Real Player is a high quality media player, which is freely available for Linux operating systems. It isn’t included in Linux packages because it is not a fully open source program. There are .rpm and .deb packages available for RedHat and Debian variants but nothing that will obviously work for Ubuntu. Fortunately it is fairly easy to get RealPlayer to install on a computer running Ubuntu. Here’s how:
Download the file to your root directory
- Find the ‘vanilla’ Linux version of RealPlayer here on the Real website. The current file is ‘RealPlayer11GOLD.bin’.
- Choose which language version to download – English (GB) seems the right one to us. Right-click on the link and click ‘Save link as’. Save the file to your root directory (the one with your username on it).
and give it permission to run as a program
- Once downloaded right click on the file in the download window and choose ‘Open containing folder’ to find the file.
- Right click on the file and click on ‘Properties’. Click the ‘Permissons’ tab and tick the box saying ‘Allow executing file as a program’ then click on the close button
Tell Ubuntu to run the installation program
- Start the Terminal program (click on Applications in the top Ubuntu toolbar then Accessories and finally Terminal)
- Type (or copy & paste) the following: sudo ./RealPlayer11GOLD.bin
- You will be asked to enter your password and the RealPlayer installation program will run.
- Hit ‘Enter’ at the prompt to allow the installation to start.
- The default installation directory shjould be fine so hit ‘Enter’ again at the next prompt.
- Finally press ‘F’ to start the real job of installing the RealPlayer files.
When finished RealPlayer should be listed under Applications/Sound & Video. Click on it and you will be asked to agree the licence. RealPlayer will also at this point integrate itself with Firefox and possibly other browsers on your system.