Rony Bill wrote:
Hello All,
The major roadblock is in running the media playes for mp3s, mpegs, VCDs or DVDs. In my system, the RHEL could play mp3s only after real player was downloaded. Debian could not play anything. Mandrake 10.1 was the only OS that played VCDs and DVDs without any extra download or installation. However it had a problem of residue picture frames scattering over the desktop on close of player. FC4, SuSe 10 as well as Ubuntu failed. SuSe 10 has CD mounting problems. Ubuntu 5.04 did not create a root password so it had to be created by booting into recovery mode. Even then, in the user mode gui, it does not accept the root password for admin utilities and says 'password incorrect'.
As per the new instructions given about downloading codecs from mplayer and installing them in the /usr/lib/win32 dir, all this was done but the players in FC4, SuSe 10 as well as Ubuntu 5.04 that was tried out, don't play anything and simply give some errors. The latest effort was to download mplayer itself for FC4 and here's the result for the same.
The point is that how much time does one have to spend on a linux system to get it running properly?
I don't know if my answer could really help you or not but I suggest you give it a try. Since you have tried using different distributions offering GNU/Linux, I guess you are now pretty sure on how to go about installing another one. I therefore suggest you install Slackware. It will end all your problems as far as multimedia is concerned. No more mp3, etc. problems. xine-lib that comes with Slackware has all the codecs. And if you have win32 binaries (for Quicktime, real player format, etc.) you could put them to some convenient location and tell xine where it is. I am able to play most of the formats (audio, video, CD, DVD) without any hitch. I am using xine-lib 1.0.2 from slackware-current.
If you are not feeling comfortable using command line installation, you could opt for Slax, it is a live cd based on Slackware and can be installed on your hard disk. And Slax is modular, so you could install other software which are not on the live cd by installing the respective "module" and you have what you want. Visit www.slax.org for details. Of course, I would still insist that you use Slackware :-).
With Slackware you would miss some of the automation that you get with user friendly distros like Suse, Mandrake, etc. But there exists enough documentation/forums to solve those problems. (Example, auto mounting usb devices). I am using hal + dbus and it does the job properly.
Suse is also a good distribution. In fact, before I started using Slackware, I used to use Suse 8.2. Later releases of Suse were not as good as 8.2, and so I created a new partition on my hard disk, installed Slackware 10.0, and didn't need to go back to Suse. I tried the latest Open Suse 10.0, (LFY mag), and go my disbelief it actually upgraded my 8.2 to 10.0 *without* any problems. That was really impressive. Sound, video, etc. works all right, of course, no mp3. But I had xine-lib downloaded from packman (link mentioned below), and everything works.
If you like using Suse, you could use the following link to end your multimedia woes on Suse.
http://packman.links2linux.org
You will get all your multimedia problems solve here.
HTH, Rajen.
-- ... I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life. -- Calvin