You can use mplayer or Xine to play wmv videos. Also most media players like Totem that are based on mplayer/Xine engines will play wmv, too.
What you need is the windows codecs, the .dll files. Then you copy them to a win32 folder in a lib folder under your /usr/ directory. There should be a rpm file somewere that you can install them automaticly for your distro.
Usually it's /usr/lib/win32 folder.
Windows codec .dlls I have on my linux machine:
aslcodec_dshow.dll
asusasv2.dll
asusasvd.dll
ativcr2.dll
avimszh.dll
avizlib.dll
clrviddd.dll
divxc32.dll
divx.dll
huffyuv.dll
iccvid.dll
icmw_32.dll
ir32_32.dll
ir41_32.dll
ir50_32.dll
ivvideo.dll
jp2avi.dll
LCMW2.dll
LCodcCMP.dll
LCODCCMW2E.dll
m3jp2k32.dll
m3jpeg32.dll
mcdvd_32.dll
mcmjpg32.dll
mpg4c32.dll
msrle32.dll
msvidc32.dll
pclepim1.dll
qdv.dll
qpeg32.dll
qtmlClient.dll
rt32dcmp.dll
sp5x_32.dll
tsccvid.dll
tsd32.dll
ubvmp4d.dll
ultimo.dll
vgpix32d.dll
ViVD2.dll
vp31vfw.dll
vp4vfw.dll
vp5vfw.dll
vp6vfw.dll
vssh264core.dll
vssh264dec.dll
vssh264.dll
vsslight.dll
vsswlt.dll
wma9dmod.dll
wmadmod.dll
wmspdmod.dll
wmv9dmod.dll
wmvdmod.dll
wnvplay1.dll
wnvwinx.dll
I can play wmv, avi files. I can retreive most streamed content, although sometimes it requires a bit of command line work. I can even recieve and play Realplayer-based file formats. I use Totem, mplayer, Xine. There are others that can do this.
here is a place with a RPM for Win32 codecs for various Suse distros
Not sure of the quality of them or anything, check out the mplayer homepage for details.
To find other rpms, use a rpm search tool like those on
www.rpmfind.net (couldn't use it right now, seems very busy. I just search google for
suse win32 rpms
edit:
Maybe better then using codecs rpm, go
to mplayer's website and download them directly And then copy them to /usr/lib/win32 manually. That way you won't have to worry about "dirty" rpms.
You may not have a media player that can support them, in that case I suggest Xine, it's widely avaible.
edit2:
For the command line, to unpackage files (don't know if you need to do this, you can use gui tools if you want.)
for zip files:
unzip filname.zip
for tar.bz2:
tar jxfv filename.tar.bz2
for tar.gz or .tgz files:
tar zxfv filename.tar.gz