Slackware, multimedia, codecs, oh my
 

Hi all,

I go from distro to distro, looking for one that reaches out and "grabs" me.

I have become fairly good at installs and setting things up, but am no guru, and still have a ton to get to understand.

The one that has been killing me lately on the distros I try out, is multimedia, codecs, and the like.

I am downloading slackware 12 as I type, and would like some advice as to how to keep the multimedia setup as simple and straightforward as possible, meaning, where do I get what I need as far as codecs goes, and how do I install them?

I want to stream video and audio, watch my DVD movies, and be able to view and listen to the files I already have on my windows box, which are mpg, wmv, wma, mp3, avi, and a host of other formats I tend to play around with.


Thank you for reading this far <g> I appreciate any and all advice I can glean from those who know so much more than I do. I am hoping there are ways to keep this simple.

John

Hi jbrush,

you can get Mplayer's codecs packages for Slackware on various sites, e.g. here, though I'm not sure whether that covers everything you need.

Regards,
lemmy

you might want to take a look at mplayer at www.slackbuilds.org

mplayer can play many media types, I use it for everything I play

If you want you also can use gxine and xine. If you did a full install, you already have them installed, and most (if not all) codecs for xine (and friends) already are installed.

Many available
 

I use Gutsy and watch DVD's and everything else you listed. Linux Mint is a good distro for this, of course Linspire is a good pay for distro with codecs installed if you want to go that way, also PClinuxOS is nice. Check Distro watch, their short reviews explain most everything about differences in distros.

Cart

I think Slackware plays, out of the box, MP3, OGG, MPEG4 AVI files and some WMV and WMA (using xine -- ffmpeg). If that's not enough, as other people suggested, you can always download and compile MPlayer using a SlackBuild, and download and install the codecs package from their website.

In slackware , I just download and untar the mplayer codecs into /usr/lib/codecs , and then xine is able to play pretty much everything . Amarok plays stuff using xine lib.

Slackware is well equipped with everything needed to do "media" and "images" in the broadest sense.

Just add the codec-selection of Mplayer's and you can play pretty much everything.

There's absolutely no need for a different distribution and it actually has nothing to do with the distributions themselves, because they ALL use the same underlying libraries and applications and codecs.

It all comes down to ffmpeg, libmpeg, libavi and the like and a collections of codecs. On top of that, you'll use xine, mplayer or gstreamer-based players.

That's the best way to do it. Also, remember to go into xine settings, under the 'decoder' tab make sure it points to the codecs directory (that would be '/usr/lib/codecs' if you installed them there).

I recommend you get the 'all' codecs package, because it contains all the codecs you will ever need. That way I don't have to worry that I don't have a codec, and so far there isn't a single video I can't play.

Same here ... infact it has always been beyond me as to why this is so difficult in other distros .

Even more importantly, after doing this ALL the players work over the xine engine , from Noatun to Kaboodle to Amarok. I don't even need to install mplayer. Such a behaviour is not found anywhere else in my experience. In other distros installing codecs is nearly as painful as in windows(atleast windows has a simple ffmpeg installer, whereas over here I have to yum install / apt-get my ass off ) :(

Ofcourse, I was a noob to those distros and might have made a few mistakes.

For dvds you'll also need libdvdcss and (I think) libdvdread and libdvdplay. All available on slackbuilds.org.

Brian

I am new to slackware, running -current, and I can't get either mplayer or xine to playback a dvd.

I am actually sick of the whole issue!

What is the big problem? where is the conflict with slackware philosophy that stops a working player, like VLC, from being shipped?

frustrated

If you are new to slackware, then why are you running -current? Use the official stable version as -current may break at any moment.

VLC.

Alien Bob's VLC package will play almost anything, audio and/or video and is
completely self contained.

http://taper.alienbase.nl/mirrors/pe...ackbuilds/vlc/

http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien...ackbuilds/vlc/

http://www.videolan.org/

As much as I hate dragging up this old thread, you need libdvdcss. You can get it from a place called slackbuilds. The issue with the dvd and some other codecs is legal, not a philosophy. There are laws about what a distro can and can't package in it. Maybe when you learn a bit more you will understand them.

Yep. You can find libdvdcss here at slackbuilds.org. Install that and you will be able to watch DVDs in VLC.

http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14...ies/libdvdcss/