How do I open WMA music ?

For the WMA files you will need the w32codecs from the medibuntu repository. To add the repository, open up a terminal (Applications>Accessories>Terminal) and copy and paste the following two commands:

    sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/feisty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

    wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update

(If you are not running the latest Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn), you will need to change the feisty.list in the first command to dapper.list for 6.06 or edgy.list for 6.10)

Now you can install w32codecs using Synaptic or also in the terminal:

    sudo aptitude install w32codecs

Another useful package is ubuntu-restricted extras, which will install more codecs, microsoft fonts, and the flash and java plugins for Firefox:

    sudo aptitude install ubuntu-restricted-extras

I pasted all that on the terminal, but nothing happened.
and when I try to open the music, it still says that the file is encrypted and cannot be played.

If the file is encrypted by DRM, for example a purchased song, you simply will not be able to play it except in Windows.

Hi folks,

For me the procedure seems to work, although not in full:

Finally it says..

Reading package lists... Done

Followed by..

W: GPG error: http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org dapper Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY 2D6CFB44DD800CD9
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems

I do get this quite often. and don't understand what it says or what's wrong and how to correct it.. Anybody..?

Your help is greatly appreciated..

I found the answer to this question on another forum:

gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv 2D6CFB44DD800CD9
gpg --export --armor 2D6CFB44DD800CD9 | sudo apt-key add -

I'm really just starting to use ubuntu, so don't really know what i'm doing yet.
when I paste what you gave me James taji on to my terminal, it ask's for Password. what is that supposed to be ?

and that would really be a pain if I can'r read my music - I don't have windows on my laptop. how do I find out if the files are encrypted by DRM or not ? and if there are, isn't there anyway around the problem that you could suggest ?
would it be possible to save it under another form back on windows ?

> I'm really just starting to use ubuntu, so don't really know what i'm doing yet.
> when I paste what you gave me James taji on to my terminal, it ask's for Password. what is that supposed to be ?

Use your user password (with sudo you use the user's password)

> and that would really be a pain if I can'r read my music - I don't have windows on my laptop. how do I find out if the files are encrypted by DRM or not ? and if there are, isn't there anyway around the problem that you could suggest ?
> would it be possible to save it under another form back on windows ?

Where did they come from? Did you purchase them? If they are protected
there's really nothing you can do besides using Windows (complain to
Microsoft), and depending on your country circumventing the copy
protection might very well be illegal.

they copied on to my USB stick by a friend, and some of his cd's where purchased, others copies too.

I've just tried to read music from my mp3 player, also in WMA. I managed to down load the codec, but when I try to open the files, this is what comes up :
The playback of this movie requires a Windows Media Audio 8 decoder plugin which is not installed.
(it opens with MOvie Player)

I've just managed to read and extract a cd on Sound Juicer, and this CD was a copy from an album I have on my USB stick.
How did that come around ? how come I can read exactly the same file from the the CD and not the USB stick ?
the music from the CD is in Ogg Vorbis audio, whatever that is.

hi laurel.....
WMA files and some files are restricted formates in ubuntu.. To install and play and for more info refer [1] and [2] below:

[1].https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
[2].http://www.ubuntux.org/node/72

Hope it helps,

br,

Bhavani Shankar.