Novell SLED 10: Need to watch divx, xvid, AC3 etc
 

Ok, so I'm a windows user who has taken the deep end, deleted windows and installed SUSE, so far liking it but I don't have a clue how to get all the media codecs going.

So far I have Helix Banshee and Kaffeine installed as media players?

How do I install this stuff via YAST? I'd rather do this than some coding...

better still if someone could add me to GAIM/MSN it would be much appreciated dr_greenthumb86@hotmail.com

Thanks

MikeE

http://www.suseforums.net/ or http://forums.suselinuxsupport.de/ are good places too look.

It's a brave move to go straight too linux without dual booting for a while (I did, but my excuse was cowardice as well as lack of knowledge).

If it's connecting to the net OK, then I'd suggest that you look into the software manager (is it YaST on the enterprise version as well ???). You will need to find mirrors/repositories to be able to access some of the packages that should enable you to watch whatever you want.

You should focus on win32codecs and things like that. They might be named slightly differently, like there used to be a package of codecs for Xine (another media player) that allowed the use of win32codecs - which I believe worked ok for kaffeine.

The really annoying thing, is that everyone seems to have their own favourite media player - and lots of them are different, although they offer the same functionality.

Apart from the two links above, check out the software forum and the distributions (SuSE) forum here at LQ.

As for how you actually use YaST, you should be able to open it up, apply the root password when asked, then see what is available i.e. theres a number of different options in the top lefthand corner (with drop down), change the box/drop down and see what appears in the other boxes, one of them will show a list of available software - then it just depends on what YaST is looking at, as to what is available i.e if it's looking at a CD/DVD source, then it will only offer you whats available on the disc, if it's looking at an online resource/mirror/repository, it should offer you whats available there (as well as the disc if it has both).

As you say this is your "first foray" into the world of linux, then I'd suggest that you make sure that you only try to install packages prepared for the SuSE you have installed. It is possible to install say, Fedora or Mandriva ones as well, but that can lead to "dependency hell" (you'll learn what that is)!

Whatever happens, don't get too frustrated or dis-heartened. Linux isn't windows, it does take some getting used too. Sorry I can't be more specific, but I haven't used SuSE for some time now - I moved away from "rpm based" distros.

regards

John