.wma player for linux?

[sinkhole777]

Hi All,
Does anyone know of a linux music player that will play .wma natively, or do I have to convert my whole library over to MP3 again.

Thanks in advance for your help

[sinkhole777]

Duhh! I think I've just answered my own question!

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6105970.html

The best part is that I am using Suse 10.1 Ent Desktop as well.

Sometimes the lights on my christmas tree just ain't so Bright :-)

[horus]

Just had to do this for my wife last night (we run OpenSuSE 10.0). Go out to this website for Xine binaries(http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/) or get directly to the windows media codecs by following the link below:

http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br....52-1.i386.rpm

Then use YAST to install it. This provides Xine and Kaffeine with all the codecs for wmv, wma, and the like. Lots of other great stuff there for Xine, too.

You really need to start looking at ogg vorbis format for music. No legal encumbrances, no DRM, better compression and quality. There's even a codec for playing oggs in Windows Media Player... I'll fetch the link if anyone here is interested. (It's FOSS, so no worries.) Audacity can be used to convert from mp3 to ogg (among other things), as can any number of FOSS ripping programs for Linux.

Later On,
Dave

[Lovechild]

If you want to play WMA and WMV under Linux you require a license from Microsoft or you'll have to hack the windows versions of the codecs to run under Linux (which is illegal in most countries even if you own Windows).

The rescue comes in the form of licensed codec packs from Fluendo which will enable all GStreamer applications to decode them. I'm currently betatesting these and they work great. Fluendo expects them to hit the webstore very soon (I'm betting less than a month but I have no sure intel to go by aside what they tell us on the beta team).

The price is estimated at a cosy $1-10 USD depending on how they elect to bundle the plugins, a most fair deal for the only really legal way to support wmv and wma files under Linux. Also under work is things like legal DVD playback, Quicktime support.. but the beta team hasn't gotten those yet.

When the beta test concludes and the plugins hit the webstore I'll make posts here to let people know about them.

But rest assure I have it running here with absolutely zero effort (unpacking files into .gstreamer-0.10/plugins/ can hardly be called work).

[horus]

Why am I not using Fedora Core? Well, in point of fact, my wife is now using Fedora Core 5 (switched her over three days ago). I'm using SuSE 10.0 because I loaded it on my notebook to try it out and I like how it handles the tasks I do most often. Nothing more arcane than that.

Fedora is a nice system, but some of the fixes I had to puzzle out for earlier releases left me feeling kinda unwelcome. (Yeah, I prefer KDE/KDM to GNOME/GDM, and I don't particularly like the way Red Hat tries to go just short of breaking KDE with each release of Fedora.)

With SuSE, there's less futzing around with such details, and more work gets done.

As to the legality of the w32codecs: I've been trying to find some hard documentation on this issue. Could you point me in the right direction? (So far, Clusty [http://clusty.com] has not been particularly on target in any of the searches I've done.) I'd really like to know more about this issue, too.

Later On,
Dave

[Lovechild]

As to the legality of the w32codecs: I've been trying to find some hard documentation on this issue. Could you point me in the right direction? (So far, Clusty [http://clusty.com] has not been particularly on target in any of the searches I've done.) I'd really like to know more about this issue, too.

It's likely entirely illegal unless you already own a licensed copy and even then most codecs are licensed to the player not the OS or platform as I recall.

Your best bet is the Fluendo codec packs for a legal solution which you can rely on to not blow up in your face.

[horus]

It's likely entirely illegal unless you already own a licensed copy and even then most codecs are licensed to the player not the OS or platform as I recall.

Your best bet is the Fluendo codec packs for a legal solution which you can rely on to not blow up in your face.

I take it from the above that Fluendo indemnifies the users against any legal repercussions? I'm going to go look at Fluendo, but, in the meantime, I'll just ask: do you have any affiliation with Fluendo beyond that of advocating its use? Just curious.

I'm still looking into the legality or illegality of the w32codecs, too. I'll be back when I know more and can speak from that knowledge.

Later On,
Dave

[Schotty]

I only see the mp3 codecs there, when are the others going to become available?

[Lovechild]

I take it from the above that Fluendo indemnifies the users against any legal repercussions? I'm going to go look at Fluendo, but, in the meantime, I'll just ask: do you have any affiliation with Fluendo beyond that of advocating its use? Just curious.

These are legally licensed codecs for GStreamer, they should have been in the store already but instead we got a new beta test issued so I take it someone hit a major bug that needs testing. There's no need for indemnification protection what so ever, 100% legal and safe.

Being a beta tester I can say that they work beautifully and would be a worthwhile investment when they come out.

I am not employed by anyone, I don't get money under the table - all I get in return for hours and hours of beta testing is a free copy, it's not a great deal for me but I really enjoy the process and the Fluendo guys are wonderful.

[Lovechild]

I only see the mp3 codecs there, when are the others going to become available?

They were supposed to go up like last week but instead we got a new beta.. I'm guessing they found a bug. I'll post like possessed once they are released for sale rest assured.