I use BBC iplayer to listen to old programs e.g
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode..._Rent_Arrears/

or
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...nt_29_11_2008/

They used to work fine but now instead of them coming as a flash player they come out as totem movie and do not run for more than a minute

Perhaps you have a totem plugin installed? They work fine for me in firefox with flash.

I think did have for some reason it has gone. How do I install it? I tried to via urpmi but could only install totem not the plugin (and I have googled this).

No, I'm saying that the totem plugin *may* be stopping flash from running. I wasn't saying to install it but uninstall that plugin to see if it makes a difference. If that doesn't work, or there is no plugin, try making a new profile in firefox.

Just a thought

That Knoppix 3.9 might be tried and true, but it's age may be a hindrance. If you like Knoppix you could choose among several newer releases and still have a kernal older than 2.6 if that is important for modules to recognise older equipment. The latest is 5.1.1. There are newer distributions with live-cd versions just a download and a burned cd away, some of them with built in media support. I think of PClinuxOS. There are also puppy linux and vectorlinux for small but still sturdy machines. Puppy is quite popular with good user support.

A tempting thought?

Oh dear

I didn't pay attention to the title that names Mandriva. I use Mplayer with the SMplayer front end to listen to the BBC World Service. It works well, although there is a buffering pause before it starts to play. My connection is only available with a preference setting for realplayer, but it should work set for Microsofts format. Luck with it.

I tried all that - new profile in Firefox still does not work. So annoying, I will have to use Windows.

The profile does now !!! Thanks for the help.