Help! A Newly born Linux User here! (Slackware 8.1)


QUESTION 1:

I just recently installed slackware... my built in sound card was detected, but when I tried to play audio/mp3z files, it doest work.

I tried this command, lspci to see if my sound card was detected, here it goes:

root@(host):~# lspci
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82** AC97 Audio Co

My soundcard was detected and I guess drivers are installed.

So what must be the problem? Any suggestion please.



QUESTION 2:

How to/What command/s can i use to install files with file EXTENSIONS (.TAR , .BZ2 ,TGZ)?



QUESTION 3:

Anyway im using GNOME(Desktop), when I try to double click the files with the said extension in

Question 2, a pop up window appears which says, " NAUTILUS has no installed viewer capable of

displaying "/directory/filename.(said extensions) ... how to configure NAUTILUS correctly?




THANKS!!! EVERY SUGGESTIONS is APPRECIATED!


Box SPECS:
AMD ATHLON 2.0 Ghz, MOBO ECS L7VTA 1.0 (Built in Sound Card and LAN Card), Nvidia GeForce MMX 440 62MB

1 - that doesn't prove anything about the installation status. use "lsmod" to show what modules are loaded.

2 - read the guide here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/answers.php

3 - install the correct viewer in each instance

First I'd suggest installing a newer version of Slack.

Second, to play mp3 or other types of media files, you need the correct decryption codecs installed. gstreamer works for mp3. libdvdcss is for dvd.

Normally when installing a tarball, you just read the Install file that came with it and follow the instructions. Archived tarballs, gz, bz2, etc.. have to be extracted before you can work with them.

Example tar -xvf tarballname

They are compressed archives (like zip files)

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Thanks for replying !
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hi Acid_kewpie! I tried "lsmod", heres the result (I dont know what are these)

Q1:

root@(host):~# lsmod
Module Size Used by Tainted: P
ppp_deflate 38912 0 (autoclean)
bsd_comp 3936 0 (autoclean)
ppp_async 6464 1 (autoclean)
ppp_generic 14664 3 (autoclean) [ppp_deflate bsd_comp ppp_async}
slhc 4416 1 (autoclean) [ppp_generic]
soundcore 3236 0 (autoclean)
pcmcia_core 40896 0
ide-scsi 7456 0

I dont know how to configure/detect/install or add my sound card.... same problem? Any instructions?



NAUTILUS VIEWER:

Please give instructions/ commands on HOW TO install the correct viewer in each instance....





hi! masonm
-- The reason why I installed Slackware 8.1, because this is the only available distro I have... Right now, im looking for a newer distro's.... so for now, I have to work with it

-- I tried the command you've given... tar -xvf tarballname

root@(host):~# tar -xvf /directory/gaim-1.2.1-i486-1.tar

I think it is extracted in the folders

QUestion:
what should I do next after extracting the file gaim-1.2.1-i486-1.tar, in order to use this file (in windows.. double click the *.exe file to use it or run). I dont know how to run the gaim file in linux... Any instructions?






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THANKS!!! EVERY SUGGESTION/s is APPRECIATED!
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As I indicated in my first reply, you need to read the INSTALL file in that directory and follow the directions. What you have now is a directory containing the source for the application which you now need to compile. Typically it goes along these lines:
./configure
make
make install

If you check www.linuxpackages.net you will likely find a slack package already made for gaim and you can download and install it using installpkg.

I'm with masonm on the newer version of slack, just go to slackware.com, download the iso images and burn them to CDs, and voila!

as for sound issue, try running

alsamixer

This is the system volume control, make sure these are all turned up and unmuted, then when you're done run

alsactl store

^^ you may need to be root for this, it will store your new sound levels as default.


tryin to install gaim, i'd suggest the autopackage. Download it, type

chmod +x gaim-1.2.1.autopackage
./gaim-1.2.1.autopackage

and it should actually run a fully automated install. If you *must* compile from source (I don't know how well slack 8.1 does with autopackage), don't download gaim-1.2.1-i486.tgz download the source tarball. Then run the tar -xzf command, then inside you'll find the README and INSTALL documents to help you out. Most source packages have you run

./configure
make
sudo make install

This will set up all default features, etc, installing the package to /usr/local/bin or something else convenient so you can just run the command

gaim

to get in. As for nautilu not viewing your files, you can just untar it with the tar -xzf (or tar -xjf for a tar.bz2 file), then open the folder in nautilus. For the built in viewer, look online for a "gnome package viewer" or something similar, I'm sure you'll find more entries than you'll know what to do with.

happy slacking!