The typical scenario is this—you've got some new software and, at some stage, either early or later, some essential thing doesn't work. Either it never worked in the first place or it suddenly stops working. The only thing to help you is an obscure message, such as the one I got about 'libdvdcss'. Then you start solving the problem, by using Google. In the end, you do solve it, even though there are many moments when you think you never will, even though it sometimes takes days of frustration. However, in each case, I've found that the process goes more or less as follows, here I'll use this specific problem as an example and hope it will help others (when they're Googling too):
Pity you can't watch movies though.
And, at the climax (or one of the climaxes since this movie has so many), I figured it out (or I believe I did and by now I'm sure of it): for some reason (my fault? Ubuntu's? a random something else?) when I installed the movie players, I didn't have permission to use them, because I installed as root. OK, that doesn't make sense. But, if I don't set 'sudo chmod 777' on each of the movie player's executables, I get an error message, sometimes about region settings and sometimes about 'libdvdcss'. I'm sure that several of the steps I took above were necessary, but like many others out there in Googleland, they just weren't enough. You need to set permissions on the installed movie players, otherwise you will not be able to watch DVDs in them. That's just the way it is, unfortunately.
And, well, anyway, the above 5 stages are just typical of this kind of process. It's always a small fluke somewhere that makes it all work. (There's also a 6th stage, by the way, one which I'm not looking forward to, called "The Regression".) And I'm not blaming anyone (not Ubuntu, not movie players, not regional settings, and not Anthony Hopkins, who is as likely to be at fault as anyone else). I guess that's just the way it is in today's world. Travel with Google and you'll always arrive where you wanted to go, but the route there is always a scenic one.
chmod 777 and your in heaven heaven heaven ;-))
chmod 555 would probably work better. That way nothing could modify or overwrite your programs.
That's exactly how I solve problems.
I'm sure Google is working on index search and theme sharing. Which will cut out all the scenic routes. Someone probably is working on this use-case (AI).
That's why people are afraid to move away from Windows (they really want to, but don't want to be bothered figuring out stuff through Google). When I look at the services running on my WindowsXP it makes me puke.
-Carl
I had a similar problem with my Arch Linux distro and K3b to burn CD's.
I followed the same steps (Innocence, false hope, etc...) only to discover that with:
#groupadd jor dvd (or something like that)
it would worked.(sic)
ah ! that's nothing... try to change the DVD subtitles now ;)
Seriously, I had the same problem, and I found out that a logout/login after the installation of the packages was enough to make it works.
Ha! That all sounds very familiar. I've been using Ubuntu for about a year and a half now, so if I may, here is an excellent site that really helped me set a ton of stuff up when I was new to it: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/. Highly recommended.
Before I search Google for any issues, I also check out ubuntuforums.com and use the search function there. More often than not, that'll turn up a solution, and usually a better one than random Googling. And if it doesn't, you can always register an account and post there. The people are generally friendly and very helpful.
I'd stay away from any of the recommendations to use Automatix or EasyUbuntu though. They sound nice, and they can make setting lots of stuff up easy, but they're kind of tweaky too. Sometimes they cause weird problems, especially when you upgrade.
I just started work with net beans,so that i really needs of that book.
Googling for exact error text usually helps. Not like you'll get a solution on the first click. But you'll get an idea what is going on.
It's nice interface! Most important thing is not what software can do, but what users will use.