Problems with installations

[Freeborne]

Ok, my first post!

Ive been using windows and primarily work with PC security. Well i decided it was time to check out this linux everyone is talking about. Ive never used linux and im really enjoying it, but videos wont work and im having trouble installing even what seems to be the most basic of things. First off i wanted to get videos working so i looked into this "xine" and "xine-lib" but when i go to the directory's they have like 20 files. Im not sure what i need to download or what to look for. i try RPM's and i get a data-transaction error (or something along those lines"

Can anyone give me a basic rundown of what exactly each thing means and how SuSE deals with these files? or point me toward a page that explains it?

edit: w00t i got VLC workin.

[gogalthorp]

Yep most Video and music codecs are proprietary thus do not ship the distro. To get these to work you must install the correct codecs. This is normally done through Yast, as are most installations.

Here is a good place to start

Hacking openSUSE 10.2 - Software in Review

this page is for 10.2, if you are using another version there is a link on that page to find the equivalent pages for 10.0 and 10.1. Use the correct one for your version!

Here are some more links for more detail on installing software.

Package Sources/10.2 - openSUSE-Community

Additional YaST Package Repositories - openSUSE

SMART Package Manager - SUSE Wiki

You also might find this useful

LinuxCommand.org: Learn the Linux command line. Write shell scripts.

[gogalthorp]

An other note. You might want to be sure that you have these packages installed. They are not by default but if you do any thing serious you really do need them

gcc -c++ complier
make - make utility
kernel source - says it

The first two you need if you install any package via source. You need all 3 if you install something that requires linking to the kernel most notably any 3d acceleration software for your video card.

[Freeborne]

VLC took care of my problems of the video codecs. and i went ahead and installed a program called 'wine'

Now i played with that and got Warcraft II working- but now under my 'more applications' it shows 3 icons for warcraft. Any way to remove this/uninstall this ?

i installed what said above with hopes that Snes9x would work but still no luck.

[gogalthorp]

wine is installed by default, but it is always good to get the latest

Just right click like you would in windows.

BTW you should still read the links I gave. It wiill give you many choices of media players to use amarok is the best mp3 player. but you need the win32 codecs. Also be sure that you install the compiler and kernel source as a power user you will need them.