Media (DVD, web content, video & audio) playback in Fedora

***Firewing1*** · #1 2006-03-23, 10:30 PM CST

Note: This howto has been transferred to my blog here. (Instructions for Fedora 7+ can be found here)

Hello,
There have been many complaints about media not working in Fedora - MP3s, DVDs, etc. So, I decided to make this guide to help out - By installing a few packages, you can get the codecs for these media or media formats, and solve the problem.

Before we begin, all of these packages require the livna repo to be installed, so let's do that first:

Code:

rpm -Uhv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-VERSION.rpm

Remember to replace VERSION with your Fedora release version - eg 5, 6, 7, etc.

General Info

I'm going to separate the sections of this howto by program name, but I recommend that you install them all as many compliment or depend on each other. If you know what each does individually, then you can install them but please don't post about things not playing when all programs aren't installed - many provide codecs that will be shared with other programs, allowing them to decode that media, too.

If you want to skip the reading and take the shortcut, installing them all at once, here's the commands:

Code:

su -
yum -y remove totem totem-plparser;yum -y install totem-xine totem-xine-plparser rhythmbox mplayerplug-in mplayer mplayer-gui xine-lib-extras-nonfree libdvdcss libdvdread libdvdplay libdvdnav lsdvd libdvbpsi compat-libstdc++-33

DVD playback
Just a few libraries should do it:

Code:

yum -y install libdvdcss libdvdread libdvdplay libdvdnav lsdvd libdvbpsi

totem-xine
totem-xine is a movie player that is based on xine and not gstreamer, and as a result this will let you view DVDs and more types of media from the same interface that the default Fedora Core's totem package provides.

Code:

su -
yum remove totem totem-plparser -y;yum install totem-xine totem-xine-plparser rhythmbox xine-lib-extras-nonfree -y

mplayer and mplayer-plugin
mplayer is also a movie player, but the graphical interface is harder to use compared to totem-xine, and there is no support for menus in movies at the moment of writing. That is why I find totem-xine superior, but mplayer does have a web media plugin for Mozilla / Firefox and contains tons of coedcs.

Code:

su -
yum -y install mplayer mplayer-gui mplayerplug-in

w32codecs ** (WMV/WMA playback!) **
Note: This package has been discontinued at ATRPMs but it doesn't seem to make a difference on new systems anyways.
w32codecs is plain and simply an assembled pack of Windows codecs. Here's how to install it:

Code:

su - wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/w32codec-1.0_20050412-13.at.i386.rpm yum install compat-libstdc++-33 -y rpm -ihv w32codec-1.0_20050412-13.at.i386.rpm rm w32codec-1.0_20050412-13.at.i386.rpm

gstreamer and gstreamer-plugins ** (MP3 playback!) **
It's always a good idea to install gstreamer, both to enable mp3 playback and also for the various codecs.

Code:

su -
yum install gstreamer gstreamer-plugins gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-plugins-ugly

Macromedia Flash Player
Just run this:

Code:

wget http://macromedia.mplug.org/macromedia-i386.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/macromedia-i386.repo
yum install flash-plugin

Java & Java web plugin
Please see this howto.

RealPlayer
Please click on the "Download RPM Package" link from this page: RealPlayer Linux home
Save that file to your home, and then open up a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal) and type:

Code:

cd ~
su
rpm -Uhv RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm
rm RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm -f
exit
exit

RealPlayer should now be installed, along with it's Mozilla helper so you can view media in Firefox.

Enjoy!
Firewing1

fedorange · #2 2006-03-23, 10:38 PM CST

what a mess! who'd want to mix repos, install stuff with "--nodeps", and make unmanageable symbolic links. When livna updates totem-xine later, you'll be hosed.

No thanks.

You'd be better off compiling Totem from source. The latest version is 1.4.0 which is even much better.

***Firewing1*** · #3 2006-03-23, 10:41 PM CST

True, the problem is I tried that and it bugs. It says "you need xine-lib development packages" etc and I do, the xine-lib-devel package of livna. Anyways, true, it's not good to make unmanageable symlinks, but then I'll make an uninstall guide when an update comes out:

Code:

su -
rm /lib/libdbus-1.so.1 /usr/lib/libdbus-glib-1.so.1
rpm -e totem-xine
yum install totem-xine

and there you have it.
BTW, I've checked them through and though these spec. packages from Nrpms and ATrpms are safe. No worries.
Firewing1

AHMED_AM · #4 2006-03-26, 05:10 AM CST

i Do not Know How To Thank You

Your Post & Other Similar Posts Are The Best

***sailor*** · #5 2006-03-26, 06:33 PM CST

The first thing I do is get rid of totem ....and then install xine, dvdcss, and the win32 codecs...works everytime....

