Playing Audio/Video on FC7 ( Fedora )

Apart from surfing and editing documents, most of us these days use our machines for listening to music or watching videos. Here i try to detail my experiences in getting audio and video working on my FC7 installation on the HP Pavillion tx1000 tablet. I hope that this becomes a easy reference for people who want multimedia on the Linux Desktops/Laptops.
Also provived is misc. info on other useful topics like package conversion etc.


Playing mp3 files on XMMS:
The MP3 plugin for XMMS doesn't come bundled by default with the distro due to some licensing issues. Download the xmms-mp3-1.2.10-16.fc7.i386.rpm plugin from here
Install as follows:
#su -
#rpm -iv xmms-mp3-1.2.10-16.fc7.i386.rpm

Playing vcd, dvd, .dat, .mpg, .wma, .avi, .divx, .mkv files in FC7
Enable the Livna Repo using following command:
#rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-7.rpm
Download necessary plugins as follows
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-ugly
Remove existing totem player from your system(there are install issues with xine)
# yum remove totem totem-mozplugin totem-plparser
Install the player afresh with other addons using:
# yum install totem-xine totem-xine-mozplugin totem-xine-plparser libdvdcss libdvdnav libdvdplay xine-lib-extras-nonfree rhythmbox.i386 0:0.10.0-8.fc7
That's it! Now you can play most of the formats.

Flash plugin for Firefox on Linux:
Download the rpm from here
Install as follows:
#rpm -iv flash-plugin-9.0.48.0-release.i386.rpm


RPM-DEB package inter converter:
There are times when a package is available for as a .deb package but no rpm. A nice utility for doing the same and vice versa is alien. You can install it on FC7 as follows:
1. Download alien from here.
2. Ensure you have perl installed. I have 5.8.8. Other versions should also be fine.
3. Download html2text from same place as you downloaded alien in step 1.
4. Install html2text with
#rpm -i --nodeps html2text-1.3.2a.i586.rpm
The --nodeps option is required as it cribs about some missing dependency.
5. Extract alien.
$tar -zxvf alien_8.64.tar.gz
6. Install alien
$cd alien
$perl Makefile.PL
$make PREFIX=/usr
$su -
#make PREFIX=/usr install
#cd /usr/lib
#ln -s /usr/lib/libcrypto.so libcrypto.so.4
#ln -s /usr/lib/libssl.so libssl.so.4
#exit


Now you can convert a .deb package to rpm and vice versa like this:
$alien --to-rpm your_deb_package.deb

I would like to thank:
http://lampcomputing.com/node/5 (playing video on fedora).
http://www.hccfl.edu/pollock/AUnix1/alien/ (provides alien).