Thanks a million Woodsman. My laptop is in the shop right now, but if I can manage to get it back before school starts again, I will report back with my effort to follow your instructions step by step. I just did a fresh install of 12.2 before I put it in the shop (trackpad died) and have been told by the techs it is going to need the system board replaced. I hope they get that part and put it in quickly.

As the kids today say, "Woot!"

Hmm. Perhaps I should add a similar caution in the guide.

I appreciate your feedback! Post comments here or contact me at my web site. I hope all goes well with your laptop and studies.

I've worked out the dependency information a little more precisely.

I've divided the packages into sets. The packages in each set don't depend on each other, but they do depend on packages in previous sets. You can build all of one set, install the packages, build all of the next set, and so on. This saves a lot of time because if you're building a whole set, you don't have to run each SlackBuild individually! Entering one command will run them all at once.

Set 1:

• xvidcore
• libdvdcss
• mplayer-codecs-all
• libmp4v2
• yasm (x264 dependency)
• a52dec
• faad2
• lame
• libdv
• libdvdread
• libmpeg2 (transcode dependency)
• vcdimager
• dvdauthor
• mp3splt
• perl-extutils-pkgconfig
• perl-extutils-depends
• perl-test-number-delta
• libkdcraw
• jasper
• exiv2
• libkipi
• kaffeine

Set 2:

• faac (ffmpeg dependency)
• x264
• libdvdnav
• libdvdplay
• vobcopy
• perl-glib
• perl-cairo
• libkexiv2
• gwenview

Set 3:

• ffmpeg (libquicktime and transcode dependency)
• perl-gtk2
• kipi-plugins

Set 4:

• libquicktime
• transcode
• digikam

Set 5:

• MPlayer

Set 6:

• k9copy

All dependency information is taken from slackbuilds.org. I didn't see lsdvd, acidrip or dvbutils there.

Yep, I wound up using binary packages of lsdvd and acidrip for older versions of Slackware. I think to satisfy lsdvd I also had to pick up an older library (libdvdread.so.3) from another package and install it in /usr/lib alongside the newer libdvdread.so.4. Just setting a symlink to the new library caused the old version of lsdvd to segfault. I'm only mentioning this in case anyone else is running into the same problem trying to get Woodsman's writeup to work right now.

Another thing, I think I had to install a package called twolame as well, to satisfy some dependency that wasn't mentioned in the writeup. I don't know exactly what twolame does.

Audio encoding in MP2 format. To combine with MPEG1 video files.

Say, for example...

1. As root, and in the root directory, create a build directory tree:
   
   Code:

   mkdir -p mm/{source, packages}

2. Untar the SlackBuilds into mm/source and download the sources into the SlackBuild directories
3. Do the following:
   Code:

   cd mm/source
   for dir in *; do (cd $dir; OUTPUT=~/mm/packages ./$dir.SlackBuild); done

For each SlackBuild, the above should run it and put its package in ~/mm/packages.

I haven't tested any of this though.

Woodsman,

your guide looks like a nice start, but I do feel it is missing some things. For instance, no mention is made of the mplayer-plugin or vlc. Using Alien's vlc SlackBuild or just downloading an old vlc binary is a great way to have a full featured media player.

Also, the guide seems to assume that the reader already knows what all of the higher level programs do, but I was under the impression that the HowTo was intended to guide the user through the process a little more. For instance, what DigiKam support or Gwenview support is added? Why should I spend all of this time compiling all of these packages? What features am I trying to gain? Perhaps having sections that describe current default limitations and the packages need to overcome them would be more helpful. You started to do this for k3b. Finally, these sections could be organized in more basic groups such as Audio, Video, and Graphics. All of this might help the reader to realize that they don't have to install all of the packages if they only want to be able to burn large files on a data DVD using k3b, for instance.


It also might be nice to distinguish between a setup for KDE users and non-kde users (listing useful software with brief descriptions). A section for advanced console users would be great.

Here is a small list of programs that might be worth mentioning:

• mplayer-plugin
• vlc
• audacity
• easytag and other tag tools
• picasa

I appreciate your many many contributions to the Linux and Slackware communities.

Originally I intended the guide only as a stepping stone, not an all-exhaustive how-to. I was seeing the same questions being repeated about basic issues. After I traversed that same road I decided to put a few words together. Nothing special. I don't pretend to me a multimedia expert. I'm not and in many ways I'm "multimedia challenged." Basically I solved some of the basic Slackware issues and that solved all I wanted to do with my desktop.

The guide also is very much for point-and-click users. I have little experience with command line multimedia tools and have no interest in that area. The only command line tool I use is ffmpeg and even then I would much prefer a GUI front-end if I ever find a dependable one. I have tried both Konverter and soundKonverter but they are buggy.

Regarding mplayer-plugin and vlc, I don't use them and therefore the idea never occurred to me. I'm not a fan of GTK and I tend to avoid those apps unless desperate. I added some info about acidrip only because I attempted to use the program. I never got my head wrapped around the thing properly and now never use the thing. I also seem to recall some bugs or some things just not working and I gave up. Just didn't work for me.

The only thing many people seem to agree is that out of the box the stock Slackware is crippled with respect to full multimedia. I wanted to help people with the basics and never envisioned anything more.

Although intended only as a stepping stone, perhaps I will add some one-liner explanations about each of the packages. Grouping is something I'll think about too. Let this gnaw at my mind for a while and see what unfolds.

FYI: mplayer-plugin is a plugin for mozilla-based browsers that enables you to watch videos on web pages in an embedded mplayer (unlike xine plugin which will show the videos on a web page in an external application window which is clumsy). It has nothing to do with GTK.

VLC uses the Qt4 graphical toolkit nowadays.

Eric

Very nice guide, Woodsman. Thank you very much!

I'm about to try it out, looks like I got a lot of compiling to do

GXine is a GTK plugin. Firefox is GTK. I presumed al Firefox plugins were GTK.

I have the qt4 libraries installed. Perhaps I'll test the app. From what I have read, building is a chore, although I presume your build script takes care of all that.

Please let me know how things go. I have not tried building the entire list from scratch since I first built everything. I keep meaning to find time to test the guide on a stock Slackware. Perhaps I can add to the guide based upon your feedback. Have fun!

OK got everything except k3b compiled (I'm compiling k3b right now)

A couple of things:
-libquicktime needs to be compiled before you compile transcode (You have it listed after)
-I had some problems with K3b and lame versions later than 3.97. (I got errors when ripping cds to mp3) I have no idea if this is still true, but I recommend using lame 3.97 just in case

I'll let you know how things went once K3b is compiled
Thanks again for the guide

Update:
Got k3b compiled
I went to settings>programs and there was one thing missing: "eMovix not found"

So I wrote a quick slackbuild script for emovix for anyone interested:
http://files.filefront.com/emovixtar.../fileinfo.html

I now have a fully-working, uncrippled k3b :-)

Not quite correct. mplayer plugin has optional gtk dependency which is enabled by default and can be disabled during compilation. See ./configure --help for details.

I'll update. Thanks.

Others have reported similarly. I'll add a note to the guide. Thanks.

Originally I used the build script from slacky.eu. If you are interested, you can submit the build script package to www.slackbuilds.org.