Why are multimedia guides from this thread and from opensuse-guide site so different?
Why did multimedia guide in this thread became again so extensive (regarding number of packages installed) since 15.0 compared to 42.3? In fact it got back to resemble the old 42.2 guide…
Regarding packages, dunno if I was at loose too long, but I see several changes. Packages such as libxine2-codecs, lame and libdvdcss2 seem to be mutually exclusive between guide here and the one at opensuse-guide --again, back to question 1)–. In the end are they still needed or recommended?
Also, packages ogmtools and dvdauthor, for example, are new to me. Libavcodec, libavdevice, x264, x265, h264 maybe… do they actually get automatically pulled by another package?
Don’t over think it just do a vendor change to packman. and let the system work for you. The lists are useful for trouble shooting but all you need is the vendor change to pull in most needed proprietary codecs.
That works only when your Packman repo can be found using packman.inode.at-suse as an Alias, a Name or an URL.
Others may use a different mirror (and thus URL) and have a different Name and/or URL.
What @gogalthorpe above describes works for everybody. First find out what IDs the Packman repo has and then using one of those #, Alias, Name or URL. @gogalthorpe then uses #, which is of course shortest to type (but be aware that tomorrow the number may be different from today, where e.g. the Alias stays the same).
I used the web as I usually do for codecs and finished up installing from the vlc site then read this thread. The OP helped me get rid of most of the stuff from VLC using the repo view in yast. Then followed the instructions. All ok except when it came to setting vendor changes. Lots of conflict problems resolved by switching to packman repo’s. That removed the rest of the stuff from VLC. ;)Or at the moment I hope it has.
Quick edit. I use the button in the OP rather than zyper. The install was partial, ffmpeg not installed, ignore it. Sorting out the dependencies when the vendor was locked fixed that.
So I had to once again compare both guides from this thread and opensuse-guide site (again, why are they made different?), and as well compare with multimedia guides from older Leap releases. And concluded -kind of-, missing necessary packages to install are:
Agreed, this list itself is “missing” some other packages at first sight, but packages here pull the missing ones automatically as dependencies, such as libavcodec being pulled by libavdevice.
I regarded packages dvdauthor and ogmtools as “optional” since, even after reading about them with zypper info, I couldn’t really get why average user would use them. Heck, this is the very first time for them appearing in a Leap multimedia guide.
With this, I’d like to ask for advise for following doubts:
Still, why are multimedia guides from this thread and from opensuse-guide site so different? Both sides actually miss some packages, and this may cause confusion, don’t you think?
Why advise to “reinstall” some already existing packages such as gstreamer-plugins-bad, ugly, good, etc? Wouldn’t it suffice with zypper dup to Packman?
What are dvdauthor and ogmtools used for?
Actually I did have an issue when doing the whole process: if trying to install all packages just after adding the due repositories, I get lots of messages telling about package conflicts. Seemingly they’re the ones offering “install with vendor change” as one of the options, but I couldn’t avoid them even with zypper in -f option and it’s annoying. What worked for me was applying zypper dup to Packman before attempting to install any package, then installing the packages, and yet again doing zypper dup once finished.
Hi
The main reason the list is reduced was because patents have expired, so numerous packages are now updated and provided by openSUSE, you should test first with the current list and then refine your requirements…
In a lot of cases the packages built by packman is just a rebuild of what is provided/maintained in openSUSE with build conditions changed as required to include the encumbered patents.
because of having often problems when reinstalling the “whole” codecs. This command will also install the highest avaible variant by switching the repo and asking the user.
What needed or not is a user decision, you must not install all in the command, you can also delete some.
@malcolmlewis:
Thanks, but I already knew all of that, and with all due respect, it’s unrelated to my first 3 questions.
If you or anyone else by chance could help with them please…
@Sauerland:
Are you saying that “zypper in -f” does ask the user anyways for each package conflict zypper may encounter?
Still, why are multimedia guides from this thread and from opensuse-guide site so different? Both sides actually miss some packages, and this may cause confusion, don’t you think?
Why advise to “reinstall” some already existing packages such as gstreamer-plugins-bad, ugly, good, etc? Wouldn’t it suffice with zypper dup to Packman?
I copied the command from an old guide (Not knowing where it was anymore)
Only the ones, that were not in the Distribution are deleted or replaced.
So dvdauthor and ogm-tools are from that old guide.
Because it is also for use when something is broken, zypper in -f will use Priority,Version etc. in this rank.
I get some heartburn when viewing pages related to Multimedia in this forum. As I remember 13.2 Codec Installation in the Terminal (copy/paste of the 4 lines) always worked with a minimal set of initial repositories. Verified this by updating openSUSE-Leap-15.1-KDE-Live-x86_64-Snapshot9.118-Media.iso a few days ago.
Some multimedia software is not fully functional, due to license requirements and patents. There are alternative versions of the software in the packman repo, that are more fully functional. This is a guide to making those changes to your installed system.
Thanks. Certainly it would make things better for newbies if that were blurted out right in the OP. And I couldn’t make out whether the thread itself is the Guide or the installed packages are the Guide or contain the guide. Newbies are not even going to know what Packman and zypper are.
I think its always a quandary as to how much hand holding is to be done with an Operating System to all users, new and old.
Wrt “Packman”, I had thought it immediately intuitively obvious it is a repository. The very first post states “STEP 1: Add Packman and libdvdcss repositories”. … note the “and” and the plural in “repositories”. Ergo, Packman is a repository.
So whats a repository? That can be found out via google - although perhaps a sentence explaining what a ‘repository’ is might not hurt. Of course its also in the openSUSE manual if one were to look.
Wrt zypper, a simple search “openSUSE zypper” in google provides many hits, if not the top hit SDB: Zypper usage … where it states “this article is about how to use Zypper, the command line package manager”. Also a pretty good manual comes with LEAP-15.1. Again, a basic search of “openSUSE manual” on Google gives many links to the manual. With the manual a quick search for zypper and one will find it out.
So I guess it begs the question again … how much hand holding to do for a newbie? - especially given the information is easy to find out. Should a newbie be expected to know the use of Google?
I guess some believe they should not need to do the occasional google search if something appears strange to them. … Fair enough
One good thing, is openSUSE is open to volunteer support. If you feel strong about this view that there is not enough detail, please feel free to chip in and help and make this and other aspects more clear that you believe will help ‘newbies’. My view is that there is enough detail already, but I fully appreciate others may have a strong differing view, … in which case extra tactfully submitted contributions by those who differ, to help update guides … etc … is always appreciated …
