Red Hat / CentOS Linux: Enable and Install Media, CD / DVD, Moive MP3 Players

Q. How do I enable and install Media player under CentOS or Fedora or Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems? How do I play mp3s under RHEL / CentOS Linux 5.x? How do I play CD / DVD movies under RHEL / CentOS Linux version 5.x?

A. EPEL (Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux) is a volunteer-based community effort from the Fedora project to create a repository of high-quality add-on packages but you will not find mp3, dvd and music / media player under EPEL.

RPMforge Repo

RPMforge is a collaboration of Dag, Dries, and other packagers. They provide over 4000 packages for CentOS, including mplayer, xmms-mp3, dvd, cd and other popular media players tools. It is not part of RedHat or CentOS / Fedora but is designed to work with these major distributions.

How do I enable RPMforge repo?

Login as root user and type the following command at a shell prompt:
# rpm -ivh http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/x86_64/RPMS.dag/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.$(uname -i).rpm
Sample output:

Retrieving http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/x86_64/RPMS.dag/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm
warning: /var/tmp/rpm-xfer.jWb790: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 6b8d79e6
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:rpmforge-release       ########################################### [100%]

Import GPG keys, enter:
# rpm --import http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt

A note about CentOS v5.x / 4.x

You also need to install yum-priorities, which is available in the CentOS v5 / 4 repositories:
# yum -y install yum-priorities
Sample output:

Loading "skip-broken" plugin
Loading "fastestmirror" plugin
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * epel: mirrors.xmission.com
 * base: mirrors.gigenet.com
 * updates: pubmirrors.reflected.net
 * addons: centos.mirrors.tds.net
 * extras: centos.mirrors.tds.net
Setting up Install Process
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package yum-priorities.noarch 0:1.1.10-9.el5.centos set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
=============================================================================
 Package                 Arch       Version          Repository        Size
=============================================================================
Installing:
 yum-priorities          noarch     1.1.10-9.el5.centos  base               11 k
Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install      1 Package(s)
Update       0 Package(s)
Remove       0 Package(s)
Total download size: 11 k
Downloading Packages:
(1/1): yum-priorities-1.1 100% |=========================|  11 kB    00:00
Running rpm_check_debug
Running Transaction Test
Finished Transaction Test
Transaction Test Succeeded
Running Transaction
  Installing: yum-priorities               ######################### [1/1]
Installed: yum-priorities.noarch 0:1.1.10-9.el5.centos
Complete!

Test your setup

Finally, type the following command to test new repo:
# yum check-update
Sample output:

Loading "skip-broken" plugin
Loading "fastestmirror" plugin
Loading "priorities" plugin
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * epel: mirrors.xmission.com
 * rpmforge: fr2.rpmfind.net
 * base: mirrors.gigenet.com
 * updates: pubmirrors.reflected.net
 * addons: centos.mirrors.tds.net
 * extras: centos.mirrors.tds.net
rpmforge                  100% |=========================| 1.1 kB    00:00
primary.xml.gz            100% |=========================| 2.5 MB    00:06
rpmforge  : ################################################## 7247/7247
0 packages excluded due to repository priority protections
cadaver.x86_64                           0.22.5-1.el5.rf        rpmforge
lftp.x86_64                              3.7.3-1.el5.rf         rpmforge
mtr.x86_64                               2:0.72-1.el5.rf        rpmforge
rsync.x86_64                             3.0.3-1.el5.rf         rpmforge
syslinux.x86_64                          3.71-1.el5.rf          rpmforge
udftools.x86_64                          1.0.0b3-3.el5.rf       rpmforge
[root@centos tmp]# yum check-update
Loading "skip-broken" plugin
Loading "fastestmirror" plugin
Loading "priorities" plugin
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
 * epel: mirrors.xmission.com
 * rpmforge: fr2.rpmfind.net
 * base: mirrors.gigenet.com
 * updates: pubmirrors.reflected.net
 * addons: centos.mirrors.tds.net
 * extras: centos.mirrors.tds.net
0 packages excluded due to repository priority protections
cadaver.x86_64                           0.22.5-1.el5.rf        rpmforge
lftp.x86_64                              3.7.3-1.el5.rf         rpmforge
mtr.x86_64                               2:0.72-1.el5.rf        rpmforge
rsync.x86_64                             3.0.3-1.el5.rf         rpmforge
syslinux.x86_64                          3.71-1.el5.rf          rpmforge
udftools.x86_64                          1.0.0b3-3.el5.rf       rpmforge 

How do I install media players?

Type the following command to install media players:
# yum -y install mplayer vlc xmms-mp3 xmms-flac xmms-wma xmms-skins

To play mp3 enter

$ mplayer *.mp3
OR
$ xmms &

To play CD / DVD or media file enter

$ vlc moive.avi
$ vlc &
$ mplayer file.avi