gxine: PuppyLinux

Revision [6233]

This is an old revision of Gxine made by coolpup on 2010-03-25 09:04:43.

gxine graphical user interface for the xine multimedia player

software package(s)

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=40912

This article describes the configuration of the Gxine media player for Puppy Linux for beginners and advanced users.

If your question about Gxine is not answered here please post it to the Puppy Linux Discussion Forum under:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=23806

The target of this HOWTO is to supply comprehensive information about the use and configuration of gxine within Puppy Linux.

2. Introduction

Xine is the default media player in Puppy Linux. Gxine is one of many graphical user interfaces of the xine engine.
Gxine as it is shipped with Puppy runs a lot of media formats like CDs, DVDs and videos without problem and even the Windows media formats are supported rather good.

The home page of (g)xine is:
http://www.xinehq.de

Many questions about (g)xine are answered at:
http://www.xinehq.de/index.php/faq

3. Additional Packages for Gxine

The Puppy-Paket-manager offers 3 pakets for (g)xine:

xine_extra_codecs-1: RealVideo, Quicktime, etc.
xine_lib_DOC-1.1.4" Documentation about xine
xine_lib_NLS-1.1.4" Translations of the xine-library to Spanish German French Italian ...

So the first thing you should do if a media format can not be played is to install the xine_extra_codecs-1 package.

After you have installed this package you have to open the gxine dialog :

File/Configure/Preferences

Within the gui-register you have to select at least "Advanced"
Now you see more registers.
Select decoders and make shure that the path is set to:

/usr/lib/win32 for real_codecs_path and win32_codecs_path

Now after a restart of gxine you are able to use the installed codecs.

4. Gxine within SeaMonkey

SeaMonkey has a gxine starter plugin (gxineplugin.so) that starts gxine automatically if the following media are detected:

MIME-Type..................Description............Extension
video/mpeg....................MPEG animation........mpeg, mpg, mpe
video/x-mpeg.................MPEG animation........mpeg, mpg, mpe
audio/mpeg2..................MPEG audio...............mp2
audio/x-mpeg2...............MPEG audio...............mp2
audio/mpeg3..................MPEG audio...............mp3
audio/x-mpeg3...............MPEG audio...............mp3
audio/mpeg....................MPEG audio...............mpa,abs,mpega
audio/x-mpeg.................MPEG audio...............mpa,abs,mpega
video/quicktime.............Quicktime animation..mov,qt
video/x-quicktime .........Quicktime animation..mov,qt
video/msvideo...............AVI animation............avi
video/x-msvideo............AVI animation............avi
application/x-mplayer2..mplayer2...................asf,asx,asp
video/x-ms-asf-plugin....mms animation..........asf,asx,asp
audio/x-ogg...................OGG Media................ogg,ogm
audio/x-scpls.................MPEG audio...............pls

Besides of that Gxine is able to play these formats too if the xine_extra_codecs-1 package has been installed:

Quicktime...........mov,mp4
RealPlayer..........rm, ram
Windows Media..asf,wmv,wma

So for example: If SeaMonkey asks you what to do with the file media.wmv just enter:

Open with: /usr/local/bin/defaultmediaplayer
or:
Open with: /usr/(local/)bin/gxine

depending on the directory where gxine was installed.

5. Problems

5.1. Gxine freezes

Starting with Puppy 3.01 gxine has the tendency to freeze if it starts playing new media. It is not clear whether this behavior is due to the new kernel version 2.6.21.7 or the new gxine version 0.5.11. I had some cases that it sometimes recovered if it was left alone some minutes. So I think it is a loading problem of gxine. Gxine 0.5.9 within Puppy 2.17 with a kernel version of 2.6.21.5 runs rather stable.

Anyway in this state it doesn't react on input anymore. The only way to finish it, seems to be the kill popup. But if you try to start gxine again nothing will happen. The reason is that a gxine process is still running without user interface. Only if it has been killed by KP or a Console kill gxine can be started again.

On my PC calling KCCG-TV2 from Media/TV always leeds to this freezing.

5.2. RealAudio COOK audio decoder missing

After installation of the xine_extra_codecs-1 package you are able to watch, for example, the TV-program Media/TV/Boston Channel 22 Life. But you have no sound.
If you try to find the reason within View/Engine Log/messages you see the message:

audio_decoder: no plugin available to handle 'RealAudio COOK'

According the information about MPlayer-codecs in

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/codecs-status.html

RealAudio COOK resides within cook.so.6.0 which is within /usr/lib/win32.
Has anyone any idea?

5.3. Is the RealAudio COOK audio decoder needed?

The peculiarities with Media/TV/Boston Channel 22 Life continue.
Without the installation of the xine_extra_codecs-1 package Boston Channel 22 Life has sound but no screen.

Within View/Engine Log/messages you see the following messages:

21:17:43: video_decoder: no plugin available to handle 'Real Video 3.0'
21:17:43: xine: found demuxer plugin: RealMedia file demux plugin
21:17:41: xine: found input plugin : rtsp streaming input plugin
21:17:33: xine: found demuxer plugin: Elementary MPEG stream demux plugin
21:17:32: xine: found input plugin : file input plugin

So the question is: Why gxine demands the "RealAudio COOK audio decoder" after installation of the xine_extra_codecs-1 package if sound was ok without this package?

5.4. The media list is obsolete

Calling for example CSPAN-1 will generate the two Errors:
1. "Unknown host: unable to resolve wms-rbn-sea18.rbn.com" and

2. "The xine engine failed to start.
No input plugin was found.
Maybe the file does not exist or cannot be accessed,
or there is an error in the URL."

5.5. Some programs take a long time until they are displayed

After calling for example alternative.nu gxine doesn't react nearly 30 seconds. Watching the engine log you find no error message and "oops" after about one minute the program runs without problem.

5.6. Streams from SeaMonkey are not displayed

Calling streams from a homepage like
http://global-itv.com
will cause SeaMonkey to display a message like:
The file "germany00000079.asx" is of type video/x-ms-asf, and SeaMonkey does not know how to handle this file type.

Opening the file with defaultmediaplayer (gxine) will show no result.

5.7. audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin

Trying to watch streams from some pages leeds to the message:

This page contains information of a type (audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin) that can only be viewed with the appropriate Plug-in

Click OK to download Plugin

Clicking OK leads to

RealPlayer

asking to install RealPlayer10.
Maybe someone knows whether it is possible to activate this plugin for gxine without installing RealPlayer. If it is impossible it is a valid information for this HOWTO.

5.8. xine_lib_DOC-1.1.4 and xine_lib_NLS-1.1.4 removed from package list in Puppy 3.01

For obscure reasons starting with Puppy 3.00 xine_lib_DOC-1.1.4 and xine_lib_NLS-1.1.4 can not be installed any more out of the Puppy-paket-manager's paket list but you still can install them manually:

1. Download the package from
ftp://nluug.nl/ftp/pub/os/Linux/distr/puppylinux/pet_packages-2
or a similar server.

2. Install by clicking the package in ROX-Filer.

6. Epilogue

This wiki has been created by Wosh

Feel free to add posts.
Feel free to correct my English, because I am not native English speaking.
Add your experiences, solutions or bugs found.
If you never have edited a Wiki. It is quite easy, read UsingThisWiki
for more information.
The aim of this HOWTO is to answer as much as possible questions about the use and configuration of gxine within Puppy-Linux.

When installed available from: Menu > Multimedia > Gxine

PuppyLinux : Gxine