When it Doesn't Fit Anywhere Else
How to install mplayer in Fedora Core 12
Recently, I installed Fedora 12 on one fo my laptops, and have been really pleased at the imporvements on the way Linux loads packages. That is, pleased with how it loads system-type packages.
I was trying to run a .wmv video file in the media player app (Totem) and got an error indicating a needed plugin. Unlike my other experiences that automatically loaded the needed packages (essentially some video codecs), this one simply left me twiddling.
Searching for a solution was equally as frustrating, as I was totally unable to find an appropriate solution. Seems like the problem is an issue for a bunch of people. I do understand that some legal stuff comes into play with the codecs which prevented the auto-loading, but there's no need to make it virtually this difficult to fix.
I was able to glean that the Xine package and VLC might be solutions (these are alternative, if not better, media players) So, let's try "yum install xine" and "yum install VLC". Nada. No package found - nothing to do.
Doing some more searching, I came across some posts about the Livna repository providing a possible solution, but the links provided didn't work. I was able to find http://rpm.livna.org, which had the first hint to the solution It also referenced RPM Fusion that now provided the Livna packages as well as other popular repositories such as Dribble and FreshRPMs. Bingo. I think I finally have a solution postulated - now to try it all out.
One of the issues with my earlier attempts (see the yum commands above) was that it couldn't resolve the dependencies. Fortunately, the newfound Livna and RPM Fusion repository purports to satisfy them. So, let's add the RPM Fusion repository. The Livna site provides a direct link to its RPM download. Just click and run with the Fedora install package.
However, since I found the RPM Fusion site, I decided I would just go with that, since it also provides the Xine and VLC packages. The following commands will load the repository:
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-stable.noarch.rpm
and
rpm -Uvh http://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-stable.noarch.rpm
Luckily, the RPM Fusion site provides detailed info on configuring the repositories. Finally, I’m ready to install media player with the following command:
yum install mplayer-gui
Alternatively, you can also install the xine and vlc packages (which I did) as follows:
yum install xine
yum install vlc
Hope this helps. If nothing else, I've documented how I need to do it next time. Now, to explore what else the RPM Fusion repository gives me, which leads me to my next gripe:
Why do I have to go to the Dribble, Livna, and FreshRPMs sites to see what the repository contains? Each of these sites indicate they are deprecated and have been migrated to the RPM Fusion repository. But the RPM Fusion site has no indicator of what the repository contains! Oh well.
Friday, May 07, 2010
