cliff-sheridan@excite.com wrote:

> I would likt to know if there are any respectable, easy to install video
> players for suse linux 10.0
>
> mainly i'm tring to play such file types as DivX, Mpeg, AVI and Kaffeine
> keeps telling me there is no resource avail able to handle such files.
>
> so is there a better video player out there?, bassically what do you
> recommend?
>
Kaffeine is a fine video player, the classic problem that you have run into
is that the Xine multimedia engine, which Kaffeine utilizes for playback,
that you have installed is not able to play those files. The reason for
this is that legally, Novell/SUSE is not allowed to include the support for
those formats, as they are patent encumbered formats, unlike formats such
as OGG Vorbis and OGG Theora.

In order to be able to play DivX, MPEG, QuickTime etc. through Kaffeine, you
need to install a version of Xine which has those capabilities. Obviously
you won't be able to get such a thing from Novell/SUSE, you need to get it
from somewhere else.

That somewhere else could be the Packman package repository which contains
various funny things for SUSE Linux, that Novell/SUSE is not allowed to
distribute.

To easily get Xine "fixed" I recommend that you use the SMART Package
Manager instead of SUSE's own package management system (ZEN) which is
still quite buggy. Instructions for installing SMART can be found here:
http://susewiki.org/index.php?title=...ackage_Manager

Once you have SMART installed, go to the KMenu (The green button with the
chameleon menu in the lower left corner) and navigate to System -->
Configuration, and select "Smart Package Manager".
Now it will say that it has detected new "channels", I normally just say yes
to all of them, as the ones that contain untested packages is disabled by
default, but if you don't like saying yes to all of them, just be sure to
say yes to enable the Packman channel.
After saying yes to the last channel, Smart will pop up, hit the Reload
button at the top of the program, this will download package information
from the different repositories that Smart knows about. Once it's done
downloading package information, hit the button that has a paper with a
magnifying glass, and type in "libxine" as search keyword in the box that
appears.
Once you get some search results, look for "libxine" and right-click on it
and select install, now click on the button with the gears, aka the Execute
button, at the top of the program, it will ask you to confirm the changes,
and then go off and download the new version of Xine and install it for
you. You may also wanna install the Packman version of Kaffeine, which you
do using the procedure you just used to upgrade Xine with.