A few questions by newbie
 

hi i've been using Slackware 11.0 for a little more than 3 months.
I've a few questions and rather than posting a new thread for each question i decided to ask them here:

1)i've heard a lot about mplayer and mplayer doesn't come in the default Slackware 11.0 installation.So i decided to download it's package form linuxpackages.net.however after installation when i try to run, it gives some error about missing library.Now slackware doesn't have any dependency checks but i did a full install then why this problem?
Then i tried to install from source(thinking there might be some problem in package but the same error occurs)

Kindly tell me in detail what is required for running mplayer

Also 1 stupid question:What is the differnce between mplayer and Mplayer ?


2)I want't to run as much video files(so that i don't need to go to windows to see a movie) so i need codecs. Somewhere i read to download codecs form mplayer site and extract it to the directory /usr/lib/win32.It says that mplayer looks here when it executes but i don't see and such directory.


3)i've heard about open office.in Slackware 11.0 i am using KDE that comes with Koffice but the problem is that it doesn't open any of the documents written in MSoffice.Does open office has this capability and vice versa i.e will MSoffice be able to read and edit andy office document(word or ppt)written by Openoffice

And is there a slackware pkg for openoffice or do i've to install from source(no problem in that)

Also should i uninstall Kooffice after Open office install ?


4)Somewhere i read that to make a fast bootup just comment the lines with fc-cache in rc.M and also ldconfig as they are needed only when a new font is installed and when a new library is installed respectively?

What library are they reffering to and when will i come to know that a given particular program i'am going to install will install a new library
Is it safe to comment lines for ldconfig ?(i am skeptic about this but not about fc-cache)

Sorry about the length of post :P


cheers

#3-Open Office can read, edit, and save files in the .doc format.

MPlayer requires a lot of library packages that are not shipped with Slackware. You need to find and download them from the net. Linuxpackages has several threads where they mention which packages are required by the MPlayer.

If you don't see the codec directory, just create one and extract the files there.

The startup scripts are found in /etc/rc.d/ directory. I don't recall which one had those lines... probably rc.M just add ampersand after each command to run them in background (this already done on -current).

#1. MPlayer has many dependencies. Many have to do with codecs such as ffmpeg.
mplayer is the name of the program that is run. MPlayer is what they call themselves however. They refer to the same thing, but an installed directory, such as the docs may be named /usr/share/doc/packages/MPlayer/. You will need to read the documentation, or search the web site for the dependencies. Sometimes you will need to build a library, and that library depends yet on another. It is more so if you have a new installation and are building a app yourself.

#2. Create it as yourself as root. Check if you have a /usr/lib/codecs/ directory as well. That is where Linux codecs will go.

#4. Maybe it would be best not to. Nearly every program you install will install a library. The ld.so.conf file contains the paths to the libraries. ldconf takes this information and builds a kind of directory for the loader.

get openoffice from Robby!

This is a trustworthy source, Robby contributes to Slackware, and his name appears regularly in the changelog

http://rlworkman.net/pkgs/

tobyl

1)2) About mplayer:

Can you post the error which library is missing?
Because Slackware doesn't do dependency checking you need to read what are the dependencies (what to download in addition to the mplayer package).

What is the error when you try to build from source?

I think there is no difference between mplayer and Mplayer (the first letter only).

You can check which libraries are missing:

cd /usr/bin
ldd mplayer

When you place all codecs in /usr/lib/win32 (just create it), you can nearly watch all the videos available in Windows (there are some problems with Quicktime Sorenson encoded videos, but you can install Quicktime player through wine and watch them without problems).

I think, mplayer is not available in Slackware because of it questionable legality in various countries (reverse engineering of binary codecs). However, nobody can take the freedom from us to use what we want.

IMHO, the mplayer is the best video player (supports most formats) like xmms (with plugins) is the one which is famous for playing nearly any music file.
So GO, mplayer team, GO!



3) About koffice and openoffice. Which doc format do you use? I don't know about new MS Office 07 doc format, but koffice can display simple docs without problems (using KWrite).


OOfice can open doc and extract the original layout pretty good. If you won't use difficult layout techniques or special math formulas, there won't be any difference between MS.Office and OOffice. OOfice can save at doc format too.

You can get oofice from linuxpackages.net or slacky.it. Uninstalling koffice is not necessary.

4)About libraries

For example, you build a program, which will place its new libraries in /usr/lib. Other dependant programs need these libraries too. Until you run ldconfig, these libraries most probably won't be found except maybe explicit search for these libs by dependent program will be performed. So you can run ldconfig after every install.

EDIT: It would be better if you listen to jschiwal.

1) From linuxpackages these are the dependencies for mplayer:
Many people recommend the slackbuild, might wanna try that if you choose. You decide.

2) What I usually do is symlink one to the other. First get all the codecs:
http://www3.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/
and put them somewhere, then symlink from there to '/usr/lib/codecs' and '/usr/lib/win32', that'll take care of most everything.

3) I don't like koffice, you can uninstall it. Openoffice you can get from the official site or linuxpackages (this one has better integration with KDE if you care)

4) On speeding up boot time by a lot, see my post here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...09#post2672909

Also note:
I've never had any problems leaving ldconfig out or putting it to run at shutdown (even tho it may serve no real purpose there).

This is from my notes on a 10.2 install the same worked in 11.0
<snip>
I can get a slackpack already made up called MPlayer_codecs-20050412-i686-2jto.tgz from linuxpackages.net.

This will install by default into a directory /usr/lib/codecs but I need to have it in a directory named /usr/lib/win32. This can be fixed with the following command as root:

ln -s /usr/lib/codecs/ /usr/lib/win32

Thank you
 

thank you all good souls helping the newbies like me.

Hey when i become a veteran i'll carry your legacy :P

Sorry if this is not allowed(pointing out) but H_Tex_Mex you are a real geek man and a very helpful person :D

i mean H_TeXMex_H

Thanks, I try :D ... but just know that I don't always know what I'm talking about :)

Here's one more plug for Slackbuilds.org. I've downloaded and installed Mplayer, Open Office, Kaffeine (another media player), and a few other pieces of software from that site.

The way it works is that you download the source code from the software provider and then run the Slackbuild script to build the application from source. This helps guarantee that the compiled software works on your specific machine. It also doesn't take all that long to do. :-D

Regards,

-Drew

Except openoffice, which does take quite a while to compile.

Yeah. I think I got it started and then did something else for a while. :)

Regards,

-Drew