Hello All,
There was some discussion on playing cds on linux distros and the results
seem to be 50-50. The experts have been able to play movies on various
linux distros whereas the not-so-experts or those experts not into
multimedia
have not had much luck playing them. My system has the following
configuration:
P4 2.4 Ghz., Intel Original 845 GEBV2 mobo, 256 MB RAM, 80 GB baracuda
hdd, Sony DVD rom, Samsung CD R/W.
Now since one year, I have tried out many linux distros in order to find the
ideal one that can do everything or atlest do the normal stuff thats
done in the 'other' popular OS ;) While its no problem connecting to the
net or email or word processing or firewall, a major block exists in the
multimedia area. Detection of sound cards is not a very big issue as
most of the distros did detect and install sound. 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.
warning: mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature:
NOKEY, key ID e42d547b
error: Failed dependencies:
libXvMCW.so.1 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
libaa.so.1 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
libdvdread.so.3 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
libfribidi.so.0 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
liblirc_client.so.0 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
liblzo.so.1 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
libmad.so.0 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
libmp3lame.so.0 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
libxvidcore.so.4 is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
mplayer-fonts is needed by mplayer-1.0-0.16.pre7.2.fc4.i386
The point is that how much time does one have to spend on a linux system to
get it running properly?
My clients place an order for a computer and within 4 days it has to be
ready. On the fifth day it is installed on site. In these 4 days the
engineers are busy attending to other calls as well as other
installations so
the pattern is this: First day get the material from the dealer. Day
two, install the system to test for any defects. Day two or day three,
load the sofware. Day four keep the system on soak test. Day five,
deliver the system. Now in this tight schedule, how is a production
engineer expected to load linux for the latest hardware, with all its
dependency problems?
My users are mainly home and small office ones and they have a lot of
multimedia activity going on.
Please do not treat this message as a rant or cribbing or a complaint
against linux. It is simply an SOS from a junior linuxer on behalf of other
junior linuxers too. I am not looking at an individual problem for any
particular
distro. Its a general problem that I want to highlight.
Regards,
Rony.
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