Xine or VLC for Xerus64

I am just about to upload Quirky Xerus x86_64 8.1.6.

It is working very well, except that the media player is broken. The commandline VLC player is installed, but GUI components are missing. There is a GUI, called SimpleVP, however that is currently not working properly.

Fortunately, working video players can be installed from the Ubuntu package repositories.

These are advance instructions, for after Xerus64 8.1.6 is released.

Xine
This is small, with few dependencies.
Run the Puppy Package Manager, and type "xine-ui" in the search-box.
It will be found in the "universe" repository.
Click on the button to find all dependencies, then choose to install them all.

Also install "libcrystalhd3", found in the "universe" repo, and "libnuma" found in the "main" repo.

Type "xine" in a terminal to run it, or it is in the Multimedia menu.

VLC
The problem is that VLC is already installed, but it is missing extra packages to run as a GUI application. Unfortunately, the Package Manager won't reinstall it and it's deps.

However, it can be tricked to do so. Open file /root/.packages/Packages-ubuntu-xenial-universe in a text editor, and copy the line starting "vlc_2.2.2-5|vlc|2.2.2-5||Multimedia|..." down to the bottom of the file.
That is, just copy and paste.

Then edit the last line so that it looks like this:

zvlc_2.2.2-5|zvlc|2.2.2-5||Multimedia|....

That is, just change the name from "vlc" to "zvlc" in the first two fields.

Then run the Puppy Package Manager and do a search for "zvlc", click on it, click the button to find all deps, and install them.

Note, the list of deps is rather large, and if the window is too high for the screen, hold down the ALT key and drag with the mouse. This is a standard technique in Xorg for moving windows around.

VLC may be run by typing "vlc" in a terminal, or it is in the Multimedia menu.

Default Applications Chooser
You will find this in the Setup menu. You can choose "vlc" or "xine" as the default player.

Which is best?
OK, it is a bit of a hack described above to install VLC! I intend to choose a working multimedia player for inclusion in the next minor-point release of Xerus64. Feedback will be invited on the Puppy Forum as to which one, Xine, VLC, or some other, works best.

I prefer Xine from the size point of view, but does it play most/enough video formats?

Tags: linux