A real stoopid question from a newbie ( you'll enjoy this..)

I've managed to ( somehow ) get a lot of stuff running under my redhat9. But. It's been like pulling teeth to figure out the file structure, rpms, tar, bunzip2, etc... I think, though, that I may have figured out what I am doing wrong.

Maybe.

I noticed a lot of these programs just install themselves where they lay...and that makes their initial placement in the directory structure rather critical, right? How do you know where to install a file/executable? I've been spending a lot of time with video prgrams, such as MPlayer, Xine, Ogle, DVDRip, Acidrip, ( MPlayer insists on telling me that there is an error initiaizing the video_out device, Xine works every other time if I spin three times and chant, Ogle is trustworthy and fine, DVDRip is NOT a happy camper ( no support for DVD reading configured ), AcidRip ignores me ....) and am trying to understand some basic formula.

I used to just plunk downloads down onto the desktop ( ala Windows), but discovered .files were a hidden hassle, so I started downloading files into my /home/allen directory. Then things got even harrier ( lol ), so I started d/ling them to good ole ' / '. I now have files installed pretty much all over the place with no comprehensible structure...I have a mess to clean up.

OK, you've had a good laugh...

H e lp anyone?

Programs installed by the admin are usally under /usr/local and programs installed by the distro normally go under /usr with binarys normally in /bin and system binarys are under /sbin.

As for the file structure, you probably want to check it this old post:
http://www.linuxforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=1212

As for a video player, I certainly recommend MPlayer. It's strange that it doesn't work for you. Would you mind running "mplayer -vo help" and posting the output here?

Thanks...here it is ( by the way? What's the Linux keyboard shortcut for DOS's <Ctrl-C> ?

MPlayer 0.92-3.2.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel Celeron Covington/Pentium II Deschutes,Tonga/Pentium II Xeon (Family: 6, Stepping: 2)
Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 0 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX

Reading config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf: No such file or directory
Reading config file /root/.mplayer/config
Available video output drivers:
xv X11/Xv
x11 X11 ( XImage/Shm )
gl X11 (OpenGL)
gl2 X11 (OpenGL) - multiple textures version
dga DGA ( Direct Graphic Access V2.0 )
sdl SDL YUV/RGB/BGR renderer (SDL v1.1.7+ only!)
fbdev Framebuffer Device
png PNG file
jpeg JPEG file
gif89a animated GIF output
null Null video output
pgm PGM file
md5 MD5 sum
mpegpes Mpeg-PES file
yuv4mpeg yuv4mpeg output for mjpegtools (to "stream.yuv")
vesa VESA VBE 2.0 video output
xvidix X11 (VIDIX)


Apparently, I have completely screwed it up, now, as it won't even open anymore from a terminal window. After looking for configuration files which it can't find( which I know exist but not where it's looking, which it used to be able to find and perhaps still does ) the program spits out a long list of available video drivers and ends. I clicked on my desk-top icon just to check, and sure enough, it still opens, but gives me the black screen after I right-click and select one of the two DVD options, then the fatal " error opening/initializing the selected video_out device" message. I probably have to start over from scratch.

I found the conf file mplayer is looking for in /etc/mplayer, if that tells you anything? Should I just move it to where it expects it to be or is it maybe not quite that simple?

Thanks for the link...I'll pursue it.

Excellent discussion! I enjoyed reading it thoroughly. I was thinking to myself earlier today about how one could explain to someone new to "information technology" that the computer is really just a tool to control electrical energy, in the sense of physics, and what is manipulated is information, which is also really nothing more than THOUGHT energy....enter Quantuum Physics. Einstein, who wasn't particularily comfortable with it, I believe, called one of the theories, "spooky action at a distance". It's all about energy...thanks again for your ( and others') help.

can u run gmplayer from a terminal or does that crash too.

try chaign to root and then runnign it. (to check that its not just ur user configs that screw it up.

