Leo Posted September 15, 2003 Report Share Posted September 15, 2003 First off, apologies if this is in the wrong place, please move it if necessary. Where should I be putting the source for new applications when I download and install them? What I mean is that I have recently tried to install mplayer which I installed from my home directory this put all the mplayer files in /home/leo/MPlayer-0.90/ inorder to get the gui working I need libpng so I got the downloads which I put in /home/leo/src/libpng-1.2.5/ but I am wondering if I ought to be putting all these files somewhere else as it seems a bit odd to have them in my home directory when, theoretically, they would be used by all the other users. What is the 'best practice' for this, I ask because I can see myself getting my files into a right state and not being able to find anything if I go on like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted September 15, 2003 Report Share Posted September 15, 2003 First question, did you try. #urpmi mplayer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Posted September 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2003 No I didn't, I got mplayer off a magazine (actually of a disk on the front of a magazine but now I'm splitting hairs :) ) so I followed the instructions given which were ./configure make make install It has not worked quite as it should have so I have been playing around (I got it to work from the command line and am now working on getting the gui working). I am quite happy buggering about this way (I realise that there are simpler and easier ways to do it but I would like to learn more about what they actually do by doing it the long way myself). I also quite enjoy puzzling this stuff out for myself before asking for help. Am I right in assuming that urpmi would install it and all its dependencies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted September 15, 2003 Report Share Posted September 15, 2003 No I didn't, I got mplayer off a magazine (actually of a disk on the front of a magazine but now I'm splitting hairs :) ) so I followed the instructions given which were ./configure<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteEBegin-->make<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteEBegin-->make install It has not worked quite as it should have so I have been playing around (I got it to work from the command line and am now working on getting the gui working). I am quite happy buggering about this way (I realise that there are simpler and easier ways to do it but I would like to learn more about what they actually do by doing it the long way myself). I also quite enjoy puzzling this stuff out for myself before asking for help. Am I right in assuming that urpmi would install it and all its dependencies? urpmi would solve deps. Do this and report back what you have: #locate mplayer #whereis mplayer run those commands and show us your output. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Posted September 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2003 OK: [root@localhost src]# locate mplayer bash: locate: command not found [root@localhost src]# whereis mplayer mplayer: /usr/local/bin/mplayer /usr/local/etc/mplayer /usr/local/lib/mplayer [root@localhost src]# Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted September 15, 2003 Report Share Posted September 15, 2003 If you want a gui in mplayer I think you have to do: ./configure --enable-gui or something like that. It's been awhile but I know it's discussed in the ReadMe file that comes with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Posted September 15, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 15, 2003 If you want a gui in mplayer I think you have to do: Code: ./configure --enable-gui or something like that. It's been awhile but I know it's discussed in the ReadMe file that comes with it. Yes, I also need to install libpng and zlib but was wondering whether I ought to be putting the associated source files and directories in any particular place (to aid smoother installation and maintenance , also just to keep my directory structure in some kind of order :) ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sas Posted September 16, 2003 Report Share Posted September 16, 2003 i put the apps i'm installing by source in /usr/local/src then do the configure and make dance. It doesn't actually matter where you put them as far as i can tell. make install put's the binary files that make makes in the places where they need to be and doesn't look back at the source files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Posted September 17, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2003 That makes sense, thanks Leo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted September 17, 2003 Report Share Posted September 17, 2003 Leo, Your probably guessing by now Linux has 1001 ways to do everything and its down to personal preference. Now: Your preference is important. Mandrake have created a system called urpmi which makes things very easy for noobies who have a good internet connection! If you have braodband then if you just want mediaplayer working you can use urpmi and its the most painless way possible once you set it up. Do a search on easy urpmi on this board for how to set it up! Now on the other hand your preference might be educational and learning... In that case compiling from source is also informative/educational etc. If your emphasis is spped then mplayer and multimedia are areas where you can really benefit from comiling yourself too. Personally I prefer a mixture.... There is so much software available I like to try it out without the hassle. Using urpmi I can install and deinstall (if I decide) easily. Its not the most optimum but if I end up using it daily I'll invest the time to recompile it! This has another hidden advantage... The libraries were already installed. So with a bit of luck you can compile them all seperately (as you like). ie. You can just recompile mplayer without the libraries and test it. If its still working you can then choose to download the library source and recompile that one by one. Mainly (unless you have real version probs) it will keep working inbetween so it isn't all or nothing. I'd say I use urpmi almost exclusively now Im busy. From time to time I'll recomile something critical but its usually an encoding or decoding library. These can take advantage of the chipset MM functions and use the CISC instructions better so its worth a bit of investment of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leo Posted September 17, 2003 Author Report Share Posted September 17, 2003 My intention was to attempt to learn more by going the long way round, I also only have a 56k modem so can't download anything too large. I am also a bit wary of some of the "easy" tools since I haven't yet managed to do anything with MCC that has not cocked up, I am guessing it is more the users fault than the tooll though so once again I am back to attempting to lear what I am doing before handing control over to the software. At times it gets a bit disheartening, however, having spent the best part of the afternoon at work trying to work out why a certain OS was telling me my password was wrong only to find out that what it meant to say was that my connection was down, I think I will hang in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jlc Posted September 17, 2003 Report Share Posted September 17, 2003 You could alway's do something like ./configure prefix=/usr/local/share or were ever you decide to put it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest linus24 Posted October 6, 2003 Report Share Posted October 6, 2003 /opt maybe? check out the FHS, that could help you. :D :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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