Install Mplayer in Ubuntu Linux

Posted on by 56 Comments

MPlayer is a movie and animation player that supports a wide range of codecs and file formats, including MPEG 1/2/4,DivX 3/4/5, Windows Media 7/8/9, RealAudio/Video up to 9, Quicktime 5/6, and Vivo 1/2. It has many MX/SSE(2)/3Dnow(Ex) optimized native audio and video codecs, but allows using XAnim’s and RealPlayer’s binary codec plugins, and Win32 codec DLLs. It has basic VCD/DVD playback functionality, including DVD subtitles, but supports many text-based subtitle formats too. For video output, nearly every existing interface is supported. It’s also able to convert any supported files to raw/divx/mpeg4 AVI (pcm/mp3 audio), and even video grabbing from V4L devices.

Install Mplayer in Ubuntu Dapper
You need to add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list file

gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

enter these two lines and save your file

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper universe multiverse

Install Mplayer in Ubuntu Edgy eft

You need to add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list file

gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

enter these two lines and save your file

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy universe multiverse
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy universe multiverse

Now you need to run the following command to update the source list

sudo apt-get update

Install mplayer using the following command

sudo apt-get install mplayer

if you want to open mplayer just type

gmplayer

or

You can Open from Applications—>Sound&Video—> Mplayer Movie Player

Once you open the mplayer you should see the mplayer opened in the following screen

[thumb:424:c:l=p]

If you want to install Mplayer with plug-in for Mozilla Firefox run the following command

sudo apt-get install mozilla-mplayer

Sponsored Link

Related content:

  1. Install Mplayer and Multimedia Codecs (libdvdcss2,w32codecs) in Debian 5.0 (Lenny)
  2. Install Mplayer in Debian Sarge,Etch and Sid
  3. Install RealPlayer in Debian Sarge,Etch and Sid
  4. Decorate Mplayer with Mplayer Skins
  5. Install Flash Player 9 Update in Ubuntu

56 thoughts on “Install Mplayer in Ubuntu Linux”

  1. Would’t it be a better idea to install automatix, and then get mplayer with it, along with so much other goodness?

  2. There’s a problem: Ubuntu opts to turn the RTC max freq down to 64hz for compatibility reasons. This makes the video all laggy. To fix it, do this as root:

    echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq

  4. Thanks for this simple instruction, I have looked for many ways to make my Ubuntu run mp3 and other audio files.And
    what you introduce is the way which is most efficient.Thank you very much,A friend from Chinese.

  5. I know that installing Mplayer is very easy from a pre-built package, but I always find it to be a little buggy. Fullscreen is slow, and mplayerplug-in cuts off some of the video on the sides. Installing from source sounds intimidating, but Mplayer is easy. And the results are worth it.

  7. when I tried that command..

    in my terminal i got the following lines after some time:

    “Reading package lists… Done
    W: GPG error: http://packages.freecontrib.org dapper Release: The following signatures couldn’t be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY F120156012B83718
    W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
    “

  8. Hi arun,

    The source list i have menctioned source list is totally different.If you are using source list f
    http://packages.freecontrib.org you need to get the authorization key from that site or you can ignore this error
    this error will occur when you try to access these packages without key.If you don’t want these source list
    you can delete and try to run sudo apt-get upate

    hope this help

  10. I keep getting this message when trying to use your instructions to install on Edgy:

    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
    requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
    distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
    or been moved out of Incoming.

    Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
    the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
    that package should be filed.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    mplayer: Depends: libdvdread3 (>= 0.9.6) but it is not installable
    Depends: libggi2 (>= 1:2.2.1) but it is not installable
    E: Broken packages

    how can I resolve this?

  11. 10 Responses to “Install Mplayer in Ubuntu Linux”

    I am also getting the same error as Chris, the 10th reply in this topic when trying to install
    Mplayer in Edgy Eft.

    Any idea?

  12. try to run the following command

    sudo apt-get -f install

    and reply if you are still getting the errors

  13. root@x3n:/etc/apt# sudo apt-get -f install mplayer
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
    requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
    distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
    or been moved out of Incoming.

    Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
    the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
    that package should be filed.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    mplayer: Depends: libdvdread3 (>= 0.9.6) but 0.9.4-5.1 is to be installed
    Depends: libggi2 (>= 1:2.2.1) but 1:2.0.5-1.1ubuntu2 is to be installed
    E: Broken packages

  14. try to run only the following command without mplayer and let me know

    sudo apt-get -f install

    this should try to install all the required dependencies and i have installed using this procedure without any problem

  17. Hi,

    I followed your instructions to install Mplayer but hit a snag and get this message in the terminal window:
    E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock – open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable)
    E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?
    tsingh@Cooper-Desktop:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get install mplayer
    E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock – open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable)
    E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

    Any ideas?

  18. Hi Tejbir,

    You have adept / synaptic or some other package manager open. You have to close them all.

    thanks

  19. Thanks for the tip. That worked as I had Synaptic package manager open but when I proceeded to install I ran into this issue:
    tsingh@Cooper-Desktop:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get install mplayer
    Password:
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree… Done
    Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
    requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
    distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
    or been moved out of Incoming.

    Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
    the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
    that package should be filed.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    mplayer: Depends: libggi2 (>= 1:2.0.5) but it is not installable
    E: Broken packages
    OK I read your comment on this issue above and ran the command: sudo apt-get -f install and this is what i got.
    tsingh@Cooper-Desktop:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get -f install
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree… Done
    0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

    Still the problem persists when I try to install Mplayer.
    Any suggestions? In case it helps, I’m running Drapper Ubuntu.
    Thanks.

  20. i installed the mplayer sucessfuly but i cant paly any vedios. mp3s woks fine but when there is a vedio file it gives an error. i also installed the skin but it also doesnt appear.

  21. Am just trying to install some mp3 player without connecting the net onto my laptop… How do i
    download the required mp3 package(*.deb) for my ubuntu dapper?

  23. While i started Mplayer… it gives me such an error!
    [gl] Could not create GLX context!
    MPlayer interrupted by signal 11 in module: decode_video

    Can somebody help me plz!!!

  26. Can’t install mplayer in Ubuntu Dapper drake as says it requires liblame0>3.96. I compiled 3.97 from source successfully, and it still says the same. How can I resolve this?

  27. Just installed mplayer with GUI, mozilla plugin and skins on 6.10 Edgy.
    No problem at all, mplayer/gmplayer runs fine on streaming mp3, ra (ram).
    This PC was first installed with 6.10.

    Have other PC which was firstly installed with 5.10, upgraded to 6.06 (LTS), then to 6.10.
    On this one I’ve got problems a month ago; will try again tomorrow and report here.

    Thanks for doing.

  28. Running Edgy from Dist-Upgrade from dapper, working fine as far as I can tell- and unable to get mplayer- gmplayer-from cl- and even 1024 fix failed:
    b21william@b21william-desktop:~$ sudo echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq
    bash: /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq: Permission denied
    b21william@b21william-desktop:~$

    Thanks,
    William

  29. @william

    try the following

    Do this with your favorite editor, mine is vim

    sudo vi /etc/sysctl.conf

    Add the following line at the end of the file

    sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq=1024

    Then type

    sudo /etc/init.d/sysctl reload

    hope this helps

  32. I installed mplayer in Ubuntu Dapper – the install seemed to go fine, but whenever I try to play a DVD, I see that teh HD and the DVD drive show a lot of activity, but nothing comes up in the video window. When I bring up the system monitor, it says that the process gmplayer is “uniterruptible” I finally have to click on the close process button to shut it down, otherwise my system will just continue to show thwe disk and DVD activity lights forever. DVD’s play in MoviePlayer, so I know that the drive gets the data in. However, I am a pretty new noobie, and I’m not sure what to look for to figure this out. Mp3 files seem to play without a problem.

  35. I also am getting:

    When I open Mplayer i get an error : error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device

    After installing. If someone figures this out before I do please post. If not, I will try to come back and post answer. PS:I could not compile at all on my Ubuntu – either I do not have the right headers or I get a message that GCC cannot create executable. Any hints on that would be great also! 🙂

  37. Oh, you need to do this for each user that will access gmplayer!

    BTW — thanks for the article it was great to have gmplayer back again.

