Multimedia for Openbox

caesium5 · 2009-05-03 04:26:21

Just install Arch with openbox and is googling for the appropriate multimedia packages to install.
Seems like gstreamer and aRTS is the default for gnome and kde respectively.

From googling, the following packages seems quite popular/common to install :

lame
ffmpeg
mencoder
w32codecs

For Arch with openbox, any recommendations what packages (common packages?) to install for a complete multimedia experience ?
Or do I need also to install gstreamer/aRTS ?

Joe_Arch · 2009-05-03 05:04:27

This may be relevant to your interests.

caesium5 · 2009-05-03 05:19:31

Joe_Arch, thanks for info.

Had read that page before posting,
however I am hoping for some insight and understanding of what is the "right" multimedia packages that should be installed.

Varreon · 2009-05-03 05:20:41

I use VLC for all my media, although Sonata + MPD is really popular for music. You might want to try xmms instead; mpd is quite different from your typical mp3 player.

Xyne · 2009-05-03 05:49:49

Your question implies that you're under the impression that you have to download all of the packages necessary to play various things yourself. You should only need to download codec packages yourself if you intend to work with them directly. In most cases though pacman will download the required codec packages in order to solve a multimedia package's dependencies.

What do you want to do exactly? If you just want to watch videos and play music, all you need is something like vlc (pacman -S vlc). That will enable you to watch and listen to just about anything. If you need to edit video then you'll have to look into which app suits your purpose, but you will probably only need to install that app explicitly... pacman will take care of the rest.

If you give us more information then it will be easier to suggest apps and packages. Try not to think along the lines of "KDE and Gnome have this so I should install it." but rather "This is what I need to do, what can do it?". One of the main reasons of using Openbox (and Arch) is to avoid installing a bunch of bloat that you'll never use.

Welcome to the forum!

caesium5 · 2009-05-03 06:15:12

Xyne wrote:

What do you want to do exactly? If you just want to watch videos and play music, all you need is something like vlc (pacman -S vlc). That will enable you to watch and listen to just about anything. If you need to edit video then you'll have to look into which app suits your purpose, but you will probably only need to install that app explicitly... pacman will take care of the rest.
If you give us more information then it will be easier to suggest apps and packages. Try not to think along the lines of "KDE and Gnome have this so I should install it." but rather "This is what I need to do, what can do it?". One of the main reasons of using Openbox (and Arch) is to avoid installing a bunch of bloat that you'll never use.

Hi Xyne, thanks for asking

Using other distro had me knowing that Linux can do almost anything.
Understand that installing vlc, mplayer, xine, totem will enable me to play most audio, video.
Also avidemux, audacity, cinelerra will enable me to edit most audio, video.

However, really hoping to understand and learn what is the packages that is making these possible.
Googling points to packages like gstreamer, aRTs, mencoder, lame, ffmpeg and the more I read, the more confused I was.

Hoping to get some insight by installing and using Arch - with some help from this forum

Xyne · 2009-05-03 06:48:49

If you need to know what packages are required by another, you can use pacman, e.g.

pacman -Si vlc

The "Depends on" line will show you which packages it needs. Just remember that pacman installs those packages automatically. You do not need to install them yourself and if you do, you will be left with "orphans". Check the pacman manual page for more info about pacman (command: "man pacman").

If you really want to learn more about packages you can start looking at how they're made:
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS … _Explained

caesium5 · 2009-05-03 07:09:37

Not really concern about the dependencies , pacman definitely will take care of that

but rather what is required , something like,

when installing Arch with openbox, do I need to install mencoder, gstreamer, ffmpeg, lame etc.?
all these packages almost do similar things and is a little confused on what should be used.

installing all isn't a big issue but
is hoping to understand why only this package or why not all the packages list above.

apologize if I am not able to clearly explain my intent

Xyne · 2009-05-03 07:37:25

caesium5 wrote:

when installing Arch with openbox, do I need to install mencoder, gstreamer, ffmpeg, lame etc.?
all these packages almost do similar things and is a little confused on what should be used.

The thing is that an Arch system is a customized system. Arch let's you use exactly what you want to use. What you "need" to install depends on you. If you don't edit video then you don't "need" avidemux, for example. Many Archers run openbox but use completely different packages.

Try the different packages to see which ones you like. If one package is missing a feature that you want, try another one. Many packages do similar things but very differently. Openbox and fluxbox are both window managers and quite similar in many ways, but they are also very different in many other ways. The best way to choose a package is to try it.

Different packages will also have different dependencies. If you're running openbox and want to have a light-weight system, stay away from KDE and Gnome applications because they usually have many dependencies.

I'm sorry if I haven't answered your question but I don't really understand what you want. Your replies indicate that you are looking for what you "should" install, but there is no such thing. If you want to watch movies and listen to music, try vlc. If you don't like vlc, try mplayer. If you don't like mplayer, try... etc. If you need to encode mp3 files yourself, install lame, if not, don't,etc.

If you want to know why there are different packages that do similar things, talk to the developers of those packages.

caesium5 · 2009-05-03 07:49:57

Thanks for the communication,

guess that's part and parcel of learning

der_joachim · 2009-05-03 08:03:10

As far as I've understood (please correct me if I am wrong), there is a number of codecs and multimedia backends. A few common backends are xine and gstream. Codecs are just codecs. Audio/video players use these backends, and some apps (like amarok) even allow the user to choose.

As for apps: my openbox setup has one app for playing video: VLC. As somebody already commented in this thread, it plays anything. An added bonus that it is very light, even if it is a QT app. For audio I prefer something more intelligent though. I used amarok 1.X, but IMHO 2.X is horrible. The arch wiki pointed me to goggles music manager. It is very light, has many options and it does everything that I want a good audio player to do (except maybe playing audio CDs, but my netbook has no optical drive anyway). It is in the repos, so give it a spin.

Last edited by der_joachim (2009-05-03 08:05:32)

LeoSolaris · 2009-05-03 21:51:05

Personally I have had some pretty good luck with ffmpeg as a backend. I use it with mplayer and VLC (depending on what I feel like using, they are both about even, but I like mplayer's popup menu in full screen over VLC's but that is probably just because I like the small blue arch

Generally the backends are pulled in for the media program your using. Totem pulls in the gstreamer stuff for instance. Sometimes it makes since to have different players that use different backends because one may play things better than another. Even though mplayer and VLC use the same backends, sometimes mplayer plays things smoother and sometimes VLC plays things better.

adamlau · 2009-05-04 06:56:13

I use SMPlayer + Mplayer for all my multimedia playback needs. You can get away with just Mplayer, but I prefer the SMPlayer UI, even if it is a bit slow and clunky...

Arch Linux

#1 2009-05-03 04:26:21

Multimedia for Openbox

#2 2009-05-03 05:04:27

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#3 2009-05-03 05:19:31

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#4 2009-05-03 05:20:41

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#5 2009-05-03 05:49:49

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#6 2009-05-03 06:15:12

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#7 2009-05-03 06:48:49

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#8 2009-05-03 07:09:37

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#9 2009-05-03 07:37:25

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#10 2009-05-03 07:49:57

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#11 2009-05-03 08:03:10

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#12 2009-05-03 21:51:05

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

#13 2009-05-04 06:56:13

Re: Multimedia for Openbox

Board footer