Got Linux?

Posted: September 4, 2007 - 4:36pm

Most of the tech-support issues that come up have to do with Windows or Mac OS. But we often hear the Linux users mention that things have not yet attained perfection in their part of the world, and their comments may get lost in the stampede of QuickTime and Windows Media questions. So we thought maybe Linux folks deserved their own topic.


Comments

Okay, first of all...

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Let's just say I am not a Linux expert. I am not even a Linux newbie. Let's also say that open source folks in general and Linux users in particular are big on mutual assistance, and a darn good thing too, as it will probably be needed from time to time. But all that said, welcome! (Or, you know it's gonna get stranger...)

Streaming audio/video

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From time to time, when the issue of streaming audio or video on this site comes up, Linux users say they're left out in the cold, having neither Windows nor QuickTime.

It has been suggested that this player might do the job:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/info.html

In theory, it supports the necessary formats. In practice, we don't know. We would welcome reports from any intrepid souls who wanted to test this.

Ubantu

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I have been reading about this open source goodie. Does anyone on here play around with it? I have a older pentium system(s) that I want to experiment with but when I download the viewable CD it doesnt want to boot. Whos 'in da know' on here?
Eric

Ubuntu rocks, but not on Dead.net

I have mplayer installed, and the ability to play windows media, and quicktime files offline. Streaming does not work.

Yes I'm frustrated, Monday's just aren't fun without my Taper's section.

Scoobie
Lay it down dirty, play it back clean.

See if this player works...

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http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Thank you, this is very helpful.

 

Streaming on Linux

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VLC as mentioned should do the trick. Works well for me on Fedora 8, especially for gdradio.net which is on in my office almost continually. Do make sure that you also install all the plugins/codecs, even the ones with scary sounding things in their names like "bad" and "ugly." Many streams are encoded by proprietary algorithms, and as such need to be decoded by proprietary algorithms. For a variety of reasons, those codecs are not *generally* distributed, but they are *generally* available. Make sure to check what is available at the repository you install from.

Other stream browsing clients you might be interested in are xine which has a browser plugin, and helix which is the open source variant of RealPlayer.

Conversation is always more interesting than recitation, so speak your mind and not someone else's.