locking trap. The same can be applied to the video formats. A nice guid how to achieve this can be found here: dirogg – a script to migrate your music collection to Ogg Vorbis.

Multimedia engines

The three traditional Linux multimedia engines are Xine, MPlayer and VLC. All three of them are mature projects supporting the major multimedia codecs. Lately, Gstreamer joined this group, but it still lacks a few features (like the Microsoft formats support). It’s easy to make a mistake between the engine and the app here, since both Xine, MPlayer and VLC provide a default player for their engine (still the engines can be and is used by external players). Gstreamer does not provide a default interface – it is just a plugin-capable engine aiming at becoming the standard multimedia engine for the Linux systems (and it’s the default in many distributions already, naming just Ubuntu as an example). Gstreamer can be used in such popular applications as Kaffeine, Totem or Amarok. We’re not going to go deep into the differences between the engines, since it’s not so vital for a Linux novice. It’s good to know that the differences exist though.

Video players

Traditional Linux video player usually provide great functionality since they were coded by the same people who created the corresponding engines. (Xine, VLC or MPlayer). For the same reason, the user interface those apps is really crappy .
On the other hand, there exist a number of video players which serve only as a frontend to the engines mentioned before. They focus on nice looks and intuitive interface, still providing the most desired features. Totem and Kaffeine are examples of the second group.

Here is a short summary of the most popular video player for Linux:

• Xine – the classics
• MPlayer – the classics bis
• VLC – the „last chance player”
• Kaffeine – default video player for KDE
• Totem – default video player for Gnome

Pic 1. Multimedia in Ubuntu – Quod Libet, Kaffeine, gXine, Real Player
and Beep Media Player in action

Audio players

The audio players usually take advantage of the Gstreamer of Xine engine. The exception in XMMS which provides its own audio engine, supporting plugins for different codecs, like MPC or AAC.

The most popular audio player in Linux:

• amaroK – the default KDE player
• Rhythmbox – Gnome’s default audio player
• Quod Libet – Rhythmbox competitor in Gnome
• XMMS and BMP (Beep-Media-Player) – traditional audio players, popular Winamp clones
• a lot of console-powered apps like MPC or mp3blaster