14 DAY TRIAL // Linux has numerous video players and new users might be confused about what the best solutions for this kind of files are. We made a short list with five of the best pieces of software for the task at hand.
The Linux platform doesn't have a shortage of video players, and sometimes it's difficult to choose the right application to do the job. It's also good to know that most Linux distributions come with a default media player that is usually something common and used by a big part of the community.
We'll take the example of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, which is the most used Linux distribution. Even if it uses Unity as the default desktop environment, some of the packages are still from GNOME, including the application called Videos (formally Totem).
If you only watch videos from time to time and you don't need a wealth of features, then Videos is more than enough. In Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, the developers are using the 3.10.1 version, which is pretty old. Other distros might have newer versions.
Another great application that you will find in the repositories is XBMC Media Center. Technically, this is not just a video player, but it does the job wonderfully. There are a lot of people out there who use their monitors as a TV as well, so XBMC is the perfect tool to watch movies, TV shows, and other sources with a friendly interface. GNOME MPlayer is a minimalistic video player that comes packed with a lot of features. It's not updated regularly, but this is one of the best ones you can find. In fact, this software is capable of rivaling with practically anything on other platforms as well.
SMPlayer looks like a simple enough player, but in fact it provides much more than any user will ever need. It's on par with GNOME MPlayer in terms of features and it comes with a nice interface that won't confuse anyone.
The last one on this list is VLC, and this is a software that speaks for itself. Although it's very popular on Windows, it didn't really take off on Linux. It's not being integrated by default in any of the major distributions, but the devs have a PPA dedicated for Ubuntu.
These are just five of the video players that you can find on Linux, but there are quite a few more. All of them are completely free and open source and they can be downloaded from the Ubuntu Software Center or from any repository used by your distro.
Enjoy!