video player & modem drivers

[Rick Stevens]

Dany Gates wrote:
> hi, thanks for ur support till now , u guys are amazing!!! help me one 
> more time. Tell me the name of the  best video player available for red 
> hat linux 9 and in the form of rpm( i dont'  wanna compile the src code 
> and stuff) .

xine comes with RH9 and works pretty well for unencrypted DVDs.  I use
ogle on Fedora (haven't tried it on RH9 yet).

> Next thing is i have got drivers for my pctel modem in form of tarballs 
> and need to install it. now i have learnt to install them but will they 
> go to right place after installation and start working right away or 
> will i have to do some more work on it so that my modem starts working???

Generally speaking, the tarball will contain a README file and an
INSTALL file that tell you what to do.  You will need to have the gcc
system installed (the C compiler).

Find or create a scratch directory somewhere (I generally create a
"/usr/xxx" directory for that sort of thing).  Move the tarball to
that directory and "cd" to the directory.

The command to unpack a tarball is "tar xzf filename.tar.gz" or
"tar xzf filename.tgz".  That will unpack the contents of the tarball
into the current directory, but leave the tarball itself untouched (in
case something goes wrong and you need to start over).  After the
command completes, "cd" to the directory the unpack created and look for
the "INSTALL" file.  Read it.

Generally, the sequence of operations for tarball installs are:

	1. Unpack it (you've already done that)
	2. "cd" to the working directory (again, you've done that)
	3. Run "./configure" to configure the source code
	4. Run "make" to build the binary
	5. Run "make install" to install the binary code

This should be detailed in the INSTALL file.  Again, these are general
guidelines.  Any individual package may vary, somtimes significantly,
from what I've described above.

Good luck.  Let us know if you have more problems.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-    When you don't know what to do, walk fast and look worried.     -
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