Bandit · #6 2006-03-26, 11:57 PM CST

Just FYI, I noticed that Xine-lib 1.1.1 wouldnt compile on FC5. But the CVS version 1.1.2 works great. It is very easy to compile. Just make sure when you use the ./autogen.sh from the CVS to re-compile and use ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-mozilla. If you dont re-configure it will be installed to /usr/local, Then Totem will not see it.
Totem 1.4.0 compiles very well also, just leave the RPM installed and install this one over it. It want break anything. But, if there is a update you will have to install your version again. So keep the folder around.

Cheers,
Bandit

***Firewing1*** · #7 2006-03-27, 02:49 PM CST

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bandit

Just FYI, I noticed that Xine-lib 1.1.1 wouldnt compile on FC5. But the CVS version 1.1.2 works great. It is very easy to compile. Just make sure when you use the ./autogen.sh from the CVS to re-compile and use ./configure --prefix=/usr --with-mozilla. If you dont re-configure it will be installed to /usr/local, Then Totem will not see it.
Totem 1.4.0 compiles very well also, just leave the RPM installed and install this one over it. It want break anything. But, if there is a update you will have to install your version again. So keep the folder around.

Cheers,
Bandit

totem-xine 1.4.0 from Livna just came out, dut to my & a few other's postings in their Bugzilla. You can now simply update it with:

Code:

yum update totem-xine

Enjoy!
Firewing1

Bandit · #8 2006-03-27, 05:57 PM CST

Kewl thanks

tseliot · #9 2006-03-31, 09:58 PM CST

This is what I'm getting here:

Code:

yum install totem-xine
Loading "installonlyn" plugin
Setting up Install Process
Setting up repositories
livna                                                                [1/8]
gst-0.10-apps                                                        [2/8]
updates                                                              [3/8]
core                                                                 [4/8]
freshrpms                                                            [5/8]
macromedia                                                           [6/8]
extras                                                               [7/8]
gst-0.10-gst                                                         [8/8]
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Parsing package install arguments
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Downloading header for totem-xine to pack into transaction set.
totem-xine-1.4.0-1.lvn5.i 100% |=========================|  33 kB    00:00
---> Package totem-xine.i386 0:1.4.0-1.lvn5 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Conflict: totem-xine conflicts totem
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: totem-xine conflicts with totem

And this is the content of my /etc/yum.repos.d:

Code:

atrpms.repo                     livna-devel.repo
fedora-core.repo                livna.repo
fedora-development.repo         livna-testing.repo
fedora-extras-development.repo  macromedia-i386.repo
fedora-extras.repo              macromedia-i386.repo.1
fedora-legacy.repo              macromedia-i386.repo.2
fedora-updates.repo             macromedia-i386.repo.3
fedora-updates-testing.repo     macromedia-i386.repo.4
freshrpms.repo                  mirrors-rpmforge
gstreamer.repo                  rpmforge.repo

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

***Firewing1*** · #10 2006-03-31, 10:08 PM CST

Do a

Code:

rpm -e totem

first.
Firewing1

tseliot · #11 2006-03-31, 10:21 PM CST

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firewing1

Do a

Code:

rpm -e totem

first.
Firewing1

Here's the output:

Code:

 rpm -e totem
error: Failed dependencies:
        libtotem-plparser.so.1 is needed by (installed) rhythmbox-0.9.3.1-3.i386

tseliot · #12 2006-03-31, 11:12 PM CST

I did:
yum erase totem

it asked me to remove rythmbox as well (I said yes)

then I installed totem-xine.

I also reinstalled rythmbox

It works now

***Firewing1*** · #13 2006-04-06, 07:26 PM CDT

then do

Code:

rpm -e totem rhythmbox
yum install totem-xine rhythmbox

Firewing1

imdeemvp · #14 2006-04-06, 08:22 PM CDT

ALL multimedia topics for fedora core has always been cover here.

ramimgh · #15 2006-04-06, 09:26 PM CDT

i did all that and when i tried to do the last command, i got this:

[root@localhost ~]# rpm -Uhv w32codec-1.0_20050412-12.at.i386.rpm
warning: w32codec-1.0_20050412-12.at.i386.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 66534c2b
error: Failed dependencies:
libstdc++.so.5 is needed by w32codec-1.0_20050412-12.at.i386
libstdc++.so.5(CXXABI_1.2) is needed by w32codec-1.0_20050412-12.at.i386
libstdc++.so.5(GLIBCPP_3.2) is needed by w32codec-1.0_20050412-12.at.i386