The upcoming Ubuntu Feisty will have a new feature that will make the installation of multimedia codecs very easy, especially for novice users.
See how the system works in the following screenshots.
The user clicks on a multimedia file that needs a proprietary codec, in the example a simple MP3 file
A status message pops up informing the user that “applications” are being searched (it’s still alpha, maybe they change the wording)
After a few seconds a dialog pops up that presents a list of software that supports the playback of the file format he clicked on
I think this is a great feature and again the Ubuntu developers managed to improve the out-of-the-box experience. Codec installation won’t be a thing that will be problematic even for people new to Ubuntu.
Let’s all hope a similar feature will be implemented for DVD playback.