media - prune my list of players?

[bernieszu]

Okay, so I'm still a noob and finding it hard to get to grips with media on Linux. I'm running Feisty fawn and it came to me all pre-installed with whatever sofware my Linux literate friend thought I might need or want. Maybe a bit of overkill? Here's the list of software in my multimedia menu:

Amarok audio player
Audacity sound editor
Easy TAG
gXine video player
Juk Music player
K3b CD + DVD burning
KAudio Creator (CD ripper)
KMix (sound mixer)
KMPlayer (media player)
KRec (recording tool)
KsCD (CD player)
Movie Player
MPlayer Movie Player
Noatun media player
Real Player 10 (media player...I know, I know, but it's the only thing that will play stuff I need from the BBC website, darn them!)
Sound Recorder
VLC media player
Kaboodle (media player)
KMid (Midi/Karaoke player)

So, sometimes I click on a multimedia link in firefox and it works, many times I click on a link and it doesn't work - doesn't seem to be any reason for it that I can see, and gxine is PARTICULARLY moody!

My question: Can I safely trim this list of players? What, in your opinion, is the best, most reliable and most versatile player in terms of reading the most common codecs?

If I need more than one, what is the lowest number that will allow me to play most of the things I see on the web?

Should I do something to configure these for firefox?

I've tried to look this up but all the the advice I find either assumes a level of familiarity with the OS that I just don't have yet, or assumes that I've already decided on the player I want, so if this is a stupid question that irritates you, please just don't answer it.

[f1rem0th]

Re: media - prune my list of players?

I'd strip the large majority of those using the adept package manager. I'd leave amarok, and VLC media player, but also grab XMMS for the firefox based web media. These are the only three i ever use


VLC plays my dvds and virtualyl anything i want, and xmms is great for the intarwubbs, and Amarok is a great playlist manager.

[Fintan]

Re: media - prune my list of players?

I agree with f1rem0th

I would suggest extending his list with realplayer and mplayer/kmplayer and mozilla-mplayer for web based stuff. O fcourse you need k3b and kmix. The rest is good to have if you do a lot of ripping or sound mixing/editing

Enjoy

[bernieszu]

Re: media - prune my list of players?

Thanks a lot, F1rem0th and Fintan, I'll pare the list as recommended

[marshallbanana]

Re: media - prune my list of players?

Just so you know the default listing is:
Amarok
K3b
Kaffiene
Kmix
Mplayer Movie Player (actually I think I may have installed this myself but not actually sure)