14 replies to this topic

[lia]

I want to download Windows Media Player to be able to see some videos.

I downloaded .exe but when I try to open it, I get this error:

There is no installed viewer capable of displaying the document.

Can someone tell me what I need to do?
I am using Fedora Core RIII

[anyweb]

login to a console (terminal) as root (type su -)

then do this

apt-get update && apt-get install mplayer -y

apt-get update && apt-get install transcode  -y

apt-get update && apt-get install mplayer-fonts -y

apt-get update && apt-get install mplayer-skins -y

apt-get update && apt-get install libpostproc -y

that will install mplayer which should play most movie types...

cheers

anyweb

[lia]

Well I did that, but what do I do then - do I try to install the .exe file, cause that doesn't work.
I want to look at the videos here: http://www.expressen.se/index.jsp?a=224352
And they still wont open...

[johnnyh]

Unless you use an emulator like Wine, you cannot run Windows executables on a Linux machine. Mplayer is a Linux executable that will provide the same functionality.

[lia]

So I either have to get wine or Mplayer?

Which would be easier for a noob like me to 'get'?
And then the 10 000 dollar question...

How?


=)

[johnnyh]

Stick with mplayer. You can use the apt-get method anyweb listed above, you can do the same with yum, or can manually download the rpms from, say, freshrpms.net. If you go the apt-get or yum routes, you will need to configure your repositories; there are howtos on freshrpms.net.

[anyweb]

Assuming that you have installed mplayer (as detailed above with apt-get) then the following TWO additional things, should allow you to play most wmv (windows media video) without too much problems in linux.



1. Install CODECS for mplayer

go here and download the mplayer codecs pack

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/dload.html

the ones you should download are called 'essential' codecs, here is a

direct link

once downloaded do as follows as normal user

bunzip2 -d essential-20041107.tar.bz2

tar xvf essential-20041107.tar

now that will create a directory in your home folder probably called something like

/home/anyweb/essential-20041107

once done, login as root (su -) and do this

mkdir /usr/lib/win32
cp /home/anyweb/essential-20041107/* /usr/lib/win32/

that's it, done !

2. Install the mplayer PLUGIN.

Now that you have the codecs, let us add a 'plugin' to FireFox, which will allow you to 'play' most Windows Media Videos directly in FireFox.

go http://mplayerplug-in.sourceforge.net/download.php and download the RPM for your distro, so if you are using Fedora Core Release 3 then get this one http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/mplayer...86.rpm?download

once you have downloaded the rpm, you'll need to install it as root, so login (su -) and do as follows

[root@localhost anyweb]# ls mp*
mplayerplug-in-2.75-0.FC3.i386.rpm
[root@localhost anyweb]# rpm -ivh mplayerplug-in-2.75-0.FC3.i386.rpm
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:mplayerplug-in         ########################################### [100%]
[root@localhost anyweb]#

That's it, now close FireFox and restart it, go to some website that 'hosts' videos and try playing one.

mplayer should now open it and play it back within a FireFox window

cheers (and thanks to grep420 for the tip for where to stick the codecs for mplayer and thanks to Hijinks for the mplayer plugin link)

anyweb

Edited by anyweb, 07 January 2005 - 04:14 PM.

[lia]

Is that what you did for me?

[anyweb]

yes, but i didn't install the mplayer plugin for firefox yet, so you can try that, it's in the notes just above ^^

cheers

[lia]

Ok this is right, right? *raises an eyebrow*

[root@localhost miss_lia]# ls mp*
mplayerplug-in-2.75-0.FC3.i386.rpm mplayerplug-in-4.75-0.FC3.i386.rpm
mplayerplug-in-3.75-0.FC3.i386.rpm
[root@localhost miss_lia]# rpm -ivh mplayerplug-in-2.75-0.FC3.i386.rpm
Preparing... ########################################### [100%]
package mplayerplug-in-2.75-0.FC3 is already installed
[root@localhost miss_lia]#

[lia]

It works fine! =)

[Geminias]

yeah i'm really struggling here with this one... what is the .exe equivolent in linux? .rpg? like every time i click on a video to watch it will ask me open with... and then i have no idea how to tell it to open with mplayer because i dont know which one is the application file of it. And another question is, i would prefer to just use windows media player through wine , so is this possible?

[anyweb]

once you have correctly installed mplayer and the mplayer plugin for firefox, then you won't be prompted to tell the browser what file to run it with any more, unless the content is realplayer content, in which case you need to install realplay...

as regards windows media player, you can use that in crossoveroffice which is a pay for product.

cheers

anyweb

[Geminias]

cool, well i am pretty sure i installed mplayer properly i used yum and got it from an rpm repository and had no dependancy errors or anythng. In my red hat panel it shows mplayer too. The vids i'm trying to watch are in mpeg format, does mplayer support that or not?

[veritas366]

  yeah i'm really struggling here with this one... what is the .exe equivolent in linux? .rpg? like every time i click on a video to watch it will ask me open with... and then i have no idea how to tell it to open with mplayer because i dont know which one is the application file of it. And another question is, i would prefer to just use windows media player through wine , so is this possible?

Thought I'd add some clarification (though I can't get mplayer to work on my system either...it did but now it's broken...I started a new thread.)

Linux does not use file extension .exe or any other extenstion for an executable. Any file that is a "program" will usually have a command in one of several places that will be searched, such as /bin. The bin stands for "binaries" and these are files that have been turned into binary code ready for the computer to do whatever it is told. There are several such /bin files in Linux, such as /usr/bin.

If you go to /bin, for example, with your nautilus file browser, you will see many files with just one name, such as "chown". Your settings may be different, but on my system such binary files which cause the computer to execute some command have an icon like three little gears.

You can open up your terminal (in my system you do this by choosing applications, then system tools and then terminal from the drop down) and search for the path of a program by typing "which" and after a space, the program name. Example:

[ty@localhost ~]$ which mplayer
/usr/bin/mplayer

So this says that the command which launches mplayer resides in /usr/bin/ and if you can find your way there, you should see "mplayer" in that folder. Since your operating system knows to look in this folder to see if it can find a command you typed, all you have to do is open a terminal and type "mplayer" and it will do the rest. (Actually, if you want to be able to interact with mplayer in a graphical way and you have the gnome desktop, you should type "gmplayer"...otherwise it will want you to control all its functions by typing commands.) If you accidentally typed Nplayer, it would look through all the various places in it's "path" and would not be able to find that command and it would tell you so.

The Yum stuff is a way that your computer can look through a collection of programs and install them without your having to do anything else. It will find the program in a database (called a repository) bring it to you and put all the files where they need to go. A program like Mplayer will have to put files in many places and will also make use of existing files.

All that said...I had the plugin, the codecs and mplayer all ready to go and it still didn't work. there are other approaches as well, if these steps don't work, but be prepared that this is one area of the LInux world that isn't too user friendly just yet. You can see my own woes at: Mplayer hell

In order to tackle such problems, assuming the steps others have suggested here don't work, you'll need to become more familiar with linux. I just found this site and it has some nice easy to understand how-tos around.

I would at the very least learn how to find and open the terminal, how to use yum (or a program I like called "Synaptic", and how to find your way around the files. Good luck!