Playing WMV files on Ubuntu - Dapper Drake

I use MPlayer to play video files on Ubuntu. However, I was not able to play WMV files so I started some google searches to see how others made it to work.



Here is what worked for me:



1. Download the required Codecs.

Playing WMV files required the win32 codecs. I download these from the following link:

Mplayer HQ



I downloaded the file called :

win32codecs-essential-20040703.tar.bz2



2. Extract the codecs to a directory

tar -xjvf win32codecs-essential-20040703.tar.bz2



3. Create a directory

sudo mkdir /usr/lib/win32



4. Copy the codecs to the new directory created above

Use the cp command or the graphical interface





5. Restart mplayer and watch the WMV videos



Happy viewing :)

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Enabling SSH

My office laptop runs Ubuntu but my home desktop still has windows 2000. I often feel the need to transfer files between the two. I know that WinSCP allows one to do so. So I downloaded WinSCP, installed it on my windows destop and tried to connect to my laptop. This did not work. With a few google searches I learnt that SSH service on my laptop has to be started for winSCP to work.

Here is how SSH services can be setup:

1. Install openssh server

# sudo apt-get install openssh-server

2. Modify the setting and restart SSH server.

# sudo gedit /etc/ssh/sshd_config

In my case, my username is asood, thus I added one line to /etc/ssh/sshd_config


Protocol 2
...
PermitRootLogin no
...
AllowUsers asood

3. Restart SSH server.
# sudo /etc/init.d/ssh restart