I’m fairly new to Linux. I’m running openSuse 11.0 on ppc.
I have some questions.
I) When compiling is there a certain folder I should be doing it from?
As of now, I download the source and I move it to the folder /home/stephan.brubaker/Programs. Now i am doing this using Dolphin as I don’t know how to unpack tar’s in the terminal. Then of course in terminal I cd to the folder and ./configure ; make ; make install it.
II) I want to be able to play dvd’s on my PC but the version of Xine that comes with Suse doesn’t allow it. I have installed the libdvdcss.
I need to install Xine from source. I need to know :
do i need to uninstall the version I have "i tried this through yast but it told me that a lot of other things had to be removed aswell so I just canceled it.
I tried to install from source anyway and while it was configuring it came back with the error telling me that it couldn’t find ffmpeg-libpostproc but right about that line was the one telling me that it had found ffmpeg fine.
Side note - i had also installed ffmpeg from source in the same fashion as i described above. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it.
I typically place tarballs in /home/oldcpu/tars, where I arbitary made up “tars”. A name “Programs” would likely work just as well.
Note typically for beginners, rpms are prefered over tarballs (and custom compiling). Here are some openSUSE Linux basic concepts: Concepts - openSUSE
This is the tried and true method of compiling. Of course not all tarballs are the same and some will not use this method for installation. But as a note, instead of (or in some cases in addition to) “make install” I use the program “checkinstall”. While “make install” will install the application, “checkinstall” will create a quick and dirty rpm, customized for one’s own system, that can be installed like a normal rpm. The advantage there is the program is then tracked by the rpm database, and can be removed by typical rpm database commands.
There could be a host of reasons why you can not play dvds. caf4926 gave you some good links.
The very first thing I always do after installing openSUSE is set up my software package manager repositories for 4 repositories (repos), where a repository is a file server on the internet with a LOT of programs custom compiled and built for immediate installation (as rpms). I set up OSS, Non-OSS, Update, and Packman, and only those 4. No others. None. There is guidance here for that: Repositories/11.0 - openSUSE-Community
… again only OSS, NON-OSS, Packman and Update. After you learn some more, you can add others, but you really need to know the limitations and risks associated with others.
Once the repos are installed, you can then go to YaST > Software > Software management, and replace “xine-lib” with “libxine1” from packman, and install “smplayer”, and “xine-ui” and mplayerplug-in, … etc … I think those are built for PPC (not sure). You can also install “vlc” from packman. Note most of your codecs needed can be installed if you install the Packman “libffmpeg” which will automatically install the codecs for you via dependencies. These codecs are typically libavcodec, libavdevice, libavformat, libavutil, libpostproc and libswscale.
There is a bug (I believe) in the most recent vlc in packman for dvd playback, … you may need to use smplayer instead.
Note:
OSS = Open Source Software that come with your basic openSUSE-11.0
Non-OSS = NonOpen Source Software that come with your basic openSUSE-11.0
Update = Updates to your OSS
Packman = largest 3rd party supplier of rpms (programs) for openSUSE (including PPC) , with especially lots of multimedia apps
If you install via a custom compile you can not uninstall via yast, because the program is not entered into the rpm database.
My recommendation is to stop custom compiling and go about this in the easier rpm install method, until you learn what you are doing.
I know, trust me I would much rather do it from an rpm or through Yast and I always check for it on there first but the problem is, I am on a PPC, and vlc doesn’t have an RPM for that. The KDE codecs ymp doesn’t install either because they don’t have PPC RPMs for the componets trying to be installed. Which is why I have to compile alot of what I’m doing.
Hey guys. So after doing a little more research I found out that there is another packman repo for PPC arch. I added it and all the files I needed were there. The Packman repo that I had added before from the community repo list was only installing things that were labeled noarch. So thanks. Oh and I did install checkinstall just incase I have to do something from source.
Where you put the files you download doesn’t really matter. /tmp
But some apps will tell you more in the readme after you unpack it. As it may be that you don’t need to build. An example of this is Azureus/Vuze
rpm’s if available to you - it can be quite handy to keep the original
If you have plenty of HD space there is no harm having a dedicated section to keeps all these apps