Howto: Playing MP3s under Fedora core or Red Hat Linux Desktop system

Posted by Vivek Gite [Last updated: November 10, 2006]

Q. Quick question How can I play MP3 files under Red Hat Fedora Linux.

A. Because of Licensing issue all Red hat based distributions like Fedora, Red hat enterprise workstation and other distro such as CentOS doest not ship MP3 and DVD players. In order to enable them you need to use yum to install them or rpm command to install them. But where you can find out rpms? The best place to get all xmms rpm is to visit Dan site. It has all xmms packages since Red hat version 7 to latest RHEL 4.0 and fedora core versions. Use ypm which is an update-tool written in python for RedHat based distributions. You can configure it as follows:

(1) Login as root user or use su command.

(2) Open /etc/yum.conf
# vi /etc/yum.conf

Append following line of text (mms) to yum.conf file:
[dag] name=Dag RPM Repository for Fedora Core baseurl=http://apt.sw.be/fedora/$releasever/en/$basearch/dag gpgcheck=1 enabled=1

(3) Install dag's GPG signature key with rpm command:
# rpm --import http://dag.wieers.com/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt

(4) Upgrade your system by typing following command:
# yum update

Please note that you can add any new software by typing following command syntax:
yum install

(5) Install or upgrade xmms use the following command:
# yum install xmms-mp3

(6) Open terminal and start xmms
$ xmms &

(7) Additionally you may need to install xine (DVD player) as follows
# yum install xine

And you are done. Online references:

Please see Dag's site FAQ for more information on how to enable MP3 support for RHEL or download all xmms rpm files.
XMMS home page to download additional skins and plugins

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Discussion on This Article:

tanaya vaidya Says: December 11th, 2005 at 4:23 am
Thank you very much! I can play mp3

Tanaya.
Tanuj Jain Says: June 1st, 2007 at 10:51 am
I have installed Fedora cORE 6 aND I’m not able to play mp3 files .I have also installed xmms but due to licencing problem I’m unable to play them.Kindly HELP!!
vivek Says: June 1st, 2007 at 9:21 pm
Tanuj,

You need to install mp3 plugins, just type the following commands:
ADD FILES aka repo:
rpm -ihv http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/i386/livna-release-6-1.noarch.rpm rpm –import http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY
ADD MP3 support:
yum install xmms xmms-mp3 xmms-faad2 gstreamer-plugins-ugly libmad libid3tag
ADD DVD Support:
yum install xine xine-lib xine-skins xine-lib-extras-nonfree libdvdcs yum install videolan-client
jon Says: July 23rd, 2007 at 7:36 am
plz help me to installing mp3 player i am trying to insatll on it but wont work asking for codecs and decoders but when i am trying to install that aslo give errors like error no 12 2 kind of thing
i am currntly using Fedora core 6
can anybody help me? Please
Frank D. Says: May 31st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Hi, thank you for the very helpful steps for F.C. 9. there is a typo in step 3 above. the /rpm is missing. So it should be:

http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/RPM-GPG-KEY.dag.txt

Thanks,
frank