Ok, hi to start off. Basily im very new to linux, i got a free demo of suse linux 10.0(well openSUSE) and installed it. i love it! but lol, its sooo hard to use. i couldnt get amsn to work, but found that kopete worked. ok well since i find it solid to install programs, i'd like help on installing mplayer. so lets say i've downloaded it - file called 'MPlayer-1.0pre7try2.tar.bz2' i click on it, and extract it to documents. i somehow find the readme file, click on that and after reading it asks to run ./configure. now thats where i am, how do i run a program, coz there is a file in the mplayer folder that says configure. but when i click on it nothing happends. so please, is there a more helpful way of instaling this? Any help will be alot of help, like i said, first time linux user.




[Edit]: if anyone has any other tips and helpful advice please say so. I.E wot programs to use

made a mistake in my post.

First, welcome!! And congratulations for getting installed an running with no help from us....

If Mplayer is telling you to configure, then you need to do that from the command line. Open a terminal and go into the directory where the tar.bz2 file is. Then:
<<All commands in quotes--dont actually type the quotes>>
"tar jvf <filename>" (this should create a folder of the same name)
"cd" into the new folder (You'll know you're there when you see the readme file to which you referred)
"./configure"

Note that configure is a command (actually probably and executable script). "./configure" means run the configure command HERE--in this directory ("." is shorthand for current directory)

Continue with the other commands in the README

if you want to install MPlayer, I have found a very easy method to do this at some other forum but I don't remember the name. Anyway, this is what u need to do.

Open the control center.
Click YaST modules
Click Software
Click Change Installation Source
Click Add
Select http
Put packman.iu-bremen.de in the site field
Put suse/9.1 in the path field
Click OK

Now simply click on Install and Remove Software.
Then type Mplayer in the search box. Rest you will do by yourself I hope.

cheers that was great, but....

when i typed that all in, i got this...

tilly@linux:~> /home/tilly/Documents/MPlayer-1.0pre7try2/configure
Detected operating system: Linux
Detected host architecture: i386
Checking for cc version ... not found
Checking for gcc version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.4 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.3 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.2 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.1 version ... not found
Checking for gcc3 version ... not found
Checking for gcc-3.0 version ... not found
Checking for cc version ... not found

*** Please downgrade/upgrade C compiler to version gcc-2.95.x or gcc-3.x! ***

You are not using a supported compiler. We do not have the time to make sure
everything works with compilers other than the ones we use. Use either the
same compiler as we do, or use --disable-gcc-checking but DO *NOT* REPORT BUGS
unless you can reproduce them after recompiling with a 2.95.x or 3.x version!

Note for gcc 2.96 users: Some versions of this compiler are known to miscompile
mplayer and lame (which is used for mencoder). If you get compile errors,
first upgrade to the latest 2.96 release (minimum 2.96-85) and try again.
If the problem still exists, try with gcc 3.x (or 2.95.x) *BEFORE* reporting
bugs!

GCC 2.96 IS NOT AND WILL NOT BE SUPPORTED BY US !

*** For details please read DOCS/HTML/en/users-vs-dev.html ***


Error: Bad gcc version.



any ideas wot this means?

Welcome - This is not the ONLY problem with mplayer and open suse.
With Opensuse as of now - multimedia support doest rock - typically with mp3's - be prepared for it.

But Opensuse does look promising with advanced networking and other capabilities.

What I have written in my previous post doesn't require all this trouble to suffer. Just give it a try. It worked fine for me on my SUSE 9.1 personal. And please let me know if it works on your distro.

Basically, you have downloaded the source code for mplayer. You don't have a compiler (gcc) to compile it into something that can be executed.

I don't know much about Suse, but I think what manishsingh4u was suggesting is to use YaST to install mplayer. This should be significantly easier than installing from source.

--Ian

manishsingh4u - that didnt work. thanks for trying though, i just get errors. if i learn how to work this then i think i'll reformat my pc, and install a freash install of suse. even though its hard its making me want to get it working.

well, what would u all recommend is the best linux os? i love the look of the new suse buti dont know when thats out.

If you have configured Yast correctly and ur OS is working fine, it should not give u errors. Anyway, if you don't want pain in installing software, avoid using source files. Use (*.rpm) files instead. They are available for all distros. Well I had problems with rpm files too with Mplayer as thwre were so many dependeny problems so I used Yast and it worked fine. Well good luck for you.

I would try Ubuntu (If you like Gnome) or Kubuntu (if you like KDE).
Both of these are geared towards newbies, are based off Debian so have excellent package management (Ease of installing programs) and have a reasonably easy install.

Alternatively, Fedora Core is quite popular, and a new version (FC5) is released today.

--Ian

I think SUSE is best for beginners. I don't know about version 10 but I am quite happy with 9.1 personal. It is free to download, available on one CD. I have used Redhat 7.3 and Fedora Core 1. As I need my OS to do my personal work, I like using SUSE 9.1.

would suse 9.1 be alot different from 10.0? is it even still available to downlaod?

Yes, SUSE 9.1 personal is available for download. Infact this website has a link for SUSE 9.1. Try clicking this link.
http://iso.linuxquestions.org/version.php?version=24

I don't know about SUSE 10 as I haven't used it yet.