How To: Play WMA Lossless Files On Your Linux Box
- 0 Comments
I recently ordered a cd and was surprised to find out that the audio files were not only in the WMA format, but in the WMA Lossless format which uses the .wma extension just as the older format. I’m sure there’s a way, but none of the things I tried would get the files to play in MediaPlayer, MoviePlayer, or VLC. I tried installing all the gstreamer and totem plugins and the w32plugins. Nothing worked. So I got the idea to install realplayer on my machine. After installing realplayer, the files played like a charm.
Here’s a quick run through of the RealPlayer 11 Gold installation on my 64bit Ubuntu Hardy Box:
1. Download the realplayer installation script from here.
2. Open a terminal window and change the permissions on the script so you can execute it.
sudo chmod +x RealPlayer11GOLD.bin
3. Create the directory to store the realplayer files using the following command:
sudo mkdir /usr/local/realplayer
4. Run the installation script using the following line:
sudo ./RealPlayer11Gold.bin
5. You will be prompted to enter the directory where you want the realplayer files to be stored. The default directory will probably be someplace in your home directory, but just change it to the directory you just created: /usr/local/realplayer and continue with the installation as usual.
6. You should now be able to run realplayer and play non-drmed wma lossless files. There should be a realplayer icon somewhere in your application menu. If a icon was not installed on your system, simply type realplay in the terminal window.
KJ
