[Wylug-help] Mplayer

[Yiannis Gatsoulis]

And without the intention of starting a flame war.

1. What is your distribution? -> Go and find the faq for this. Web and 
google is good but faqs "tend" to be faster to people without a clue on 
new OS.
2. I guess you have an internet connection so it will definitely be 
easier if you install the software package from your distros repos. If 
this sentence sounds Greek to you, see 1.
3. mplayer is good and plays pretty much everything  but ehm i found out 
so far that vlc media player installs flawlessly and also plays pretty 
much everything.
4. compiling from source usually means:
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

if no errors then you have installed the program on its default 
locations.... if errors, ehm, easier to go with option 2 at this stage. 
once you get to understand linux a bit more then resolving dependencies 
will make sense. personally i still find this process a pain in the *** 
no matter what the level of the user is.  :)

Starting to learn linux? Hmmm, an introductory book? Google for 
introduction to linux? I would suggest understanding the filesystem a 
bit first to get unhooked from the C:, D:, AA:, etc "notation". If you 
are coming from windows well you will find that some things are 
different in linux from xp.... however, if you had the chance to work 
with vista then you will see that things are a bit more similar, except 
that ehm linux was there first... and if you think you could make the 
transition to vista then i guess you can make to linux too. Hope these 
helps.

Cheers.

PS: 1 and 2 are the most important to start using your pc "productively".

Andy Macdonald wrote:
> Glenn,
>
> Yep it is quite a sub-set of English. Asking the lug for help is a good first step, although purists would say you should try to fix it yourself first.
>
> The documentation is basically English, it means that you can identify the bits you don't understand and then look them up on wikipedia or google. This can involve quite a lot of recursion (look it up!).
>
> Once you have understood what they're saying, then you have to find the 'howto' that tells you how to actually do the the thing such as 'compiling from source', for not only is it assumed that you know what it means, but that you are intimately familiar with how to do it. Usually it won't work first time you try, due to differences in your set up, which you will have to troubleshoot and resolve.
>
> Then you might be able to fix the problem, unless it is a bug in the software. 
>
> To that end, FIRST try googling to see if other people are having the same problem. There might even be a quick fix which doesn't tax the brain cells too much.
>
> Best of luck,
>
> Andy
>
> On Fri, 07 Mar, glennschultz at talktalk.net wrote:
>   
>> Howdy!
>> I've had yet another problem with mplayer - I managed to get it working (eventually) but then downloaded a package of updates and yet again it stopped the mplayer in it's tracks!? I've tried reading the
>> documentation on the mplayer website but not being an IT professional it means absolutely nothing to me.? The video starts downloading then shows 'stopped' then continues and finally says 'download complete'
>> but when I hit the play button it just says 'stopped' again.? What am I doing wrong???? Incidentally is there anywhere I can go to start learning about Linux because I can't get it off my machine so I'm
>> stuck with it but I have no idea what any of the guidance is talking about......Compiling from source???Parsing???Resolving dependencies????? I've worked out the the language used is nominally English
>> but that's as far as I've got!!!
>> Thanks in advance
>> Glenn
>>
>>     
>
>   


-- 
Yiannis Gatsoulis
Research Student

School of Mechanical Engineering
University of Leeds
Leeds, West Yorkshire
LS2 9JT
UK

Tel: +44 (0)113 34 32170
Email: menig at leeds.ac.uk
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