Decide if you need GUI. If you do, see the GUI section before compiling.
If you want to install MEncoder (our great all-purpose encoder), see the MEncoder section.
If you have a V4L compatible TV tuner card, and wish to watch/grab and encode movies with MPlayer, read the TV input section.
If you have a V4L compatible radio tuner card, and wish to listen and capture sound with MPlayer, read the radio section.
There is a neat OSD Menu support ready to be used. Check the OSD menu section.
Then build MPlayer:
./configure make make install
At this point, MPlayer is ready to use. Check if you have a codecs.conf file in your home directory at (~/.mplayer/codecs.conf) left from old MPlayer versions. If you find one, remove it.
Debian users can build a .deb package for themselves, it's very simple. Just exec
fakeroot debian/rules binary
in MPlayer's root directory. See Debian packaging for detailed instructions.
Always browse the output of ./configure, and the configure.log file, they contain information about what will be built, and what will not. You may also want to view config.h and config.mak files. If you have some libraries installed, but not detected by ./configure, then check if you also have the proper header files (usually the -dev packages) and their version matches. The configure.log file usually tells you what is missing.
Though not mandatory, the fonts should be installed in order to gain OSD, and subtitle functionality. The recommended method is installing a TTF font file and telling MPlayer to use it. See the Subtitles and OSD section for details.