Updates:
December 2005
Dec
19: New look
Star
Wreck
November
29
Another screenshot was added
Adding inst-sources
27
Some
typos corrected with the aid of a friendly visitor from
Australia
23 Amarok, Zappa, Isle of Man, Nurburgring
22.11.
Playing DVD-images
Installing
RPM packages
Java
and Flash
|
|
Following
the
tips on the multimedia section makes Suse 10.0 play all multimedia
files!
|
Mp3,
video, DVD and SUSE 10.0
Vahis
22.11.2005. Your feedback
Playing multimedia in Suse 10.0 has recently been the most frequently
asked topic about Suse in the
usenet today, so that's where I'll start my English pages.
The
problems with playing music
As
a taxi driver I listen to a lot of Mp3 music. It's far from the best
format, but it's so generally supported that it was a natural choice at
the time.
I've
built a music collection of my old vinyl records and CD records to
be played outside home.
The
car audio did not support (still it does not) much else than CD and
Mp3, so it was simple to choose the format. Fair enough, you'll have 10
CD 's in the car and you have like 120 to 150 albums on them.
On
my file server at home my directories show like this:
/home/user/music
32.3 GB 4423 files 482 sub-folders.
/home/user/music/mp3
26.1 GB 4271 files 471 sub-folders
The
problems with playing video
There's
a lot of different video in the Internet. And there's
the DVD, which by default can not be played at all in computers.
All
this can be simplified in a very straight forward manner saying:
the video has
been converted to a file format using a codec. Now, we need a codec to
play it, right?
In
the Internet you can watch video using plug-ins in the browsers for
streams and you can download video files. Also a lot of it is based
on Flash.
DVD, in addition is country coded
and encrypted.
All
this has been solved, so here we just apply the solutions.
First
of all we'll need an audio player, a video player, a browser with
plug-ins, some codecs and decryption
Since
I am using Suse and KDE all here applies to them
The
solutions
As
we at the time of installation opt for KDE, we by default get a
plenthora of applications for multimedia. My favorite there for video
is Kaffeine.
Some
licencing and legal stuff cause Kaffeine coming with
Suse to be somewhat cripple.
It needs some fixing up.
In
addition I always install the MPlayer.
These two cover pretty much everything.
Fixing
up Kaffeine
First
I leaveKaffeine and Amarok out of the basic installation. If it's
already
installed it can be fixed afterwards, no worries. Screen shots of the
actions are linked to the text.
Attn!
The images are
like
>50 - 150 kB, download may take a few moments.
Kaffeine
is left out by not
choosing it. It can be removed. if it's already there. In the
installation
summary you choose Software.
In
the opening window you type kaffeine in the search field (kaf will
do)
and click radio button search.
You
untick everything that has kaffeine. We'll put them back later as
better versions. Screen shot.
(57.3 kB)
My
favorite audio player is Amarok.
One
of the features is its ability to use MySql. That's then
another story, server.
Finnish only at
this stage.
I
leave Amarok out the same way as Kaffeine
Now
this is where you can finish the installation. Or If you already
had, read on
Fixing
the installation for video play
First
of all we need a couple of installation sources to get new
packages
It
is a good idea to copy/paste the addresses from here to avoid typos.
First
guru.
Open Add > FTP
(Image 143.2 kB)
Server
name: ftp.gwdg.de
Directory
on Server: pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/10.0.
(Image
151.9 kB)
Then
packman, but now the protocol is HTTP:
Add
> http
Server
name: packman.iu-bremen.de
Directory
on server: suse/10.0.
When
the sources are there Mplayer, Kaffeine and Amarok can be
installed.
A
few good installation sources
Thunderbird, rkhunter webalizer,
realplayer, awstats
are here:
ftp.uni-bayreuth.de
pub/Linux/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS/inst-source/
ftp.gwdg.de
pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/10.0
KDE updates here:
pub/suse/i386/supplementary/KDE/update_for_10.0/yast-source
packman.iu-bremen.de
suse/10.0
Manual install from http://packman.iu-bremen.de/suse/10.0/i586/
ftp.gwdg.de
pub/linux/misc/suser-guru/rpm/10.0
Java
can be obtained
from here:
ftp.uni-erlangen.de
mirrors/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS/inst-source-java/
A very good Bittorrent-client:, running on Java
Azureus
ftp.gwdg.de
pub/linux/misc/suser-gbv/rpms/SuSE_10.0
Ogle,
video
player
ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-sbarnin/suse92/i586/RPMS/
Opensuse
Additional Installation Sources on Novell pages.
http://en.opensuse.org/Additional_YaST_Package_Repositories
Some
more stuff is needed
Close
installation sources and open Software
Management. There search again.
Type
mplayer,
choose
it,
then Kaffeine.
Kaffeine needs
libxine -1, check that.
Take
also all plug-ins for browsers by typing plug in Search
field.
Yast
wil take automagically everything we need in addition
to these.
You
might also want to type divx4linux and xvid to the search field to get those.
Attention!
Playing
DVD requires one more thing: libdvdcss. You used to get it from
ftp.links2linux.de/pub/packman/suse/10.0/i586/.
You
could then just download
the RPM and save it and install it with YaST.
This has changed as the new copyright law has come into force. There
are now instructions for a workaround, the link to that is here:
http://packman.links2linux.org/?action=122
DVD playing
from image
If
you have back up ISO images of DVD disks on you hard drive,
they
can be played, too. One way is to mount them so that the players see
them as DVD or CD drives. More of that later
We
add Ogle
for this, it can be obtained from here:
ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/suser-sbarnin/suse92/i586/RPMS/
Just
find Ogle, download it and install with Yast. There's also a front
end for Ogle, called Okle. Not necessary, but you can take that, too if
you like.
