vlc player
 

I am new to linux and am running ubuntu .I recently downloaded vlc media player sinceit was what i was used to with windows.I noticed when playing avi. files I only receive sound from one side. this does not happen when i switch over to windows.It is the only media player i have found that plays this type of file at all on linux.Any suggestions on other media players for linux or a solution to this problem?

You could try mplayer. I use it and have yet to have any problems with it. It comes as a graphical user interface (gui) version or as a command line program.

If you're going to compile it from source and you want the gui you need to pass the following command when configuring the compile:Take a look at the readme/install file when compiling as there's a bunch of extras that are quite handy that you can compile in.

If you're not up for compiling, you can probably get a binary version for your distribution which will work perfectly well.

Hope this helps.

edit: this could also be an issue with your sound card (do you get sound only through one side if you play music?), in which case no media player will correct that, and you need to look at you sound config.

vlc player
 

I tried xine and that seems to work fine including the audio.I noticed overall i have to turn audio controls all the way up on all apps. to get decent volume levels. Is there a place in Ubuntu where i can adjust the general volume level? thanks for your help.

I'm sure Ubuntu has a nice volume control somewhere, but unfortunately I can't tell you where since I don't use Ubuntu.

From a terminal, you could try running alsamixer. It's ncurses based (not the best interface) but it works on most distros.

Again, I don't know what Ubuntu uses, but the 2 common GUI mixers are gnome-volume-control and kmix. Try running them from the command line, but if they aren't there don't bother trying to install them.

vlc
 

Thanks for your reply.I tried gnome Alsa-Mixer and this has worked to solve my sound problem.I like Ubuntu more and more and I find the forums very helpful.The community of people using Ubuntu seem very sincere and without the ranting and put downs you get at various Windows XP forums.