congratulations, YOU did the impossible and got this newbie working with just the default mplayer. i still need to download the fonts codecs and skins. is it still possible to install these after mplayer is already configured and been ran. and as always, i would really apprecieate instructions. i was also wondering if mplayer has autorun. when a dvd is placed into the drive, the dvd spins but nothign happens. is it because i dont have the extra codecs. thank you for all your help so far. i really appreciate your help

Well done. To fix the font thing you might not need to download anything, just run this command It'll make a symbolic link to a font you should already have. I don't know if it's possible to autoplay a dvd, I always right click and choose Open DVD from the menu. You might be able to play a dvd without the skin if you use the command
mplayer dvd://1
or the number of the track you want to play. You should install the codecs and skin. It does all work. Did you specify --with-codecsdir=/someplace when you configured it? I'm not sure where the default location for codecs is. I think it might be /usr/local/lib/win32

The instructions in the mplayer README say the codecs have to be in the codec directory before running ./configure. If you want detailed instructions change into the mplayer source directory and use the command
cat README
it tells you exactly how to install the skins and fonts.

dont even know if this is correct but since i have to change directories to mplayer, i need to know where the source is so i did whereis mplayer and this it what happened.

$ whereis mplayer
mplayer: /usr/bin/mplayer /etc/mplayer /usr/lib/mplayer /usr/local/bin/mplayer /usr/local/etc/mplayer /usr/local/lib/mplayer /usr/share/mplayer /usr/man/man1/mplayer.1


which one is the directory that i need to use. for example, if the directory was /usr/bin/mplayer/ would i type

$ cd /usr/bin/mplayer

cause i tried that and it didtnt work.

hey quit laughing!! ha ha

the whereis command shows where it is installed. The source directory is the one that you moved into to build mplayer(the one where you ran ./configure)

hello
I downloaded the Rpms that I was told to download from the site
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/info.html
i ran rpm -Uvh (plus all the mplayer rpms and the lame rpm) it all went well i figure) because i got no error messages. But now how do i begin to play Mplayer to see if it is installed i tried clicking on and text executing the mplayer.desktop file but it tells me that they are its a type of link and requires an url did I do something wrong. I tried Xine but keep getting the dvd:/ plugin mrl syntax problem with no way to fix it. I need help bad i want to watch dvd's anything to help me please i will and have been doing everything i get told to do to try and make this work. I am a newbie here please help me. I continued searching my pc and did find a mplayer.1 file which has the synopsis of mplayer and when i click on the dvd link on it i get Protocol not supported DVD. I am running Red Hat 9 (shrike)