Thursday, January 17, 2008

Installing multimedia codecs in linux

Codecs, is an important element when we are talking about playing and watching multimedia files. To install codecs on linux box, it is an easy task. Just follow the below instructions :-) :
  1. Download the codecs source from here. Thank you to the mplayer team for this magnificent codecs source.
  2. Login as superuser
    • # su -
  3. Extract the downloaded archive
    • # tar -xvjf all-20061022.tar.bz2
  4. Make 2 directories if they are not already exist.
    • # mkdir /usr/local/lib/codecs
    • # mkdir /usr/lib/win32
  5. Copy the content of the extracted directory to the newly created directory
    • # cp all-20061022/* /usr/local/lib/codecs
    • # cp all-20061022/* /usr/lib/win32
  6. Change the permission of the directories to 755
    • # chmod 755 /usr/local/lib/codecs
    • # chmod 755 /usr/lib/win32
  7. Finish. Congratulations, you have managed to install multimedia codecs into your linux box. You can test it by playing any video with your favorite media player.
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4 comments:

  1. kozmcraeJanuary 17, 2008

    WARNING

    This set of instructions would be very difficult and confusing to a newbie. Not to mention that your instructions would not work for some distributions. Users new to Linux should always use their distribution's repositories through the package manager. It's nice of you to help and new users will definitely want to have all their codecs in order but you are setting them up for some nasty disappointments. Anyone new to Linux will almost inevitably be trying Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, SimplyMepis or Suse. If they follow the simple instructions posted on their distribution's forum, they'll be just fine. Please amend your post to tell newbies to use the package manager first.

    ReplyDelete
  2. blackorgaJanuary 19, 2008

    Thanx kozmcrae for the comment, but for me, it is up to the user what path they want to choose in installing their application. Whether they are newbie or advanced user, they got the choice. By the way, I will post one more article on this topic but using the package manager. Thanx

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousAugust 08, 2008

    Thanks for the instructions .. It worked fine for me in Ubuntu 8.04 .. But a small addition .. All Ubuntu users should add sudo before every statement the author has mentioned here. Then check the operation of the codecs by playing videos using VLC player ..

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sajith KozhikodeSeptember 26, 2008

    I have installed now for my Fedora 9 as your direction. But result is negative. Kaffeine Player is not ready to play video (both VCD and DVD) for lack of codecs

    ReplyDelete