UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hey, im running Slack 9. I wish to run a .mwv vidio file, but it basically says I cant run it. Does anyone know what I need to run this file? Where I can get it from and what I do with it? As this is my first time using Linux. Thanx very much for you time! :-)

Is it a video file?

try downloading and installing mplayer with the the right codec packs.. (realplayer, win32, qucktime etc.. heck! install them all )

It could be found on www.freshmeat.net. Search for mplayer.

Hope that helps! if not please post again and we will try to help!

Have a nice one!

/Peter

mplayerhq.hu is the site i believe.

xine is another very good player:
xinehq.de

regarding that extension, do you mean .wmv ?
that is a windows media file, video. if you download mplayer be aware that to be able to play that and other proprietary video and sound formats you will need to download the codec pack from mplayer's website. all you have to do is download the ones you want, just download the full and extended codec packs and extract them to the directory /usr/lib/win32/

you can put them in another directory if you wish, however this is the default directory that mplayer looks in upon compilation to enable support for those formats. make sure that those files are there in /usr/lib/win32 before you run ./configure && make && make install

once that is all done you will have a fully functioning media player.

this reason for all this is that it is ( i believe ) illegal to use those codecs in unapproved software ( unapproved by microsoft ). mplayer distributes the codecs for convienience but it is up to you whether or not you want to have mplayer work with those files or not.