Hi. I'm fairly new to Linux and I'm trying to decide if it's the right thing for me. Right now the only thing holding me back is the fact that I can't play movies.

I am dual booting with Windows XP and Linux SLED. I can play .avi files fine in WinXP. I tried playing .avi files in Totem in SLED but I needed a decoder. I couldn't figure out how to download decoders for Totem so I installed VLC. VLC looks great in the screen that it starts in but when I maximize it, it gets slow and choppy and doesn't look nearly as good as it does in WinXP. I did notice that when I tried accessing the Edit Preferences menu in VLC, it would not display... Why does the video get slow and choppy when I maximize it and what can I do about it? Could it be VLC?

The most likely cause is your video driver. Have you installed a hardware accelerated driver?

I thought I did but just to make sure, I went into YaST and Software Management and noticed that x11-video-fglrx (X Window display driver for the ATI graphics accelerators) was not installed. I installed that and I'm still having the same problem.

I do have xgl working if that matters at all (the cool graphic effects).

You can check this howto to veryify that your installation is correct.

Although YaST Software Management claims that fgrlx is installed, following those steps leads me to believe that it isn't... Not sure what to do...

Well, you could try the official installer.

Here's something interesting. Although the FAQ says I shouldn't need to reboot, after I rebooted, XGL was not working and everything looked weird and was causing problems. Once I uninstalled fgrlx and restarted, things were working normal again... I would try the official installation instructions, but I do not have an AMD processor... Still recommend it?

I think you are confused; ATI was purchased by AMD. The drivers for the ATI video cards have nothing to do with AMD CPUs.

I'm confused which one to choose then: Radeon, All-in-Wonder, FireMV, FireGL, Mobility Radeon, Integrated/Motherboard...

Try (as root):

lspci | grep -i vga

lspci | grep -i vga

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 04)

You don't have an ATI video card, you have Intel integrated video. You should not be loading fglrx at all, and should remove it from your system.

Makes sense why graphics would mess up when I installed it... Any ideas how to fix the choppy video problem? Could it maybe be a problem with VLC?

VLC can only use the facilities that your video card and driver provide. If you are using XGL, SuSE reports that accelerated xv (what most movie players will use) is broken for the Intel drivers.

If you have a choice, since XGL is depreciated in favor of AIGLX, you should use a distribution that makes that easier for you (Fedora or Ubuntu).

Is there a simple way to turn off XGL while I watch movies. And once the movie is over, turn XGL back on?