Re: Trying out Linux for newbie

From: Chris Share (chris_at_caesium.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: 11/13/03 

Date: 12 Nov 2003 23:51:01 GMT

On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 21:32:44 GMT, Dariusz <ng@lycaus.plusYOUR***.com> wrote:
> Playing videos:
> (Suse) - Kaffine Media Player 0.3.2
> 1)
> Although not exclusive to this "Live" Linux distro, can you get the
> mediaplayer to auto adjust the dimensions of the video (like Windows
> MediaPlayer) instead of the players video window staying at the same
> dimension no matter what the actual video clips size is.

It's certainly possible in mplayer, but I haven't used GUI media players
in a while - mplayer foo.avi froma console works easiest for me :)

> 2)
> Are there any codecs that will allow playing of the Microsoft WMF / ASF
> formats?

mplayer can play almost anything you throw at it - I've not found any
videos my current mplayer can't play :)
I think xine plays wmv/asf as well.

> 3)
> Can you stop the scrolling text at the bottom of the player from telling me
> the properties of the video playing? It's irritating.

Find a different video player? mplayer, xine, plus various frontends.

> 4)
> Does Linux play DVD films?

Ogle plays them wonderfully, including menu support.

> 6)
> I take it that Winmodems are pretty much unrecognised under Linux unless
> you pay for a driver, is this correct? My Winmodem does Fax as well, is it
> recognisable as a Fax in Linux or not?

That used to be true, but not so much anymore. My conexant hcf winmodem
works just as well in linux as in windows. As for fax, I don't know.

> Misc:
> 7)
> Whilst trying out one of the "Live" distros, an application locked up (but
> didn't lock Linux :) ). In Windows the "Control + Alt + Delete" keys will
> allow (usually) the ability to kill the offending programme. I would like
> to try to redo the same thing I did to lockup to see how it kills a
> programme. Could anyone tell me how to do this with Linux?

Depends how it locks up.. if the rest of the gui still works, then ps
and kill are your friends from another console window. If X(the GUI) itself
locks up, ctrl-alt-bksp restarts X.

> As a prospective newbie to Linux, I am concerned a bit on reading that
> people compile this that and the other for their use. Can anyone allay my
> fears on having to do this.

Compiling is not at all necessary to use linux, if you don't want to do
it.

> I have also read about something called
> "dependencies", how "bad" is this issue?
>
> Thanks
>
> Dariusz

Dependencies are things like program foo needs library bar to run, so it
won't let you install foo without bar being installed. However urpmi in
mandrake should mostly fix this problem. And if it doesn't, it tells you
what is missing so you can install it manually.

chris