    I am knew to Ubuntu but not to linux — so the compile thing is getting my goat —- Still willing to accept tips/hits/blasting’s….Whatever….But I am glad this article was hear!

  38. Some people here might have authorization problems. I’m not sure what causes this, but you might be able to play video’s using right click (on the file you want to open) and then choosing “Open with…” “Other…” and than the command “sudo mplayer” and enabling “run in terminal”. This works fine on my computer, but it’s not how it’s supposed to work off course.

  39. Why can’t I get write access to the ‘sources.list’ file? If I list the permissions, I get:
    -rw-r–r– 1 root root 1732 2007-04-09 21:00 sources.list

    How do I get ownership of this file?

  40. When I click the link above, the page refreshes and nothing else happens. How do I install Real Play 10 for UBUNTU? or Mplayer.

  41. I’m having the same problem as CajunKen has, not having access or permission to save on the sources.list file

    HELP

  42. nick dude,

    type
    chmod 777 /etc/apt/sources.list

    this gives you the owner root and anyone else permission to mess with the file or you can log in as root and modify the file there.

  44. for slavic languages gksudo gedit /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf

    subcp=windows-1250
    font=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSans.ttf

    Nice tuto thx.

  45. when i’m saving those 2 lines in /etc/apt/sources.list… its not accepting. its saying i’he no permissions.
    but i logged in as admin.
    what can i do?
    plz help me boss…..

  46. I am fairly new to Ubuntu. I was having problems with my players and just wanted to get rid of all the audio/video apps and just install one. I like the mplayer and when i went to reinstall I got this error

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    mplayer: Depends: libasound2 (> 1.0.17) but 1.0.15-3ubuntu4 is to be installed
    Depends: libggi2 (>= 1:2.2.2) but 1:2.2.1-5ubuntu1 is to be installed
    Depends: libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.14.1) but 2.12.9-3ubuntu5 is to be installed
    Depends: libmad0 (>= 0.15.1b-3) but 0.15.1b-2.1ubuntu1 is to be installed
    Depends: libmp3lame0 (>= 3.98) but it is not installable
    Depends: libopenal1 (>= 1:1.3.253) but it is not installable
    Depends: libpango1.0-0 (>= 1.21.6) but 1.20.5-0ubuntu1 is to be installed
    Depends: libspeex1 (>= 1.2~beta3-1) but 1.1.12-3ubuntu0.8.04.1 is to be installed
    Depends: libx264-59 (>= 1:0.svn20080408) but it is not installable
    E: Broken packages

    I have added the appropriate repos and I also ran sudo apt-get -f install and the problem continues. please any help would be appriciated

  47. Forget all that, all this step is nonsense to me since most of these step needed me to connected to internet, but sorry to tell you, I didn’t have one. So, alternative way I done is by downloading sources packages one by one, but its very very hard to finish since I can’t leave anything behind. So, can you help me for this situation?
    I want to install all kind of codecs and the best media player I can get. I’m using ubuntu 8.04 and intel core duo 2.0.

  48. i installed the mplayer sucessfuly but i cant play any avi videos. mp3s woks fine but when there is a video file it gives an error.
    please give me any suggestion

  49. Normal install

    su

    Now extract tar

    cd (folder crieted by the tar)

    Now read the README or INSTALL to see other ways of installation if the installation is different follow what it says.
    If it isn’t different follow my steps.

    ./configure
    make
    make install
    cd ..

    RPM install

    In RPM you have to convert RPM to deb.

    su

    Now you have to install alien so you utilize the command “apt-get install alien”.

    alien -d (name of the RPM.rpm)

    For install deb

    dpkg -i (name of the deb.deb)

    Bundle install

    chmod +x (name of the bundle.bundle)
    name of the bundle.bundle

    keygen (This is just a keygen for bundle i don’t know if it is like this every time)
    chmod +x keygen
    keygen
    And now it will appear the key.

    Finish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  50. I installed the player so I can watch my favorite DVD’s. The player launches the DVD with no problem but I get no sound AND the image is garbled. It acts like my hardware is not fast enough to play the DVD. I am trying this on a brand new Dell Latitude 2100 and Ubuntu 9.04-the Jaunty Jackalope. What can I do to get this to work correctly? Sorry, I am new to this OS so I am still trying to learn.

    Thanks

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *