Hi Mossy

I do have a sound which comes on when I log into RedHat, and one that I run when I logout. Both are .avi files and both work. I did turn up the sound when I re-installed Redhat. Found out about that one from previous experience. I have an Ensoniq ES1371 Sound card on my Dell, which Redhat does detect. When I do a 'Play test sound', it does work. Also, when I start up gmplayer, it doesn't play either a wma file or the avi file that plays on my start-up. I was wondering if there is some configuration thing I need to do for mplayer.

About the Mandrake, I was answering the other two people who were telling me to switch. Good distro, but not what I want to use. Thanks for all the help.

Jim

you can check your audio driver in mplayer. start gmplayer (i'm assuming you want to use the gui) and right click on either the player or the viewer. choose preferences from the context menu and then click the audio tab. make sure oss is chosen. you may want to also check the mplayer oss configuration by clicking the configure driver button. on my system, the device is /dev/dsp and the mixer is /dev/mixer. anyway, there should be listing of different sound drivers. for me oss is the only one that works in kde (and i'm mostly pretty positive it will work in gnome too). it maybe different for your system, but i guess it's a starting point.

Hi megaspaz

Thanks for your response. I did as you suggested and I have the same thing as you have. I even created a playlist. Still can't get anything to come out of it. Just so you know, kscd will play cd's fine on the computer. One interesting thing though. In looking thru the preferences, nothing is in the Codecs and Demuxer tab, family fields for either Audio or Video. Not sure if that means anything. I pulled down the list and if I need something in there, I wouldn't know which one to select. Nothing is clearly the correct choice. Thanks again for your response.

Jim

Just to say that if you have broadband, you can download Mandrake ISO's from loads of places. You can get loads of stuff from outside the distro for free, visit http://plf.zarb.org/ to read about it, or http://plf.zarb.org/~nanardon to actually find out how to add independently-produced rpms to Mandrake Control Centre.

I have to say that, of the RPM-based distros, Mandrake is more friendly for home users, and Red Hat for business.

I've also found that adding tarball-based programs to rpm-based distros (well, Mandrake anyway) can be far more trouble that it's worth.

DAVE

davecs - yeah any d/l i tried always failed after burning it. I am not sure if it was my burner or the download. I suspect the burner. Anyhow RedHat cd's I have worked fine so I got to check it out. It is ok tho. I like it for compatibility.

I agree that Mplayer installation is pure, uncut misery. The main problem I found is installing the GUI: selecting a font (still not working) and the setting up the skin. The documentation disagrees with the way the thing actually works. Too many config files scattered over hell's half acre. Source package doc doesn't match the product OR the online doc.

Having said that, I just got the actual gmplayer up and it looks nice, but I'm too exhausted now to make an effort to actually play anything lol