absolute linux confusion - no doubt about it

[bigbadwolf]

ok i am thinkin bout installing SUSE linux on my new pc that i am building, but i have never used linux before. so i was looking for linux compatible, video players, and came across the 'best' called MPlayer. only the download isnt exactly simple if you have no experience of linux. what do i actually need to do/download/burn etc in order to run this program on linux, do i have to compile it myself?, is there a different kind of .exe file for linux?, coz i heard they use a different file extension for executable files. man im confused bout this whole linux thing

 

[linux_0]

ok i am thinkin bout installing SUSE linux on my new pc that i am building, but i have never used linux before. so i was looking for linux compatible, video players, and came across the 'best' called MPlayer. only the download isnt exactly simple if you have no experience of linux. what do i actually need to do/download/burn etc in order to run this program on linux, do i have to compile it myself?, is there a different kind of .exe file for linux?, coz i heard they use a different file extension for executable files. man im confused bout this whole linux thing

Well there might be a SuSE package of mplayer somewhere.

www.mplayerhq.hu has Fedora RPMs but that isn't going to help you.

Check the SuSE repositories.

I can walk you thru the installation process but I would need to know what packages you've installed already ( you need a lot of development packages ).

If you want I could also ssh into your Linux box share the screen with you and compile it for you. That would require a high speed internet connection tho.

 

[Zach_the_Evil]

It's really easy if you use Fedora Core 4. "yum install mplayer" or similar. A quick google search has shown that SuSE uses yast, which is similar to yum in that it installs stuff. Find a respository out there that has mplayer and it should be a 10 second install.

 

[linux_0]

Zach_the_Evil is correct :-D

YaST is the best way to install it if you can find a premade YaST package at the SuSE repositories, otherwise source is the way.

 

[Zach_the_Evil]

Zach_the_Evil is correct :-D.

That's not possible! He can't be!

 

[linux_0]

Zach_the_Evil is correct :-D.

That's not possible! He can't be!


Correct again my friend, you can't possibly be right ;-)


Just kidding. You're right...


I would have posted a link to a YaST package but I haven't been able to find one.

Lines starting with # a comments do not type them in or paste them

All other lines are commands

This is how you would install the source [ assuming you have the prerequisites ]:

[code:1:eae8af461e]
wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/MPlayer-1.0pre7try2.tar.bz2;
wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/MPlayer-1.0pre7try2.tar.bz2.md5;

wget http://www4.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20050412.tar.bz2;
wget http://ftp5.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/releases/codecs/MD5SUMS;

md5sum MPlayer-1.0pre7try2.tar.bz2 ; cat MPlayer-1.0pre7try2.tar.bz2.md5

# the md5sum should match

md5sum all-20050412.tar.bz2 ; cat MD5SUMS

# again the md5sum fomr all-20050412.tar.bz2 should match the first entry in the MD5SUMS file


tar xjvf all-20050412.tar.bz2

mkdir -p /usr/lib/mplayer/codecs/; mv -i all-20050412/* /usr/lib/mplayer/codecs

tar xjvf MPlayer-1.0pre7try2.tar.bz2

cd MPlayer-1.0pre7try2

./configure --prefix=/usr --confdir=/etc --with-codecsdir=/usr/lib/mplayer/codecs
make
make install

# it should compile and install as long as you have gcc 3.x or higher and are not using a 64bit distro
# if you have gcc 3.x or gcc 4.x and mplayer doesn't like it use:

./configure --prefix=/usr --confdir=/etc --with-codecsdir=/usr/lib/mplayer/codecs --disable-gcc-checking

# if you have gcc 2.96 DO NOT compile mplayer upgrade gcc first

# if you have a 64bit distro like FC4 x86_64 you will probably have to do this or something like it:

./configure --prefix=/usr --confdir=/etc --cc=gcc32 --enable-gui --with-extralibdir=/usr/lib64 --with-extralibdir=/usr/X11R6/lib64 --with-codecsdir=/usr/lib/mplayer/codecs --disable-gcc-checking

# then

make
make install

[/code:1:eae8af461e]

These commands have been tested and should work on FC4 i386, FC4 x86_64 and similar distributions.

