Is VLC any easier to install than mplayer?

moxieman99 · 02-22-2009, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdkaye

Hi Moxie,
Here you go: in general when you compile something yourself the executables are put in /usr/local/bin
Try these two simple comands in a terminal:

Code:

sudo updatedb
locate [name of file you're looking for]

since there may be a zillion files or folders called "mplayer" you can narrow the choice down by using

Code:

locate bin/mplayer

You'll never have to rant and rave about not finding something on your system again

You have to execute updatedb periodically or it won't find the files installed since the last time you ran it. simply enough?
cheers,
jdk

Oh, I ran updatedb a few times (and I did read configure help, John VV) and found files, but did not get it to work.

BTW, mplayer install instructions mention putting codecs into /usr/local/lib/codecs, but mentioned nothing about extracting the mplayer rpm and skins rpms and such into usr/local/bin and installing from there. I take it I am to instruct the extraction from the rpms into /usr/local/bin. I must delete, re-extract and reinstall into usr/local/bin, then?

I will tinker around some more.

Thanks all for all your efforts.

farslayer · 02-22-2009, 08:25 PM

You know you can look at an RPM to see what files will be put where.. if you really want to know.
http://www.suseblog.com/viewing-all-...ails-of-an-rpm

just fyi..

John VV · 02-22-2009, 08:27 PM

fedora DOSE NOT use /usr/local . It can if you but something there but you don't "extract" a rpm you install it

Quote:

BTW, mplayer install instructions mention putting codecs into /usr/local/lib/codecs, but mentioned nothing about extracting the mplayer rpm and skins rpms and such into usr/local/bin and installing from there. I take it I am to instruct the extraction from the rpms into /usr/local/bin. I must delete, re-extract and reinstall into usr/local/bin, then?

a question are you using file-roller to open the rpm's ?? like you would for a tar.bz2
if so don't install that way -- it will only cause problems for you

" mplayer install instructions mention putting codecs into /usr/local/lib/codecs "
you extract the all-20071007.tar.bz2 there ( but fedora dose not use /usr/local) they go in /usr/lib/codecs & /usr/lib/win32

moxieman99 · 02-28-2009, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John VV

both are VERY easy for fedora
you decide

RPMFusion repo installed

mplayer

Code:

su -
yum install mplayer mplayer-gui  mencoder 
wget http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/all-20071007.tar.bz2
mkdir -p /usr/lib/codecs
tar -jxvf all-20071007.tar.bz2 --strip-components 1 -C /usr/lib/codecs/
ln -sf /usr/lib/codecs /usr/lib/win32
-- optional --
yum install smplayer

----
vlc

Code:

su -
yum install vlc
rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-9.rpm
 rpm --import /etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-livna
yum install libdvdcss 
-- optional --
yum install libdvdread libdvdnav libquicktime libmad

installing both is preferred

back in fedora 4,5,6 i was building mplayer ( I had been building it for a while in MinGW ) the same for the qt smplayer ( MinGW) and MS visual studio . but it is WAY easer to just use yum and get on with something else .

--------------------------------
I broke down and signed up for rpmfusion and used yum and installed everything except libdvdcss, which was not a package there. Downloaded the rprm for libdvdcss and installed that by hand (which I prefer to do).

Thanks to everyone for their help, but I still say that it's not linux unless one suffers.

mesiol · 03-01-2009, 01:37 AM

Hi,

don't be angry with me, i don't want to be arrogant or so, but if i see such a trouble, i ask myself, why don't you begin with a smaller package than mplayer?

Should it be one really complex multimedia software with dozens of dependencies? Won't it be much easier for you, to understand how this works on Linux, by beginning with a smaller software package than this one? For example gzip which only depends on glibc?

Have you every heard from

Code:

 configure --help

? Did you read README and INSTALL files inside the source packages? Have you ever built any kind of software? Do you know the differences between installing OpenOffice and building OpenOffice? Do you know where self compiled software normally is installed on your system? Do you know the differences between /bin, /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin or /lib, /usr/lib and /usr/local/lib? Did you read a link like this?

To get complex software to run out of the box, mostly a mass of dependencies has to be satisfied before you can build the package you want to have. Also it is not sure that a download from somewhere will build correctly on your distribution. Do you have to correct dependency and compiler version? Will all dependent libraries be found by configure? ...

To understand how software will be configured, built and installed you should give yourself a try with a small package beginning to understand how this will really work.

As mentioned, don't be angry with me, but ask yourself, if that what are you trying to do here is not a bit to large for your experience.

If you really wish to understand how Linux works and get build from source up give LFS a chance.

jdkaye · 03-01-2009, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moxieman99

BTW, mplayer install instructions mention putting codecs into /usr/local/lib/codecs, but mentioned nothing about extracting the mplayer rpm and skins rpms and such into usr/local/bin and installing from there.

Here's what I said,

Quote:

in general when you compile something yourself the executables are put in /usr/local/bin

Installing packages (or extracting from them) is not compiling something from source code. When compiling it is typical for the primary executable to be put in /usr/local/bin
cheers,
jdk

Electro · 03-01-2009, 02:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moxieman99

So I thought that there might be a .bin install for VLC like there is for java in linux. If not, maybe VLC is easier to install than mplayer in general. Before I start searching for downloads though, I thought I'd ask: Is VLC easier to install than mplayer?

Depending on the distribution that you are using, installing certain programs can be easy or hard. It depends on the maintainer. I have tried Mandrake (now known as Mandriva), Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Gentoo. The easiest distribution to install just about any program is Gentoo. The problems with pre-compiled and ready to use programs in Linux is its list of dependencies that comes with a program. Also it is not easy to take out features to save space, to improve stability, and to reduce security risks. Also these pre-compiled files are not strictly created, so you get what you downloaded. Sure creating a package file can be done, but it will take while to decompress it, configure it, and compile it. The settings that you use in this file can not be carried over to latest releases.

The reason why Gentoo makes it easy is because there is a tight control of each package script. This package script named ebuild is a recipe to download the archive file, decompress, configure with desire features, compile, and install. Sure installing Gentoo can be tedious, but it is easy. Sabayon is distribution uses utilities that work similar to Gentoo, but it surrounds itself in entropy to reduce security. In this case, you have to use its own utilities to install programs which are pre-compiled. It can also use Gentoo's portage tree or package management with out breaking it. Sabayon is not as fast as Gentoo because it uses a lot of eye candy.