Category Archives: Linux

Cannot play DVD in Ubuntu

Yesterday I was trying to view a DVD on Ubuntu, but was getting an error stating that the DVD was encrypted, but there was no DVD decryption library available.

It turns out that its easy to add the relevant decryption libraries as this link describes.

From a terminal window, the steps to getting the relevant software installed to play a DVD are:

$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
$ sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

After executing those commands, you should be able to play DVDs correctly.

Choosing a Java Version on Ubuntu

When you have got multiple versions of Java installed, you can choose which one you want to use by running the update-alternatives command.

Running this command shows a list of installed Java JDKs and JREs allowing one to be selected as the default that is used when java needs to be executed.

$ sudo update-alternatives --config javac

If you prefer to use a gui instead of the command line, you can execute galternatives instead and define the default versions of software with the following dialog.

$ sudo galternatives

Creating a Shortcut to Eclipse on the Ubuntu Unity Dock

If you use Eclipse on Ubuntu, you will probably have found that the version in the Ubuntu repositories doesn’t have all the plugins you’re used to, and will have installed Eclipse from a download at eclipse.org

If this is the case, you can create a shortcut launcher to Eclipse using the gnome-desktop-item-edit application enabling Eclipse to be pinned to the Unity Dock. gnome-desktop-item-edit isn’t installed with a clean copy of Ubuntu however. To install run the following:

$ sudo apt-get install gnome-panel

After installation, you can create a new launcher by executing the following command:

$ gnome-desktop-item-edit --create-new ~/.local/share/applications

This will cause the following window to be displayed.

Unity Launcher

Enter all the relevant details into the window (including selecting the icon) and press OK. This will create an Eclipse launcher. If you then navigate to this folder, you can drag and drop the Eclipse icon onto the Dock to create the pinned shortcut to Eclipse.