kay maybe I'm just dense,

but I can't figure these rpms out, just to remind everyone I'm very n00b to linux and linux concepts.

I'm trying to start slow, you know learn to walk before you run, but I can't seem to get the standing thing down yet.

I'm trying to install mplayer from an rpm, I can figure out how to get the installer thing going, but then it starts in on me. something about package dependencies and what-not then sz that it needs another rpm for this rpm to finish properly, so I finds me the other rpm it wants first and try installing that, but that one wants another one, and this one wants that one and on and on and on and on until it starts asking for the first rpm that started this nasty downward spiral in the first place.

I'm seriously beginning to lose it, what am I doing wrong?

ur not doing anything wrong u just need to know how to do it right ,posting the command u tryed could be nice and just wondering what version of rh ur using? now for the help ,every open source code project for linux has its own documentation so b4 u install any software rpm check for the documentation to see what dependencies it needs 1 of the good web sites i use is freshrpms.net it has allmost every package ull need for ur distro after u downloaded all the files u need for the intall i suggest puting them in a folder and doing "rpm -ivh *.rpm" or "rpm -ivh file1 file2 file 3" ur choice hope that will help u goodluck.

Links:
FreshRPM's
learning about RPM
MPlayer documentation

also freekain,
You might include the distro that you're using in your profile (side of page), as some of us may be able to assist by linking to a site/page with distro specific rpm's i.e. mandrake + mandrake rpm's, SuSE + SuSE rpm's.

rpm is a generic term it's "redhat package manager", but this hasn't stopped it being "fine tuned" by distro packagers who happen to base their distro on the rpm system.

I say this, because, say mandrake for example, use a modified system called "urpmi" which if used with mandrake rpm's is all you need, it get's the dependencies etc if you tried the same thing with another distro's rpm, you'd probably get the same dependency prob's you're having now.

Of course, the other way, would be to either install debian, gentoo or any distro that uses a "packager" that get's the dependencies for you or just working out how to get "apt4rpm" (which is a apt-get like facility - apt-get is debian's package manager) and just install that way.


Erm, isn't mplayer on your install disc's as an additional package? it might not have installed as default, but something as common as mplayer is often included, just that you have to install it seperately yourself?

maybe this helps?

regards

John

Thanks guys,

I'm using fedora 1(something I need to learn for work) suggestions?

that makes me feel a bit better, so for every rpm there's another rpm that the original rpm depends upon?

'I couldn't tell you if something as common as mplayer is included by default, cause everytime I try to do the add remove thing it craps out so I gave up on it, and figured I'd prolly learn more this way anyhows'

You can also install apt4fedora and then;
su
<password>
apt-get update
apt-get synaptic
then you will have a GUI,but be careful as you can over install,only install what you need or want,don't do a total upgrade,david

also,you should have yum installed try;
su
<password>
yum update
yum install mplayer
might get lucky,thats from gnome-terminal

http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrp...ng/2/synaptic/
thats synaptic

'nother dumb question,

whats yum do?
it looks like it's grabbing every possible update and proggie every written..
is there anyway of limitting what it grabs? some kind of filter you can run it thru?
ie: I only want to see networking apps etc.

plus how am I supposed to know what I'm installing thru yum?

is this the best way to go? yum as opposed to the apt cmd.

plus another one--

what's the diff between kde and gnome?

thanks for all the help everyone

It should only be installing whatever programs you list. It will install/update any dependent packages though so that may be one reason you may see more packages being installed.

apt has more options, but the basic functionality of the two are about the same. If you use apt, you could try using synaptic as comprookie2000 suggested. It provides you a GUI with a list of all the software you could install. There might be something similar available for yum.

KDE and Gnome are desktop environments. Some people have a preference of one over the other. I like Gnome because of its looks. KDE is more Windows-like. Try them both out yourself to see which one you like because despite what anyone says, you are going to be the one using it.

When you run yum update it stores a cache of stuff you may need to solve any dependences that you may have later like you were talking about,don't run upgrade or dist-upgrade until you understand what you are doing as it can mess you up big time,after the update mplayer and all its dependences may be in that cache and install O.K.david

Don't bother installing from RPM. http://greysector.rangers.eu.org/mplayer.html Try this link if you have not yet. I installed it from here and it worked well. Just stick to the instructions on this page.