Running Debian "unstable" distribution on 2.6.8.1

I downloaded the MPlayer "essential codec pack" and installed to the directory indicated in the readme. Mplayer doesn't recognize automatically, and from Google search I found that I need to recompile MPlayer to do this. I'm not sure if I'm set up to do that... I installed MPlayer via the .deb package listed on the MPlayer site (added it to KPackage sources list and installed). Do I need other source package to recompile, or can I make this work with what I've got? What are the necessary commands?

I'm just trying to install WMV ability.

Thanks.

To recompile all you need is the mplayer source. If you have it thats great, or you could just download it from the mplayer website. The only extra stuff you would need is a skin if your gonna be configuring it with a gui.