sorry just saw your post that you tried to install gxine.. i think it needs alot of gnome and gtk stuff. i think the best thing to do is get mplayer fixed. i would remove it completely.. and grab the prebuilt package i told you about at http://www.slackages.com/linux/slackages/ and grab it.. it usually works, and alot of my friends use it. i build all kinds of wierd stuff into mplayer, but this should work for what you need. it is a slackware package, so just try it, if you dont like it pkgtool can remove it no problem. then if i were you, since you are having problems building it... get the mplayerplug-in from linuxpackages.net. it is a site of all slackware packages, just do a search. that should fix you up.

Gxine comes with Slackware already -- you don't need to compile it. If you didn't already install it, get the official version.

Beware of Linuxpackages.net Slackpacks. They frequently have dependency problems.

I tried to install MPlayer from the *.tgz files I got from linuxpackages and they didn't work. I uninstalled the MPlayer installation I made from compiling the source code with a make uninstall in the MPlayer directory, but the package installation still doesn't play files. Are there any other front ends I can get for xine that will work with KDE on Slack? On the xine website there are a bunch of other front-ends but the few that I've tried, I can't seem to get any of them to compile/install. xine will do everything I want, I just want to get it (or anything for that matter I have no preference as long as it works) setup so I can stream media through my browswer.

Oh, and here's the error message MPlayer spits out when I try to play an *.mpg file:

As stated before, Gxine and Xine both come with Slackware. You can get official packages from http://slackware.it/en/pb/

Sorry bout that ... I tried *.tgz packages before but they didn't work. I think the one I found from the link you gave did work, at least I didn't get any error messages. Am I supposed to be able to run gxine [..] file_name from the commandline like I can xine [..] file_name? I also can't figure out how to get it to work with Firefox. None of the files listed on the Mozilla page are on my computer, at least I can't find them with slocate. Does that mean the installation of gxine failed somewhere?

yep, but that is the issue with most slackware packages, that is why i compile from source..

anyway, if you want something with a package manager that resolves deps, then you are not using the right distro, or try slapt-get. pkgtool doesnt resolve deps for a reason, but if you need libdv punch it in on the search on linux packages and get it... here.. took me a grand total of 2 seconds. if you cant find what you are missing, you need to try a different package manager. your error stated that you need libdv, it is that simple.

http://www.linuxpackages.net/search_...libdv&ver=10.2

there will likely be a few more deps needed... get them from linuxpackages. like i said, i just build from source, but i have friends who neither know how nor want to, so they get the packages from linuxpackages.net and they stay happy, including the mplayer and the plugin. you just need to get into the niddy griddy and see that it will work.. dont worry so much about errors... they tell you the problem... they is why we print errors to the console... to determine and fix the problem. then there is google. try installing the package from linux packages again, and then get the dep you need, then try running it again, and if it errors again, get the next dep. it is that simple. hell, except for portage in gentoo, i dont think anything is easier. redhat rpms sure arent.

the only reason i am pushing the mplayer thing, is cause the plugin is the best.. and since im sure you want that, then that is what we need. the gxine plugin sucks.. i tried it, but it doesnt compare to the mplayer plugin. once you get all the deps for mplayer, you can install the mplayer plugin from linuxpackages also... and it will work. have fun.

we can get it to work, it isnt that big of a problem as long as you are getting errors, like libs and such... that is easy money.. keep searching for the libs on linuxpackages... and if you cant figure one out, post and we'll help you out.

OK, I got MPlayer to play *.wmv files now after I recompiled it with ./configure --with-codecsdir=/my_codecs_dir.

EDIT: I've installed the mplayer-plugin-3.25 (I think) but I can't find these files and directories that it says I need in the README:

ok.. if you extract the mplayerplugin tar file.. you get a directroy called mplayerplug-in, so lets go from there.

open a term... type

cd mplayerplug-in
./configure

and when configure is done, if there are no errors,... then we type

make

then after that is done... we simply

make install

and that will install it to your users home directory, for use by you only.. but if you want to install to the system... then you can su to root, and then type this

cp mplayerplug-in.so /usr/lib/firefox/plugins
cp mplayerplug-in.xpt /usr/lib/firefox/components

and then (this is what you might be missing) run this as root from the command line

ldconfig

it usually takes a minute, cause it is updating all the libs on your system. it wont have any output though, when it finishes, it is just done. then i like to run

sync

to write everything that is in cache... then you will need to restart firefox completely... then you should be able to use the plugin.

now then, you said you cant find those files and directories... so are you meaning, you cant find the files that you woulda just created by doing the make in the mplayerplugin directory??? or you cant find /usr/lib/firefox.. this can be alittle tricky if you dont have a normal install of firefox... it is usually better to just install to your home directory.. cause it is just the .mozilla that handles it all. so you could give that a try... i have had problems with that before though.. so if it doesnt work.. you will have to use your head and find the firefox installation directory. you could run

locate firefox

and find out where the firefox installation directory is.. then follow the instructions with the corrected locatoin... but /usr/lib/firefox is normal.

See below.

See below.

OK, I think I'm getting closer because now I can get the audio, but not video. I was reading the mplayerplug-in page and I remembered how I got the makefile from before. I ran ./configure with these options:

Which produced the files that it says were to be produced .. namely mplayerplug-in.so and mplayerplug-in.xpt. I first tried to run make install as the normal (non-root) user and it ran with no errors, switched to root and did an ldconfig but I still couldn't stream anything in Firefox. Then I tried:
as root followed by another ldconfig and I still couldn't stream anything in Firefox.

Like I said, I can get audio now, but no video and there aren't any controls in the window that pops up a la embedded Windows Media Player. I'm doing this so I can watch games on MLB.tv too and I think there have been issues with it before from reading through the search results here at LQ. Something else that's odd (I think anyway) is that when I right click on where the video should be displayed I get options for Macromedia Flash Player 7.

Hmmm .. every other embedded media file I've come across seems to play just fine -- sound and video both work -- it's just the MLB.tv site that the video doesn't seem to be working.

ha, you are watching flash files... not wmp or video files... that is good you are fixed.. the problem you are having is that macrovision is refusing to make flash 8 for linux until 8.5 comes out, then they promise to keep the linux one up to date.. but we will see. but the mlb site works for me, so it might not require flash 8... so you might just need to make sure you are updated.

Are you talking about the main MLB.tv page with the flash video? I can hear and see that just fine. I know when I watched games live last season when I was using XP they were WMV -- and the FAQ page says they're streamed in WMA 9 format.

Oh, and the files that I was talking about being able to see were just embedded on a website, not being streamed live (like the MLB.tv site) if that makes any difference.