MPlayer and Places menu

[jonny75904]

I am new to Linux, about two weeks into it. I am pleased with my ubuntu installation, at least, until last night.

Now when I go to places and select a folder (be it music, video, picture) it tries to open it with mplayer - it does this for both left and right click.

The only configuration change I am aware of is my wife set up and used Transmission Torrent yesterday, so I am wondering if perhaps it tried to integrate itself into OS functionality and went wrong??

So I uninstalled TT, and installed Vuze, not to fix anything, just to give my wife a different torrent client, but now I have to figure out how to repair the damage done. I tried uninstalling mplayer without success because of dependencies, and cannot figure out how to get to any kind of mplayer config menu.

Am I backed against a reinstall? What can I do to fix this?

[larryfroot]

Try right clicking on a file, from the menu choose 'open with' tag. There should be options on there to change the app used to work with that particular file type.

If thats no good you could also try the --purge switch with apt remove.

try

sudo apt-get remove --purge mplayer

This will not only remove mplayer, but should clean up the configuration changes it has made. While you're still on apt in command line, for good measure type

sudo apt-get autoremove

this removes packages installed as part of mplayers dependencies but that nothing else actually needs.

Finally you can

sudo apt-get autoclean

does what it says on the tin.

Also there is bleachbit - it removes uneeded references and temp files, stuff like that.

I installed it from a .deb and it works well for me (intrepid, unmodded kernel)

I got it from:

BleachBit - Cleans unnecessary files to free disk space and maintain privacy -- Ubuntu Geek

That should remove mplayer and all its jazz too.

Good luck....and vuze is a brilliant torrent client, but please be patient with it, go to the wiki and learn to set it up properly. Its just a matter of following the advice given. You will be rewarded with really, really fast downloads, much more so than using transmission.

Whoa, just noticed something I should have spotted first time - sorry, just back from two hours at the dentist - mplayer can't be removed due to dependencies? Hmmm thats a new one to me. I am downloading mplayer as I type and will try uninstalling it...perhaps that will prompt my memory or something.

OK I have downloaded mplayer and then removed it again using apt-get install and apt-get remove. The remove dialogue outputs the names of a few packages that fall into the autoremove category. They can be safely removed after removing mplayer using apt-get autoremove as mentioned above.

Have you got any other software that depends on mplayer (or at least an mplayer plugin) as part of its gig?

Perhaps if none of the above works, go into synaptic and search for 'mplayer' - without the ' ' marks- and see what else comes up that might be using it. I know that the screenlets radio applet needs mplayer installed for a start. Let us know whats going on! I'm pretty naff at config files etc, but I'm sure that should you need an ubuntu kung fu wallah, you will find one on the forum.

[reed9]

Weird that it got mplayer into the default. You can change it through the properties menu on any folder. Manually open nautilus (alt+F2>type nautilus), right click on a folder, go to properties>open with...and select or manually enter nautilus.

[jonny75904]

I am not at home so I cannot test that right away, but I do have a question: Since it opens mplayer on a right click as well (on places menu) will that effective?

More importantly... eh... what is nautilus?

[larryfroot]

Sorry mate! Nautilus is the file manager - the 'places' menu home folder is opened in nautilus. its the 'my computer' of the gnome desktop, only its more useful.

Also the 'open with' tag from the right click on a file menu has an 'add' button so you can choose which application you want to associate with that particular file type, if the app you want to use isn't in the shortlist initially given.

[Parthiban]

how can i install vlc media player in suse linux and ubuntu

[larryfroot]

in ubuntu the easiest way is to type

sudo apt-get install vlc

into a terminal window.

If you want to install something that you haven't the full name of, or search for an application by type (such as word processor or dvd ripper) go to System > Adminstration > synaptic and use its search facility.

Suse uses a different method of handling and installing packages called RPM (Red hat Package Manager). But I am sure that you can find it by opening up the suse package manager and searching for it. I have very little experience outside of ubuntu. You can (if you havent already) post the question in the suse section of the forum.

For more information and an excellent resource try

Ubuntu Screencasts |

That will give you an excellent grounding in ubuntu.

[D-cat]

In SuSE, you want to have a packman repository set up in Yast -> Software -> Software Sources. You can also add VLC's own repository, which is good for adding the libdvdcss package (which allows you to play commercial DVD's).

Once that's done, you can search for vlc in Yast -> Software -> Software Management. Yast will autoselect any available dependencies needed to run vlc right. You might also want to add mozilla-plugin-vlc (or vlc-mozillaplugin , depending on distro and repo) to play embedded videos inside firefox.