Convert FLAC to MP3 on Arch Linux

1. install necessary packages to decode and encode

sudo pacman -S lame flac

2. pipe the decoded standart output for the encoder

flac -dc input.flac | lame -h - output.mp3

-d decode
-c write output to stdout

-h use some quality improvements

Play restricted formats on Ubuntu

1. the package, ubuntu-restricted-extras supports for mp3 playback and decoding, various other audio formats, microsoft fonts, java runtime environment, flash plugin, lame, and dvd playback.

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

2. about real media files like .rm .rmvb, you'll need w32 codecs because there is no native support in linux

adding the repositories

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

3. add the gpg key

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

4. install codecs

sudo apt-get install w32codecs

5. to play encrypted dvd, the libdvdcss2 package is essential. it is a simple library designed for accessing dvd without having to bother about the decryption

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2