Running Arista (similar issue with Transmageddon) to transcode a movie into one using aac and x264 codecs.

When clicking go! the application asks for retreiving missing plugins (it says "greffons" in French, don't know if this is the translation of addon, plugin, or any other familiar English name). The missing ones are faac and x264enc. Fair enough, but after a quick search, the application says that it didn't find anything and stops.

After searching the site for Gstreamer, it seems the problem is about non-free software that can't be distributed. GStreamer community created two sets of non-free software necessary to Gstreamer and applications based on it: the "bad set" and the "ugly set". I assume my missing codecs are included here, but the site doesn't say how to obtain them.

Any clue? Can someone point me to a page that describes something meaningful and actionnable for a basic user who wants to leave the darkness and join the wonderful Linux.

I'd like to love Linux, and really I'm trying hard, but the more I dig, the more it I feel disappointed by the huge training it needs to start to do something useful with it. So far, apart from using Nautilus, nearly everything I try reaches some fatal error at some point: missing package, missing line in a configuration file, abnormal end of session, etc. And me, a genuine linux beginner, I'm supposed to find the solution? Is this serious? Linux seems to be intented for a close group of people very-well initiated.

I'll be happy to hear that I'm wrong and that reading the manual at page X will solve it.

Add the non-free repositories to your sources list, update the package database and try it again.

Thanks. Were do add the sources? I assumed this was in the Software-Center. Here I've 5 tabs, one is "Debian", one is "Third-Party". In "Debian" I checked the two options that weren't checked (free with non free dependancies, and non-free). Servers are "France", my local servers.

With these new sources the result is the same.

Do I need to add urls in the tab "Third-Party", and if so which one? Currently I have 4 lines:

- two starting with "cd-rom:" for Debian DVD 1. I have had to uncheck them, so that packages could be downloaded (with the cd-rom selected, and not found, some application install were failing).

- two http on fr.debian.org: "main contrib", and "main contrib (source code)".

If I click "Add" it asks me "Enter the complete APT line of the repository". I don't know what to do.

add the word non-free to the line with main contrib that should work.

Once you've ticked the non-free sources you should then search in Software Centre for gstreamer ugly and gstreamer bad and install them.

Thanks for your replies. Appreciated. I realized that Gstreamer plugins bad and ugly are already installed in the Software Center. Nevertheless I added the source "main contrib non-free" in the third-party tab and launched Arista Transcoder again, with the same request: convert a mkv movie with x264 and aac streams to "computer" device with H264 preset.

When adding this request to the queue, Arista asked as before to look for missing addons:
GStreamer faac
GStreamer x264enc

If I say "help yourself, search, and let's finish with it!" it continues to complain the packages cannot be found.

I tried another solution, I found more on those codecs: faac - x264. On the home page there is a source link:
deb ftp://ftp.debian-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free

I added that to Software Center. Now the packages are found by Arista. Can't believe it! It asks me if I want to install those packages:
gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad
gstreamer0.10-x264

Sure my little Arista, I want to retrieve those little bit sets before they are gone, you cannot imagine how much I want to get out of this little annoyance!

I've the authentication dialog to enter the root pass as I'm not logged as root (hope this is ok), and then a message saying this action requires to install packages from unchecked repositories ("dépots" in French):
"gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad gstreamer0.10-x264 libavcodec52 libavdevice52 libavformat52 libavutil50 libfaac0 libmjpegtools-1.9 libmp3lame0 libquicktime1 libswscale0 libva-x11-1 libva1 libvpx0 libx264-112 libx264-118 libxvidcore4"

... with only a Close button. It says then the the packages were succesfully installed but they didnt provide all required addons.

At this stage [self-censored]!

What should be the next step now?

After looking again here, I tried two things:

First I ran this command as root user:
aptitude install gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad ffmpeg sox twolame vorbis-tools lame faad

which was no joy for me. And then I read about a "key ring". key ring looks related to "checked" or "trusted" depot. So why not... at the point where I am... How to install the keyring was another story, I ended up with the command:
dpkg -i path-and-name-of-the-keyring-file
but I can't find where I got the information about installing a keyring.

With that, the missing packages were installed next time I ran Arista. I now need to do some cleanup to remove leftover of unnecessary actions done.

I don't like doing things that I don't understand, but here this is what I did. From this experience, I must say that Linux beginners, even with a long experience of other systems, and computing in general, and even working in the IT industry, which is my case, are likely bound to have a hard time before getting ready to master their systems. I'll definelly not recommand it to the average users among my friends. That's a big disappointment.

Before you install anything from debian-multimedia you should install the package debian-multimedia-keyring which should stop you getting the message that the repository is not signed.

Thanks 273, I ended up with this action, by chance, before seeing your post. See my post above for what I tried, and it worked.

Will meet again in this forum since, every significant step I do seems to drive me to some unexpected lock.

Thanks again everybody for your suggestions and support.