It's
good to make a directory somewhere for RPM packages, you'll need
them
now and then.
Installing
RPM
The
easiest, and at the same time the safest for the system stability
is to just click on an RPM and let Yast do the rest. It'll take care of
dependencies, and configuration. In case of for example Ogle Yast wants
something
from Packman. If there's an error maybe because of too many connections
on servers or similar, just try again, do not let Yast finish by
letting it skip any of the needed packages.
Sometimes
in cases like this it is worth refreshing the source. Abort
and go to installation sources
and
choose the source in question e.g. Packman, > edit > refresh.
Sites
like Packman are updated often, the contents change. It may make
sence to put automatic refreshing on. This will cause the source to be
updated whenever something is installed. It takes some time, of course
and may be irritating to update sources which are not needed everytime.
You will know what is the best practice for you.
Java and Flash
Java
First add the following to your install source:
ftp.uni-erlangen.de
(or another mirror carrying this tree)
/mirrors/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.0-OSS/inst-source-java/
In
Yast install then the following:
java-1_5_0-sun
java-1_5_0-sun-alsa
java-1_5_0-sun-jdbc
java-1_5_0-sun-plugin
The
easiest way is to Yast> Software Management > type "sun" in
search field.
At
the time of writing the latest versions that then come from YOU update
are
1.5.0_06-1.1
Test
Java here: http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml
Flash
The
easiest way of installing Flash
is to surf to a URL that requires Flash with Firefox.
It can install Flash so we
let it! Konqueror in its turn is able to use Mozilla plug-ins so we
just configureit to use them:
Konqueror
> Settings > Configure Konqueror > Plug-ins >
Scan for plug-ins. Also tick Scan for New
Plu-ins at KDE Startup.
Then
you test Flash. I put some nice URLs here for you to test. I also
use the opportunity to show some stuff of my liking.
The
first one is a guy who's been my hero
ever since I first heard of him, Frank
Zappa.
In
conjunction to music, computers, networking, open source and RIAA.
He was the first and biggest enemy of RIAA. He just hated RIAA.
I
listen to My Mothers every day. I have everything ever officially
published. As soon as something gets published again from the vaults,
I'll get it. No matter what.
What
does he and computer multimedia have in common? Well, there's not
been another visionary who has been able to predict what is going on in
the music business and distribution today the way he did like twenty
years ago. It's another incredible story. Read all about it "The Real
Frank Zappa Book", you'll find it easy. His site:
http://www.zappa.com/.
Novell Gives credit to Zappa
http://www.novell.com/documentation/suse10/index.html?page=/documentation/suse10/adminguide/data/bookinfo_book_adminguide.html
The
next one is more like Motorcycles.
It's somebody (sorry I don't know who) riding one full lap on The
Isle Of Man TT,
so it takes
about twenty minutes. It's awesome to anybody crazy about that kind of
stuff. Like myself. IsleOfMan.mpg
(video/mpeg Object)
Here's
a nice Flash clip, too. I don't put it
anywhere to everybody to find on my Motorcycle Site, of course, you
know what I mean ( put big smiley here).
It's
Hans Joachim Stuck with BMW M3 GTR on Nurburgring.
Two warm up laps on the
circuit and then the whole lap. There's a couple of nice
overtakes and just listen to those sounds of him pulling the gears up
and down. 5 liter V8 engine suits there better than on a bike
IMHO. Here you go: BMW M3 at
Nurburgring.
In
the Pirkinning
As your Suse now has full multimedia
functionality, I'd
like to add a reader's request here.
A busy usenet Suse contributor from Belgium, Houghi, asked me to put
this link on my pages.
It's a Finnish SciFi parody Star Wreck that has
achieved a fabulous reputation round the world through the Internet.
I'm not skilled to write any cinema reviews, though. So I will let this
masterpiece speak for itself: In The Pirkinning
Java
is needed for
interactivity and animations etc a lot of
things. We install it just as everyhing else, the installation source
is on my lists. Image
Tick
what's on the image, that should do.
Java
test site: http://www.java.com/en/download/help/testvm.xml
Amarok
This
player became my favorite right from the very first time I found
it. I'm trying to avoid Linux advocacy here (it's hard after using
Linux for a while, isn't it?) but it just works for me.
I
guess it's good to know that I've seen a lot of Windows in my life.
OK, I got familiar with other operating systems right from the moments
of birth of the PC and MS-DOS, then Apple's mistake Lisa and that on.
(I was in the printing business selling prepress systems at the time
PostScript was born). I knew nothing about Linux before it was maybe
ten years old. Or Linus Torvalds, who is pronouncing "Linux" here in Swedish
and English.
So
since I like Amarok
maybe
you still want to know why. Hard to rank the features, it's got them
all. While playing it can search the covers, lyrics, artist Wiki,
suggestions, connect to other users and so on. You can then follow the
lyrics for example while you listen. You get to upload them, too.
One
specially nice thing is that it can utilize MySql database. That
works fine and is really fast, of course. It can be configured to run
also database back ups by cron if you like.
Amarok
is also well documented. So in my English part here it does not
make much sense to give any other type of Amarok advice than point you
to installing/fixing
it to play Mp3. Then
just follow the helps in it, youll be just fine.
Top of page
Linux Mail me
|
Vahis ©
Waxborg 2005