If your recently installed Ubuntu Linux doesn’t play most video and files, then you need to install ubuntu restricted extras package. The ubuntu restricted extras is a software package that contains software like flash plugin, unrar, gstreamer, mp4, codecs for Chromium , libavcodec and more. These are proprietary software packages and Ubuntu doesn’t install by default during the OS installation process. But you can install these softwares in Ubuntu Linux using below commands. Using this you can play most video and Audio files in your system. You can also install this on all Ubuntu based distro.
Install Ubuntu Restricted Extras
Open the command-line terminal software using Ctrl+Alt+T keys and enable the multiverse repository using below command.
sudo add-apt-repository multiverse
If needed enter your Ubuntu user password during the installation.Then enable the restricted repository.
sudo add-apt-repository restricted
The update source list
sudo apt update
After that run this command to install Ubuntu Restricted Extras in your Ubuntu based system.
sudo apt install ubuntu-restricted-extras
Accept the End User License Agreement during the installation. That’s it. Now you can play almost any video and audio on you system.