Linux and Multimedia - bless Windows
 

I am fairly new to linux, but still having 16 years of experience with computers I can say I am advanced user of hardware and windows software. I remember having 486 sx 25 MHz Ms-dos 5 and windows 3.1 running on it. There was lots of hassle. I tried Slackware in 1995 but after I spend a week days and nights to run Xfree and another week to configure 8bit soundblaster card, I found there was no software for it. Nevermind. Now 10 years later I still experiment with linux. Two weeks ago I started downloading all available distros on the net.
I found linuxiso . org very helpful.

- First installed Mandrake Discovery I bought from PC world - this distro is for dummies, but real ones. IE. 'create text document' in menu instead of OpenOffice writer. No ssh installed. Just waste of time. And it did not found my sound card!!!

- Second was SUSE Linux 8.1 personal edition I bought it over year ago and never unpack it before. Excellent distro. All recognized sound, video etc. Everything very smooth and logical.
Easy to manage upgrade system YAsT.

- Third Red Hat 9.0 nice, nice simple yet powerful. Like it so I installed :

- CentOS Love it everything works great. But I want to try more.

- 7 ISO's Debian 3 R4. Never finished installing it. Installer so difficult. What's a questions.
Not for newbies. Waste of cd's.

- Fedora - Love it like other redhat distros- new GNOME- up2date works like in commercial version.

BUT:
I went to altavista.com and searched for videos : title: linux
There is no even one movie working either in Helix or Totem.
I started windows XP computer to have a look what will happen.
EVERYTHING WORKS - THANK YOU BILL GATES -

What you think

I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean that you don't find any sites that sell or give away "linux videos"? Because if thats it, there wont be any "linux videos" since with the installation of a few libraries, totem or xine or mplayer will play any "windows videos"(DVDs's?) just fine.

I mean any videos. Linux doesn't play any videos. Only when I downloaded Real from Helix rm's are played I spent last 6 hours to find 1 (one) bloody avi or mpeg file on the net to be played on linux out of the box, like on windows.
And what ! ? I downloaded Real from Helix and real replaced Helix in menu there is no Helix In menu anymore.
1$@!"% linux is that all I can say. I am not asking for something special am I. 90% of computer users can watch avi and mpeg files out of the box, but they are Windows users not linux. I know you all are right 'Linux is a future operating system' but Linux's future is not here yet. From my point of view it's waste of time. Unless someone will prove me wrong and show me distro comparable to windows from mouse users point of view.

Xine will play all of the videos as well as MPlayer :)

You spent hours looking for videos you could play when really you needed to look for software to play them with. Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but as I recall, Windows does not play DVD's, DivX encoded *.avi files, *.rm files or *.mov files out of the box either; you need the appropriate player / codecs installed.

Do a search for "mplayer codec" on this forum, it will get you all the multimedia answers you need.

Yeah right Xine, I went on their website. To install it you have to compile it . Huh No simple installer included. waste of time. Again

So difficult to do.

In Mandrake, I just went to the Mandrake Control Center, told it to install Xine, and it was done. I told it to install the codecs, and it was done. Even easier than when I tried to do the same on Windows. I can watch everything except wmv9 videos, and that should be coming soon.

Rants can go in one of two places - the General forum (trolling), or Linux Newbie (if you have an actual question).

Mandrake may be for "real dummies", but as with any other distro, it is possible to watch

mpegs or avi files or any recent dvd with no problems, as anybody on this forum can testify.

The real problem is people criticizing without even asking and trying first ...

Problem is as always, between the keyboard and the chair, and user joe is sitting on it... Try mplayer or xine. Sooner or later you will need to compile stuff in Linux, but that's easier then it sounds. For somebody good with hardware and computers, afraid of typing 3 commands (./configure, make and make install) to compile something is quite shameful...

Did you come here just to be a troll? You do NOT need to compile xine to install it on your machine - did you even BOTHER to search google or yahoo for binary packages?

Let's take a gander, shall we? In my case, I am running Suse 9.1, so I will run a quick google search:

http://www.google.com/search?q=xine+...en-US:official

OMFG, the second hit has exactly what I am looking for! Amazing what can happen when one looks for a solution rather than throw a hissy fit! Now let's search for the same for Mandrake:

http://www.google.com/search?q=mandr...en-US:official

Another OMFG moment!! :D

FWIW, getting ALL video and audio formats to work under Linux is a heck of a lot quicker than it is for Windows - believe it or not.

Next time, rather than trolling, try actually asking nicely for help?

You're stuck in a Windows mentality where you have to go to each software application's web site to download an installer for each program and then run it and then (usually) reboot.

With most Linux distributions, there is package management software which goes and fetches/installs software for you. Debian and Debian based distributions are perhaps the best at this. Ubuntu seems to be the one generating the most excitement right now, having a very newbie friendly default desktop. It also uses the excellent and friendly Debian Sarge installer (currently, Sarge is Debian-testing, but it is in the process of being finalized to Debian-stable).

The current Debian-stable installer is, by all accounts, very unfriendly and not very good.

Other prominent Debian based distributions are Knoppix and Mepis. They have wonderful hardware auto-detection and can run straight off of the CD. You can try them out totally risk free, and if everything works you just install it to the hard drive and get an easy to install Debian system out of it!

When it comes to playing videos and DVDs, I've had far more headaches trying to get them to work on Windows than in Linux.

well, the author of this thread prolly doesn´t find it anymore since it has been moved. no point answering anymore. but i still must say that windows has lousy out-of-the-box video support, even dvd is not there. come on, how old is dvd anyway?
well, all linux distros would have support for every format of video if there wasn´t software patents. at least they don´t affect all countries and all distro´s yet. and at least they are faster to install to every distro than ranting about the lack of them.

http://www.sunstatemartialarts.com/debian_media.html

this is a little tutorial i put together right after getting my media box up and running using Debian-sarge. it has everything you will need including how to install, configure, and update/patch your debian box to get it ready to run s-vid out to a TV playing any and all types of media files.

there might be some small errors, but i have been working hard to fix them as i go along. in fact just fixed 2 today.

1. replaced the word 'or' with 'and' for the xserver and xserver-common
2. replaced xdm with kdm

had some issues with the xdm so i replaced it with kdm and have had much less issues since i did this.

with the basic info on that URL you should be able to get a fresh system (as long as you are using Nvidia vid cards that is) up and running way faster then you could ever get any windows system up and fully patched and software, codecs, etc installed and running.

1 thing i do not know how to do yet is spanning. there is a way to have 2 res. (like in windows with the Nvidia drivers) so you can have the desktop connected to a monitor and run higher then 800x600 and then push the videos out to the TV at 640x480 or 800x600 without having to worry about 'cloaning' your desktop to the TV. It is doable, i just dont know enough about linux yet to do so.

FYI on semi modern hardware i can do the setup now from that URL under 30min, with little older hardware it can take roughly 45min-1hr. this is provided you have highspeed internet connection for downloading and updating your system.

to do this kind of work with winXP pro same exact hardware takes between 4-10hrs depending on how much issues you have installing and patching 3rd party apps like winDVD and all of the different codecs out there you have to hunt down and install just to view most common file types.

so you say thank you mr. gates, i say push off mr. gates.

yes it took me over a week to do it the first time around, but then i am no were near as skilled at linux as i am with windows. now even with my basic skills as a linux user i can still get the exact same project done in far less time just because of the suppiror OS that is linux.

funny funny.. I know some distros can be a hassle to get stuff like real-player, flash-player, avi video, etc.. working.. but SuSE 9.2 Professional... I went through detailed package selection during te install.. selected all of that stuff.. it's runnign on my notebook.. and it's great.. i haven't had a file in the 4 days i've had it installed I couldn't play..I have gone to TON of media sites.. I have played:

-MP3
-MPEG
-AVI
-R?? whatever the Real-Player file is
-DVDs
-SWF
-JAVA
-and more

I haven't had a problem with any.. in fact.. there are MULTIPLE players available.. when openign an mpeg.. it wasnted to use totem.. i told it no.. and to use kaffeine instead....

so to claim it has no multimedia support is crazy.. it comes in the default installation of SUSE... You just need to decide what you want to do with the PC, how much work you want to put into it.. and see what happens..

