Hi,
I am testing Edubuntu for use in individual classrooms at our school. We have
some older computers tasked for use in individual classrooms (Cel and P3 500 -
700 w/ 192 - 256 MB) that I think this would be a perfect solution for. I
really like the interface and features for classroom use; however, I am running
into a problem that is beyond my very limited knowledge of how Linux works. I
aim to get smarter about using Linux this summer (the file system, compiling,
etc), but for right now, I just need to get this working before the end of the
week.
We use Discovery's United Streaming in our school. United Streaming allows for
the viewing of its many videos in either Windows Media .asf format or Quicktime
format. I have used United Streaming without issue on Windows machines (using
IE, Firefox 2, and Opera). I have also used it on a student's Mac laptop (not
sure of the browser) without issue.
Using edubuntu, I cannot get the videos to play correctly -- either in
Quicktime or Windows Media player advanced streaming (.asf) format. I have
played around with pretty much all of the packages available in add/remove
programs option and the synaptics package manager.
I have tried installing the mplayer and its associated Mozilla plug-in to no
avail.
If I use the default GStreamer, I can't get any videos to play. Without using
the "ugly" plug-in, I get an error that Totem can't play the Windows Media 9
files without the proper plug-in. If I apply the gstreamer "ugly" codec, the
movie will appear to play, and I get audio, but I can't get video. Quicktime
files also do not work when using gstreamer.
If I install Xine (as well as the Xine media codec plug-in), my Firefox
defaults to using Totem with Xine. If I do this some.asf videos will play, but
they have a ton of corruption in the playback. Some Quicktime videos will also
play, but they too have corruption (negative colors, embossing, a lot of
severe tearing, what appears to be pretty bad compression errors).
I have tried this on three separate computers (a Dell Inspiron laptop w/ a dual
core 2.0 GHz CPU and 1 GB of memory, a desktop with a P4 2 and 512MB of memory,
and a P3 700 with 256MB of memory), and I can't make it work on any of them.
This is the first time I've dipped my toe in the Linux waters; it's been a
while since something computer-related has left me feeling this ignorant. I've
selected so many different options within the Add/Remove and Synaptics package
managers, that I'm wondering if I've caused some kind of corruption (although
the system prompts me that it will remove conflicting packages as necessary).
If someone can tell me exactly which packages to install from the get-go to get
the video working, I'd be happy to wipe the partition that I have edubuntu on
and start from scratch to get it working.
I'm also having trouble getting the wireless to work and changing the Grub so
it defaults to booting to Windows instead of linux if I don't make a choice in
time (both on the Dell), but the issue of being able to seamlessly play the
videos in the browser are much more pressing.
Thanks for any help that folks can provide!
Mike
Mike Camden
Technology Director
Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy
304-233-3771
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.mountdechantal.org
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