Making it all work in Kubuntu

Well, I installed Kubuntu yesterday and while the music stuff works great and it's better than windows already I still don't have all my videos playing or subtitles showing.  In one case I have wmv9 videos that don't play, in another it's just the subtitles not showing on an mkv file.  Anybody know how to make it work?

MPlayer

MPlayer is in there somewhere, playing through Kaffeine.  The wmv9 does not play.  The subtitles might be in there somewhere but I haven't found out how to turn them on and off yet so if you know that would be helpful.

rm -Rf Kaffeine Ubuntu

Install a non-AIDS Linux distribution, like Arch Linux for a sane MPlayer.

>>4
By non-AIDS I take it you mean "no GUI and so I guess you better use the command line"?  No thanks, I would rather not spend the next week learning linux speak so I get things to work.  I did that with DOS and now what do I have to show for it?

>>5
AIDS == Lack of proprietary, such as WMV9, support.

>>3
did you specifically install mplayer?  in ubuntu at least it doesn't come preinstalled, but it's in the repositories.  i also hope you were smart enough to install w32 codecs. 

>>7
I don't even know what I have done - I downloaded MPlayer and did various things and then when I opened files they worked.  The only things left not working are 1)the raws in WMV9 and 2)subtitles in MKV format.  Maybe it's because they're opening in Kaffeine, but if that's the problem how do I get them to open in MPlayer instead?   

Being that there is no "installer" or even a bin file, how do you "install" MPlayer?  This is one of the things that's confusing the hell out of me about linux - on MPlayer's page they say you should type "make install" but where?  And is that ALL you have to type?  From my DOS days I remember installing things but there was usually even then an executable installer or at worst I had to make some directories.

For that matter, how do you even RUN MPlayer?  It's not like you open it and choose a file, as there is no "it"(GUI or even executable) to open!

>>8
For Arch Linux: % pacman -S mplayer

Done.

>>9
Thanks, though once again I'll say that typing nonsense to make things run is counterintuitive. 

>>10
I see no nonsense, your vision must be clouded by an aura of Windows(TM).

Let's break it down.

% - Just an indicator that you should type the rest in a shell (zsh specifically, if I had typed $ that would have been bash)... actually I should have written #, since you'll have to run this as root (or with sudo).
pacman - pacman is the package manager in Arch Linux, I'll not bother explaining what a package is.
-S - sync... yeah, okay, this is pretty bad.  But if you consult the documentation you'll see that it is used for adding packages.
mplayer - the name of the package you want.

Logic at its best.

>>10
We'd love to include out of the box flash and wmv9 support, but we're not allow to distribute other people's work. Until someone manages to create a free software replacement, we will never be able to include this stuff without any manual tweaking

If you're going to use Linux, you're going to have to put forth some effort to LEARN HOW TO USE IT.  If you don't want to, go back to Windows and try again in another year.  I'm sorry, but that's just the way it is right now.  Admit defeat and become familiar with a command line, or GTFO.

>>13
Yeah, that's one way to get more users.  Next time don't complain when people don't want to switch.  "Wah, wah, but Linux it's so superior.  Make programs for us, pleeesseeee.  Make Flash work, pleeeeessseee."  Basically, if you can't write your own drivers, don't use Linux.

>>12
Okay, that I can handle.  Heck, windows is just like that too - I had to tweak the hell out of Media Player Classic.  It's just that installers as such seem to be noexistant in Linux and I still haven't figured out how to get everything working.  MPlayer puzzles me because though I'm pretty sure it's installed properly it's running under Kaffeine I think...  I looked through the unpacked tar thingy and even the GUI is in there but how to use all that loose code is still kind of eluding me.  I guess I'll reread the FAQs and see if I can get it to work.

Just to be clear, I'm actually kinda impressed with Kubuntu, it is noticeably faster than win XP and the programs it comes with work very well and are easy to use.  It's just that tweaking it is much harder for me so far so getting that last 10% of functionality is a bit difficult.