I love you, I love you, I love you ( well, at least I like you a lot, OK? )!!! I received the following;


# gmplayer
MPlayer 1.0pre3-RPM-3.2.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team

CPU: Intel Celeron Covington/Pentium II Deschutes,Tonga/Pentium II Xeon 541.6 MHz (Family: 6, Stepping: 2)
Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 0 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled with Runtime CPU Detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with --disable-runtime-cpudetection.
Reading config file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf
Reading config file /root/.mplayer/config
[cfg] read config file: /root/.mplayer/gui.conf
Reading config file /root/.mplayer/gui.conf
vo: X11 running at 1024x768 with depth 24 and 32 bpp (":0.0" => local display)
Reading /root/.mplayer/codecs.conf: Can't open '/root/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No
such file or directory
Reading /etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: 61 audio & 169 video codecs
font: can't open file: /root/.mplayer/font/font.desc
font: can't open file: /usr/share/mplayer/font/font.desc
Using Linux hardware RTC timing (1024Hz).
Can't open input config file /root/.mplayer/input.conf: No such file or directory
Input config file /etc/mplayer/input.conf parsed: 53 binds
SKIN dir 1: '/root/.mplayer/Skin'
SKIN dir 2: '/usr/share/mplayer/Skin'

Playing dvd://1.
Reading disc structure, please wait...
There are 3 titles on this DVD.
There are 38 chapters in this DVD title.
There are 1 angles in this DVD title.
DVD successfully opened.
Cache fill: 17.87% (1499136 bytes) LMLM4 Stream Format not found
MPEG-PS file format detected.
VIDEO: MPEG2 720x480 (aspect 3) 29.970 fps 9801.6 kbps (1225.2 kbyte/s)
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [liba52] AC3 decoding with liba52
No accelerated IMDCT transform found
AC3: 5.1 (3f+2r+lfe) 48000 Hz 448.0 kbit/s
Using MMX optimized resampler
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, 16 bit (0x10), ratio: 56000->192000 (448.0 kbit)
Selected audio codec: [a52] afm:liba52 (AC3-liba52)
================================================== ========================
No vidix driver name provided, probing available ones (-v option for details)!
vosub_vidix: Couldn't find working VIDIX driver
Error opening/initializing the selected video_out (-vo) device.

<and it opened and entered a wait state>

So I then went back to <preferences> ( thinking to myself " I have TRIED these drivers...there are only FOUR on the list...xmga, xv, x11, and xvidix...NONE of these work...WHERE are all the other ones that are listed.... and I KNOW that I'm wasting my time and I AM going to lose it...they'll find me out in the yard chasing around after small furry animals I just know it..) selected x11...and it WORKED!! The movie started playing with that driver. I love you, I love you ( "awright, that's enough of that"...).

However, it hasn't solved the problem entirely, as 'mplayer' won't allow me to play the DVD...? The command mplayer still doesn't work, even though I found a workable driver. mplayer gives me;
# mplayer
MPlayer 0.92-3.2.2 (C) 2000-2003 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel Celeron Covington/Pentium II Deschutes,Tonga/Pentium II Xeon (Family: 6, Stepping: 2)
Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 0 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 0 SSE2: 0
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX

Reading config file /usr/local/etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf: No such file or directory
Reading config file /root/.mplayer/config
Reading /root/.mplayer/codecs.conf: can't open '/root/.mplayer/codecs.conf': No
such file or directory
Reading /usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf: can't open '/usr/local/etc/mplayer/codecs.conf': No such file or directory
Using built-in default codecs.conf
Usage: mplayer [options] [url|path/]filename

Basic options: (complete list in the man page)
( etcetera..)

As you can see from the print-out above, this newbie has some mis-placed files..? Any thoughts about repairing the mess I made..? I was on the verge of removing and re-installing it, but now I see that there IS a way to make it work, I'm more hopeful...

A further question...Any tips on how I could recompile with --disable-runtime-cpudetection as recommended above? The audio is fine but the motion is a bit jerky. You rescued my day...thnx

-Allen ( I may actually get to rip before my b'day!) ( that's in Sept...)

As for mplayer, you should run "mplayer dvd://1". The "mplayer" command is a command-line only program, that takes what it is that you want to play as an argument.
Also, I think that you should try and see if the "-vo xv" driver works. If it does, it's better than the x11 driver.

What files is it that you have in /etc/mplayer? I think that you should at least try and move it to /usr/local/etc/mplayer.

Oh, and about that DOS's <Ctrl-C> shortcut... what does it do in DOS?

last i check it was a force quit command, same as in linux, remember that it will only work for terminal started programs, and u have to have the terminal window selected.

<Ctrl-C> is the break command in MS-DOS...