You may have to add some flags to get them to work on your distro.

 

[Zach_the_Evil]

Doing that gives me some unusual results. I am under FC4 64 and using --enable-gui gives me an error that says X11 does not exist. Unusual. Any way to get around this?

 

[linux_0]

[code:1:267c5b7c06]

./configure --target=athlon_xp --cc="gcc -m32" --as="as --32" --with-extralibdir=/usr/lib

[/code:1:267c5b7c06]

You will most likely need to build a 32bit MPlayer on FC4 x86_64 because all the codecs are 32bit and you cannot use them with a 64bit MPlayer.

The command above should build it.

On mine I'm building a 32bit and a 64bit MPlayer so I can use both.

 

[drcroubie]

hmmm, watching videos on SuSE?

yeah.

ummm.

fun.....



here's my experience:
i put on SuSE 9.1 about 6 months ago. Kaffeine (xine) was fine for MPEGs, but didn't do anything like WMV or AVI.

So i put on SuSE 10.0 a month ago. Kaffeine proved useless, didn't even play MPEGs. something about licensing meant they had to leave it off the distro. so:

option 1: "just go to mplayerhq.hu, download the codec package, and Kaffeine will recognise it". yeah right. "error, no demux plugin" for any file type i tried to play.

option 2: "goto mplayerhq.hu and download the whole thing, compile it myself". seems reasonable, except when you try to compile and a warning flashes "mplayer compiles with gcc 3.*" and SuSE 10.0 is built on gcc 4. trying to force compile (ignoring gcc version) doesn't work.

option 3: "find a SuSE 10.0 rpm". well, i found one, search around on the mplayerhq.hu and you can find it too. go to install it, and it says i need extra codec packages to be pre-installed. good luck finding them.

so option 4: this was fun. kept my seperate /home drive connected, and reboot back to my old SuSE 9.1 drive. SuSE 9.1 is built on gcc 3 at least. install a few rpms, and compile it. had to tell it to compile the whole thing to /home/mplayer, so it would be there for SuSE 10.0. worked, eventually, but no GUI (X) support. tested it out, and it worked. replace my / drive, boot back to SuSE 10.0. had to remove DirectFB and Libdv packages and all dependancies (like a few games), and install the SuSE 9.1 version of them.
now, whenever i want to watch a movie, i have to open an xterm, "su", and "init 3". then login as root, and "/home/mplayer/bin/mplayer -vo vesa <file(s)>".

Still, at least it works, as comlpicated as it is. if anyone has found an easier way to use mplayer (or anything else that plays MPEGs, AVIs, and WMVs) on SuSE 10.0, i'd like to hear it.


seeing as you said you have little linux experience, then good luck. but if you download the mplayer tarball, somewhere in there is a file called README. read it. try to understand it, i couldn't, but still got through it...

 

[linux_0]

You need

[code:1:20842ead63]
--disable-gcc-checking
[/code:1:20842ead63]

To get configure to stop complaining about GCC but you must have GCC 3.x or 4.x 2.96 does NOT work.

NEVER try to build mplayer with GCC 2.96

If you are building on x86_64 you need to run this to build a 32bit MPlayer which will be compatible with the 32bit codecs @ mplayerhq:

[code:1:20842ead63]
./configure --target=athlon_xp --cc="gcc -m32" --as="as --32" --with-extralibdir=/usr/lib
[/code:1:20842ead63]


You need

[code:1:20842ead63]
--with-extralibdir=/usr/lib --with-extralibdir=/usr/X11R6/lib
[/code:1:20842ead63]

to pickup the X11 libraries so that the GUI works.

Of course you need to have all your libraries installed in the right places.

If you did a minimal install then it may not find all the libraries it needs.