/etc/mplayer/*, ~/.mplayer/* If you wish to utilize a FreeType font, you need to link a TTF file to your ~/.mplayer directory. For example: ln -sf /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF/luxisri.ttf ~/.mplayer/subfont.ttf otherwise ln -sf /usr/share/mplayer/font/font-arial-iso-8859-1/font-arial-[font size]-iso-8859-1/* /usr/share/mplayer/font You can chose your font size of 14, 18, 24 or 28. Set up the GUI with the following commands executed from your source directory: cat > /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf << "EOF" gui = yes skin = default EOF The first line, gui = yes, will make MPlayer start in GUI mode automatically. If you want to decide whether to start in GUI mode or not, leave that line out and start mplayer with -gui or as gmplayer (e.g. when starting from a Window Manager menu or command prompt). Note that the main configuration file is called config if it is placed in the ~/.mplayer directory.