Help with installing MPlayer?
piscesboy
after repeated failed attempts at trying to install from YaST. YaST
fails to install a working copy of MPlayer that plays anything. Some
codec problem, I suspect or problem compiling it. The first time I
downloaded and installed from YaST, MPlayer worked fine, but I had to
get rid of it when I deleted aTunes.
Now on subsequent attempts to re install MPlayer, the thing can't play
any files at all.
1) I downloaded from the MPlayer website (via SVN) the source code and
extracted into my home directory.
2) I ran ./configure --enable-gui to configure it to compile the
GMPlayer gui.
3) I downloaded extracted and installed the binary codecs in /usr/
local/lib/codecs (the default location)
4) I ran 'make' to compile mplayer
5) Then, (as root) I ran 'make install' to install mplayer and its
associated man pages.
6) I installed a default skin in /usr/local/share/mplayer/skins/
default.
First off, typing 'man mplayer' didn't work, that was my first clue
something may be wrong. I checked and found the mplayer man page
installed in /usr/local/share/man, where they were supposed to be. It
even installed the MPlayer icon in my applications folder.
I tried gmplayer to play a video file on my computer. It lauched fine.
Then I open the video file (a standard mpeg file it should have no
problem playing) and it crashes. (unsupported format). When I type
mplayer <file> the player plays sound but no picture.
I checked the file configure.h to make sure my directories were mapped
correctly and that they contained everything necessary. It all checked
out.
This is really frustrating and I'm not sure what else to do next.
Nico Kadel-Garcia
> I downloaded and tried to install from source on the MPlayer website
> after repeated failed attempts at trying to install from YaST. YaST
> fails to install a working copy of MPlayer that plays anything. Some
> codec problem, I suspect or problem compiling it. The first time I
> downloaded and installed from YaST, MPlayer worked fine, but I had to
> get rid of it when I deleted aTunes.
Rule number one: YaST is not your friend for resolving dependencies
for non-SuSE published packages.
Rule number two. Publish the particuler SuSE OS you're working with.
It matters, because libraries and utilties for tools built from source
may vary wildly from the known RPM published capabilities of those
tools..
Rule number three: the site at http://packman.links2linux.org/packages
seems to be a good repository for precisely such packages. Do be
careful if you're in a country with the United States' insane software
patent laws and DMCA, which can legally prevent you from using your
own computer to view your own media.
> Now on subsequent attempts to re install MPlayer, the thing can't play
> any files at all.
>
> 1) I downloaded from the MPlayer website (via SVN) the source code and
> extracted into my home directory.
> 2) I ran ./configure --enable-gui to configure it to compile the
> GMPlayer gui.
> 3) I downloaded extracted and installed the binary codecs in /usr/
> local/lib/codecs (the default location)
> 4) I ran 'make' to compile mplayer
> 5) Then, (as root) I ran 'make install' to install mplayer and its
> associated man pages.
> 6) I installed a default skin in /usr/local/share/mplayer/skins/
> default.
Did you delete the old, rather limited SuSE mplayer RPM first?
> First off, typing 'man mplayer' didn't work, that was my first clue
> something may be wrong. I checked and found the mplayer man page
> installed in /usr/local/share/man, where they were supposed to be. It
> even installed the MPlayer icon in my applications folder.
>
> I tried gmplayer to play a video file on my computer. It lauched fine.
> Then I open the video file (a standard mpeg file it should have no
> problem playing) and it crashes. (unsupported format). When I type
> mplayer <file> the player plays sound but no picture.
>
> I checked the file configure.h to make sure my directories were mapped
> correctly and that they contained everything necessary. It all checked
> out.
>
> This is really frustrating and I'm not sure what else to do next.
Codecs and libraries take work to resolve for all the different
potential distributions. This is why sites like that Packman one, and
the Penguin Liberation Front's repackaging of potentially license
encumbered software for the Mandriva world are so useful. (I've had
good luck with PLF packages for RHEL, but the way, for software that I
could legally use such as xv and tvtwm but whose licensing prevented
their inlusion in RHEL.)