can't get mplayer to work
Forum: Multimedia
Topic: can't get mplayer to work
started by: janger
Posted by janger on Feb. 18 2007,11:41
I'm a dsl noob and just did a frugal install. I found the mplayer.unc extension and installed it. If I click on the desk icon it doesn't open. So I ran it from an xterm and it gives an illegal instruction error and exits. The old system I'm running DSL on only has an AMD-K6 cpu. Is that the reason it's not working? I searched the forums but found nothing about this problem. So any ideas?Thanks,
Dave
Posted by WDef on Feb. 18 2007,12:17
I dount it's your cpu since mplayer for public consumption is usually compiled with cpu autodetection enabled.Are you perhaps using an old version of dsl or are you booting with "legacy" boot option - it sounds like unionfs is not working ok.
Try mplayer-1.0pre8cvs.uci from the uci section of the repo instead.
Posted by janger on Feb. 18 2007,12:24
Just downloaded the newest dsl today. Everything seems to be working fine except for mplayer, but it's the first unc extension I've installed. And yes, was going to try the uci version.
Posted by WDef on Feb. 18 2007,12:35
Please let us know how you get on.
Posted by janger on Feb. 18 2007,23:07
Well the uci version runs, but now I'm getting a video_out initialization error. And I have know idea where the mplayer.conf file is. Looked everywhere but can't find it. Does it not exist in this extension?Also, why is the uci extension 30 MB, whereas the unc is only a few MB?
Thanks
Dave
Posted by janger on Feb. 19 2007,09:27
Found a thread where someone said they copied the config file from /opt/mplayer...., but I still can't find this file. I saw with the unc extension the config files were in /home/dsl, but it's not the case with the uci extension. Can someone please help. Really don't want to use Puppy. Please?
Posted by stupid_idiot on Feb. 19 2007,12:49
Quote:"Well the uci version runs, but now I'm getting a video_out initialization error. And I have know idea where the mplayer.conf file is. Looked everywhere but can't find it. Does it not exist in this extension?
Also, why is the uci extension 30 MB, whereas the unc is only a few MB?"
Hi Dave,
The mplayer.conf file is probably '/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf'.
Inside, you should see 'vo=x11'. This is correct, does not need to be changed. Putting 'mplayer -vo x11' in your command does the same thing.
Please make sure that '-vo x11' is being used, ok? :)
Secondly, to answer your question: mplayer.unc is 4.5M versus mplayer-1.0pre8cvs.uci's 30M because the latter comes with a ton of development headers and libraries and encoders whereas mplayer.unc is only mplayer itself.
And, Dave, if you still can't get it to work, try myDSL>Testing>mplayer-nogui.uci
It is a more recent version. It also supports Windows Media 9.
Posted by janger on Feb. 19 2007,21:59
I still couldn't find the config file in /etc...I tried the test version and it works:)
The config file is where it should be as well, under the home directory. But now I have to tweak mplayer as my system is a little slow to play video. At least mplayer gives some tips on what to try.
Thanks for your help,
Dave
Posted by WDef on Feb. 20 2007,15:25
| Quote |
| video_out initialization error. |
Try setting the video out driver to X11 in the gui prefs, or from the commandline:
mplayer -vo x11 myfile.avi
| Quote |
| where the mplayer.conf file is |
Try reading the extension's info file. Always.
30MB? Because it contains a lot more than mplayer alone. Again, it's in the info file. Look in /opt/mplayer-1.0pre8cvs/ under docs. There are example config files there.
You don't need a config file if you run it from the commnand line. See the examples in the info file.
Also guys, *all* the mplayer documentation in included in that extension, including a html version of the manual.
Linux is a lot easier if you learn to read the docs
I know it's hard at first.
Posted by janger on Feb. 21 2007,00:43
I'm actually not a linux noob. Only to DSL.
Yes, I have it all working now with the test release of mplayer. Set the -vo and -ao switches but a few vids still play fairly slow. It's only a 500Mhz K6 cpu. I had tried putting an nLited xp on this comp but it wasn't very good, which is why I tried DSL. Definately a usable system for most of the things I want to do with it. And as for the docs, I'm a man page freak. It's a shame they don't exist. It cracks me up though, that playing an mp3 in xp with foobar was using 15% cpu, while xmms in DSL uses like 2%. Linux rocks!
Posted by WDef on Feb. 23 2007,00:18
| Quote |
| I'm a man page freak. It's a shame they don't exist. |
Yes they do. Not far from the example config files.
/opt/mplayer-1.0pre8cvs/doc/mplayer/manmplayer.1.html
You're supposed to set up your own config file, if you need one - different users need different configurations.
But I can see I'm going to have to set a default one in the next version though it will be wrong for some users.