There's more work involved getting these players going on FreeBSD, for example.. but it depends on what you want...

this is awesome.

you should be nicer to the thread starter
<edit>

i had problems too... someone tell him he can just take his windows *dll files and put them in /usr/lib/win32

i have a list
</edit>
you guys are just mean :P

in mandrake all you need to do is type in

urpmi xine
or
urpmi mplayer
in konsole

now tell me, is typing in 2 words or using a windows .exe easier?
you need to set up urpmi by doing going here: http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/ again VERY simple to set it up

if you dont know what a console is, click on kmenu, system, terminals, konsole (assuming ur using kde, which u prbbly are as a newbie) that is a console, similar to dos prompt in windows

now check out this link for installing programs in linux:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=203939

if you need to install something, and dont wanna use urpmi or compile, you need the rpm package
to find an rpm for mplayer, assuming you are using mandrake
search "mplayer rpm mandrake" in google
and look for either rpmfind.net or rpm.pbone.net both these sites have the rpm packages

eh, i had a big rant here, but decided to delete it, as soylentgreen said, ill "be nicer to the thread starter."

it's all about whilling to learn
 

I'm using kalango linux at home, a derivative of knoppix, it has all that I want...but when I tried to watch a divx movie with mplayer it didn't show the subtitles, no matter what I changed in player settings!
but that doesn't make me feel sad or frustrated because, as in Windows, yeah, that's right, it's all a matter of having the right codecs... so now I'm searching for the right ones!
you see, I use Windows ever since (I started my learning process in computers with DOS, then Windows 3.1 and then all the rest) and for me one OS is not better than the other (at least at this time!).
I just see these as alternatives to each other and now I'm learning how to use linux OS the same way I had to learn how to use Windows

so, let's look for the solutions instead of just giving up

Thanks a lot everyone!

I was very miserable.
I am working hard now to get this up and running.

thanks

In case it hasn't become clear up to now: Go to http://www.mplayerhq.hu/. Reading the installation manual will give you an idea of what to do to install various video codecs (divx, wmv, avi). This will largely work with xine also, which comes with SuSE, but you'd do yourself a favour if you used SuSE 9.2 instead of 8.1, you'll have kaffeine then which is like Windows Media Player, but better of course :-). Mplayer is worth a try too, but you may have to compile it and may run into problems with the gui (although I haven't tried this since SuSE 9.0, being content with the console interface). The gui issues have been discussed here at lenght, so the search enginge will help you out in case.

To play encrypted DVD you'll have to install libdecss. Just ask google of the whereabouts.

Note: Under many jurisdictions, using libdecss is illegal, as there comes no license from the proprietors with it.

Try Debian Sarge. Installer is a bit tough -- but by no means unfriendly.

Once you get it up and running, downloading and installing software is a breeze. So much that you'll hate Windows after that.

Just add Debian repositories after running apt-setup and you're done. For a GUI package manager, run synaptic and see for yourself. Dependencies are automatically resolved. Just right click on any package you want and choose to install it. That's it! You're done. Click on apply changes and download and install them automatically.

Installing a package is just a mouse-click away. You can also search for packages on the repository using the search feature either by package name and/or description.

Just give it a try. You'll be convinced.

In the list of packages you should install it should be smbfs instead of smbsf. Thanks for the guide I'm trying those mplayer packages now to see if it'll fix some problems I have with encoded (says divx but apparently it's not movies)

Well, if you are really interested than you can take the time to learn it. I can do all of the things on linux that I ever did on Windows, and 10 times better. Besides, you don't have to compile anything, just find a RPM repository, like FreshRPMs.net, ad it to yum.conf, and it will do all of the work for you.