Hi people! I'm newbie
I've installed everything, but my slack12 doesn't play DVD, avi, mp4 video. Noatun doesn't spread no alert windows, but just got frozen.
I'd like to ask you how to find out the name of the missing codec? May I automate codec installation on demand?
Could you tell me the source of all the Linux video codecs tars? I want to install them all and forget about times when I couldn't play no video on my slack!

I suggest you use the mplayer package from slackbuilds.org. Before you install it though install these codecs http://slackbuilds.org/repository/12...er-codecs-all/ and that should have nearly everything working, including real media files.

and_ru, do as sparker says and install the codecs, then do a search for libdvd on http://slackbuilds.org
Install: libdvdcss, libdvdplay and libdvdread.
I like xine myself (included in slackware xap series)
Follow: http://slackbuilds.org/howto/

There is a small script here that downloads all the packages you need for mplayer on slackware if you don't like using slackbuilds. http://www.thelinuxblog.com/slackware-mplayer-setup/

Hi,

Another option is to download and install the svn mplayer, all the codecs and a skin. This is dealt with on this page:

http://www.andrews-corner.org/ftgws.html

This has the added attraction of the source code being updated with:

and trust me, the source code is updated almost every day.

Andrew

Try to download and install Slackfr_mediapack from softpedia it has all multimedia codecs and players in single package.

most codecs are in ffmpeg libavcodec audio/video library (and they are free!!!). those suggested to download from mplayer site are proprietary ones and consequently illegal to use in some countries (violence of eula). that's why you don't get them with any of the players and need to download manually.

Your help is very significant for me. Now I know where I should search for any stuff for Slackware - not only codecs!
I wonder why slackbuilds.org is not mentioned in the Slackware Linux Essentials Book. Yesterday I came to the end of the last chapter, but didn't find that URL there.

Thanks a lot!

Thanks for those libraries. They seem to work fine just as the other programs (taken from slackbuilds.org) do.
I'm impressed with the ease of compilation using Slackware build scripts. Previously I was not successful in my attempts to install whatever in Fedora and Mandriva. During the Windows-style installation (point & click) they alerted that I had no internet connection (it's true for my home) and did not let me to take further or alternative steps! With installpkg or pkgtool all things are getting clear and simple.
Thanks Slackware team for not using rich GUI frontends for administrative tasks! It is very wholesome for newbies like me.

It seems like there's fully comprehensive list of codecs I ever needed on that web page.
It's curiously - what will Linux system do when there's more than the single library installed for playing the same video or audio format? I don't have this problem - it's just another newbie question))). Or may be Linux community takes all possible attempts to not duplicate itself? I have tonnes of codecs installed on my Windows HD, but I never dive deeply into them. Maybe that's the reason why my Win XP Home plays less video than my Slackware 12

It's very interesting problem. Ideally, I'd like my system to be fully legal for I hate piracy and that's the reason why I'm trying to switch to Linux. Now I am studying that EULA violation problem relative to Russian laws. As far as I know, the most renowned Russian Red Hat-based distribution, ASPLinux, is featuring full pack of audio/video codecs, URW fonts, Flash-player, Adobe Acrobat, Opera and RAR-archiver (most popular archiver in Russia). In other words - it is made very comfortable for those who is not connected to WWW (it is still common in Russia to be offline). ASP is free of charge as opposed to other non-russian distros that have the same list of features. BTW, there's Slackware-based Russian distro called MOPS Linux. It is fully loaded too and is as free as ASP. So, I may assume that there's no EULA problem in Russia. But it is still not the final conclusion.

Hi,

The world of video / audio formats has always been a fairly disturbing mess of laws, eulas, money, greed, proprietary formats and confusion. It should not be that way but there you have it.

That codec pack (all-20071007.tar.bz2) mentioned on this page is exactly the one referred to before as possible being in violation of local laws. As far as I know (please correct me!) it is never included in an official linux distro because of concerns with its legality in various countries. And yes, it will allow playback of almost anything.

I am not sure about other media players but mplayer looks to a single directory for its codecs. This can be user-defined but the default is /usr/local/lib/codecs.

All the best,

Andrew

I should look inside the ASPLinux DVD. I'll do it when I got home.
What do you think about VLC player? I've read only good things about it in WWW. It could play even corrupted files and ISO-images (unmounted!) and is said to be downloadable with all codecs pack in it (including DVD libraries).

Thank you all for given answers! But now I'm a little bit messed with all that information. Does Linux still remain to be a modular OS? I mean, could I install, for example, the Mplayer's codec bundle and use it with Kaffeine frontend which runs on Xine engine? Or Mplayer's proprietary codecs are useful just for Mplayer?

Andrew, thanks for your page! And it's really nice spider there If I have understood everything right - I will have to recompile the source of the Mplayer every time I install a new codec?

Hi,

Thanks for your kind words:

The spider took me a while to get right, you may have noticed that it is a background image to one of the divs rather than an image referenced with the html. And it is a bit of fun on an otherwise quite dry site :-)

The configure process of mplayer is pretty amazing and it will normally pick up all available codecs and libraries when you run it. But there is no facility to add new codecs after compilation, although I hesitate to make that an absolute statement! So normally you would add something like H.264 / xvid / mp3 (Lame) encoding support and then recompile so the mplayer compiling process can pick up the extra libraries. If you examine the ./configure log you will see what I mean.

This is usually not such a drama as you would also be updating mplayer with the svn update command from time to time. Bear in mind though if you want to be cautious I believe SlackBuilds.org has a nice script for the mplayer 1.0rc2 which will deliver huge functionality without so much of the bleeding edge peril. And on closer inspection I see that it also sets up the all-20071007.tar.bz2 codecs pack.

Do not expect much support from mplayer-users with the Release Candidate versions though, mostly they expect the svn.

All the best,

Andrew