Okay, so I am still in the process of trying to get my machine to work perfectly with Kubuntu. I have been switching to and from a Linux dual boot setup over the past few years. I have found that Linux is a little better each time. My ultimate goal is to switch to linux exclusively and entirely do away with windows.

I have noticed that it is still quite difficult to use just about any kind of online multimedia. It is sort of luck of the draw as to whether or not it works. The success rate is at least triple in my Windows partition for the same media. This even includes youtube and stuff like that. I am thinking maybe if I get the right packages and/or use the right software maybe I can get vids and other multimedia (stuff like the doppler radar on weather.com) to work just as good, or preferably better then it does in Windows.

If I end up having to switch to my windows partition all the time, what always ends up happening is that I spend so much time there eventually I just stop using my linux partition since it ceases to be useful. I spend less and less time there, and eventually fill up my HDD and end up nixing the linux part. So hopefully there is some fix for my multimedia problems so I can just switch over to linux for good this time. I have had the same problems on several different machines too, all which ran the vids, etc fine in Windows so it isn't the computer.

Here are the relevant hardware and software stats:

I am running an inspiron 1721 with the latest release of Kubuntu Gutsy

My version of KDE is 3.5.9

My sound card is an SB00X Azalia and appears to be functioning pretty well although I went through hell to get it to play in the first place.

My graphics card is a ATI Radeon X1200 series which believe it or not, actually seems to be working better and producing a crisper look then it does in windows.

libmozjs0d Java package installed and running with current Firefox release.

For flash I have the adobe flash plugin, flasm, all the libflash packages and the swf decoder codecs stand alone and for mozilla.

For movie playing I have Mplayer, Kmplayer with player, base, documentation, and plugins, mozilla mplayer, mencoder, smplayer translations, and xmms mplayer all installed.

I had to install all of that just to get it to work as well as it does now which isn't very well at all. I had to just kind of guess at what packages to install though. I know I probably need more java but there are so many java packages I want to know what I am doing before just randomly installing things there.

Java definitely gives me the most trouble. Mozilla likes to turn it off by default which I corrected but it still works very shoddily. Flash works about 75% of the time. Movies play about 25% of the time or less. Streaming mp3s, m3us, etc. will play, but if I pause for longer then a few seconds then forget it. Also, the embedded mplayer has a bug with the seeker where the seeker appears to stall (even though the movie or mp3 keeps running, and then suddenly jumps ahead where it is supposed to be. Changing the position of the seeker is very fruitless.

Hopefully that was enough information for someone to help me out. If not, just ask and I will give you whatever info you need to help me figure it out.

Thanks all!

Edit: I thought I would add an example of a video that does not work in my kubuntu part, but works great in my Vista part:

http://www.surfthechannel.com/info/t...tml?aid=112761

When I go here, I have to click to activate it. It then pretends to play, but I get only a black screen with no audio and the seeker moves as if everything were playing like it should.

These instructions are for CLEAN install of Kubuntu as I've no idea what exactly you've done with your system to date.

From the main menu open 'Add/Remove programs' (or from command line 'sudo adept_installer'), in the top right corner tick 'Show proprietary software', do a search for 'restricted', select 'Kubuntu restricted extras', click 'apply'. You've now got flash, java, ms fonts, mp3 etc.

As far as streaming media is concerned I find (as much as I hate Totem on its own) that totem-mozilla works quite well.

Use all of the above with Kaffeine and Amarok and you should be set.

P.S. The video link you provided works just fine.

I just tried all that, and same result with that particular video. I really did not do much after my install though. I installed Firefox, a few flash packages, a bunch of mplayer stuff (all of which is listed in the original post), updated KDE (and everything else that the updater has found that needed it) and modified alsa-utils to be able to run alsaconf which was necessary to get my sound card working. Other things I have installed includes a wireless connection monitor for the kdesktop and museekd with murmur. I also downloaded a crapload of music. That sums it all up. If any of that could be my problem then please advise.

Thank You.

I am still having problems with this if anyone has any ideas...