HOWTO: mplayerplug-in 2.85 for Hoary

[drigloi]

As you might know mplayerplug-in is a handy Mozilla/Firefox plugin for streaming media contents on webpages. Currently Hoary has the quite aged version 2.70 of this plugin. Since that version things have changed significantly - now mplayerplug-in is one of the best option for viewing streaming video on web pages under Linux.

Here is how to compile it under Hoary:

NOTE:
I have enabled the following repositories (see ubuntuguide.org on how to do it):
main
restricted
universe
multiverse
hoary-backports
Because I have backports enabled I am able to install mplayer and the latest Mozilla browser (Hoary's Mozilla is 1.7.6 while backports has the latest stable 1.7.8 which I use). This guide is based on Mozilla 1.7.8 - I don't know if it is working with the 1.7.6.

1. Set up mplayer & w32codecs

sudo apt-get install mplayer w32codecs

2. Grab latest mplayerplug-in source from here:

wget http://heanet.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/mplayerplug-in/mplayerplug-in-2.85.tar.gz

3. Untar the mplayerplug-in source

tar -xvzf mplayerplug-in-2.85.tar.gz

4. Prepare dependencies for the build:

sudo apt-get install mozilla-dev libxpm-dev libgtk2.0-dev

5. Grab gecko-sdk from here:

wget http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.7.8/gecko-sdk-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.7.8.tar.gz

6. Untar gecko-sdk:

tar -xvzf gecko-sdk-i686-pc-linux-gnu-1.7.8.tar.gz

7. Compile mplayerplug-in:

cd mplayerplug-in
./configure --with-gecko-sdk=../gecko-sdk
make

8. the "make install" (you should remove the old mozilla-mplayer package prior this step!)

sudo cp mplayerplug-in.so /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins
sudo cp mplayerplug-in.xpt /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/components
sudo cp mplayerplug-in.types /etc
sudo cp mplayerplug-in.conf /etc

9. Prepare the config file:

sudo gedit /etc/mplayerplug-in.conf

Edit it like this:

#debug=0
#logfile=$HOME/mpp.log
vo=xv,x11
ao=esd,oss,arts
#download=1
#dload-dir=$HOME/tmp
#keep-download=0
#noembed=0
cachesize=1024
#use-mimetypes=0
#enable-real=0
#enable-wm=1
#enable-qt=1
#enable-mpeg=1
#enable-ogg=1
#enable-smil=1
#qt-speed=med
#rtsp-use-tcp=0
#nomediacache=0
#framedrop=0
#autosync=0
#mc=1
#black-background=0
#user-agent=NSPlayer

As you see we've changed "vo" to "xv,x11", "ao" to "esd,oss,arts" and "cachesize" to "1024".

10. Restart Firefox and there you are!!!

[donar73]

Thx, works great!

[Knome_fan]

Hi, first off, thanks for the nice howto.

Inspired by it I took a look at the available debian packages and found out that the mozilla-mplayer source package for 2.85 is available. So I figuered it would be nice to use this to install mozilla-mplayer (which is the debian name for the mplayerplug-in).

So, here it goes.

1. Get the needed files

Get the files you need on the debian page:
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/co...-in_2.85-1.dsc
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/co...85.orig.tar.gz
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/co...2.85-1.diff.gz

and download them to one directory.

2. Get the needed dependencies

Now get all the dependencies you need by running:

sudo apt-get build-dep mozilla-mplayer

This should install all you need for building and installing mplayerplug-in, with one exception I will get to in a second. (Note, I'm assuming here that you have enabled all the repositories that drigloi mentions)

Now on to the missing dependency. We are going to build mplayerplug-in with gtk2 support, as it looks nicer and will give us nice controls. To be able to do this, we'll have to install the gtk2 development files:

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

Finally, install fakeroot as we are going to use it later on. (We don't exactly need it, it is simply a tool that will allow us to do things as a normal user normally only root would be able to do)

sudo apt-get install fakeroot

3. Build the package

If you haven't already done it, change to the directory to which you downloaded the debian files and unpack the source with:

dpkg-source -x mplayerplug-in_2.85-1.dsc

This will unpack mplayerplug-in_2.85.orig.tar.gz to mplayerplug-in-2.85.

Now change into the newly created mplayerplug-in-2.85 directory and edit the file debian/rules:

gedit debian/rules

Change the line:
DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS := --enable-x

to

DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS := --enable-gtk2

and save the file.

Finally we are ready to start to build the package with:

dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -us

4. Install the package
If everything went well you now should have a package called mozilla-mplayer_2.85-1_i386.deb in the parent directory of your current directory, that is in ../mplayerplug-in-2.85.
Change to that directory (cd ..) and install the package with:
sudo dpkg -i mozilla-mplayer_2.85-1_i386.deb

That's it.
All that's left to do is to edit /etc/mplayerplug-in.conf the way drigloi describes it and you should be good to go.

Have fun!

[sanji]

Thanks aja laa

[crashtest]

This works perfectly for me with Mozilla 1.7.8. Firefox 1.02 still crashes if I try to use the mplayer plugin however. Is there a way to make this work with Firefox - or should it already be working at this point? Thanks.

[Knome_fan]

I know this doesn't really help, but for what it's worth, I also did have problems with mplayerplug-in and firefox in ubuntu, no matter what version of the plugin I'm using. It works fine with epiphany for me though.

[frodon]

I know this doesn't really help, but for what it's worth, I also did have problems with mplayerplug-in and firefox in ubuntu, no matter what version of the plugin I'm using. It works fine with epiphany for me though.

I think I will use mozilla because i test a lot of plugin with firefox (VLC, gxine, totem, ...) and for the moment best plugin is mplayer-plugin and it still not work with firefox .
I'm waiting for the official totem plugin or mplayer compatibility with firefox.
Thanks for this very good HOW TO.

[Grunt]

Great HOWTO, thanks! I now have very nice streaming video!

[drigloi]

This works perfectly for me with Mozilla 1.7.8. Firefox 1.02 still crashes if I try to use the mplayer plugin however. Is there a way to make this work with Firefox - or should it already be working at this point? Thanks.

Can you describe me this Firefox crash problem? I use Backport's new 1.0.4 Firefox and haven't experienced any crashes with mplayerplug-in yet.

But it's true that previously I experienced lockups with mplayerplug-in 2.80 and Firefox 1.0.2 while watching streaming video and pressing the browser's Back button. Is this the issue you're referring to?

[crashtest]

Can you describe me this Firefox crash problem? I use Backport's new 1.0.4 Firefox and haven't experienced any crashes with mplayerplug-in yet.

But it's true that previously I experienced lockups with mplayerplug-in 2.80 and Firefox 1.0.2 while watching streaming video and pressing the browser's Back button. Is this the issue you're referring to?

I have since upgraded to the 1.0.4 version, but when I had Firefox 1.0.2 running it would just close if I tired to use the mplayerplug-in. Even with Mozilla 1.7.8 the behavior is a little odd - videos will play, but if I click the 'x' to close mplayer, mozilla will instantly close.

Now here's another odd thing: I've tried the mplayerplug-in to watch the news videos on CNN.com. Mozilla let's me play the videos, but Firefox 1.0.4 pops up "Plugin Warning" telling me I need to install Windows Media Player 9. So at this point I need a site to test Firefox 1.0.4 with the mplayerplug-in. Any suggestions for a site to try?

I wonder how Mozilla beats the Microsoft Censorship and lets me play the CNN videos? Maybe it's just how the browser identifies itself. I'll have to take a look at this.