“In the last few articles, I’ve concentrated on configuring a FreeBSD system and various applications suited for multimedia. I’ll wrap up that series today by tweaking a browser’s plug-in support and installing some apps which can be either called by a browser or used on their own.” Read the article at ONLamp.
Playing Audio and Video Files with FreeBSD
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
I’m a BSD person by nature, but to a very small degree I agree with the above comment. I like to use Windows for multimedia and gaming. I wouldn’t think of actually storing my data on the system, that is what Samba and FreeBSD is for. Just like I wouldn’t actually allow those systems to talk directly to the internet, that is what OpenBSD firewalls are for.
As for playback of audio and video I just don’t understand going through the hassle of tweaking a browser and configuring the kernel and the other steps it takes to get Linux and *BSD to be where Windows is *out of the box*. The only argument that seems valid to me is not want to pay for, or not agreeing with the license. This stance is often invalidated though because many times the person making this claim is using cracked/priated software.
MonkeyOmlette,
Why don’t you write a via-email to M$ and asking them why they are still using FreeBSD for some of their servers? Such as hotmail is still on FreeBSD with qmail and etc.
If she likes FreeBSD and thinks it’s stable and rocks then let it be. I am with her, because I use FreeBSD at the full time and haven’t use Windows for near or over a year. I don’t even need to troll over Windows, which it’s just people’s opinions and their own prefers.
Awful a lot of trolls seem to never understand what’s most of things are all about. I am awaiting for OSNews.com to cut the trolls down and keep people who know how to discuss rather than troll and bash.
On the default ‘Personal’ install of RH8, I noticed that Mozilla was not configured to play any of the video files I ran across on the web. Why? Certainly, Linux has the capability to play these files, so why the fsck don’t they configure this stuff to work out of the box?
It’s understandable why such things would be lacking in FreeBSD (as the author points out, it’s more of a ‘roll your own’ kind of deal), but I was disappointed to see such things lacking in Redhat. I mean, even Flash didn’t work out of the box (as it does in Mandrake 9).
What’s even more frustrating was going to sites where I would view these types of files (ie: broadband.msnbc.com) and seeing “Youre browser is not support”, thus not loading the default pages. This is one of the problems that Linux faces when trying to co-exist on a Windows-centric web. I’m quite sure there are workarounds to this problem, but it’s just one of the many headaches that people run into when trying some of the ‘alternative’ OS’s.
“Why don’t you write a via-email to M$ and asking them why they are still using FreeBSD for some of their servers? Such as hotmail is still on FreeBSD with qmail and etc.”
I think what MonkeyOmelet was talking about is “multimedia needs”, not servers. Because when one need video, audio, games, etc Windows is still hard to beat (on x86 platforms I mean, so I don’t include MacOS).
Hm… The only tempting thing about the article is its title. Although I think it should be renamed to “Playing audio and video files with Mozilla”. Am I really the only one who actually watches movies in a video player?
The confused remarks about the proprietary standard DivX (does the author know that it’s actually just an MPEG4 codec and that there are much better, faster and opensource MPEG4 codecs for Unix systems available) and the horrible DivX Player (the worst player you can get, fortunately it’s not available anymore) are equally weird.
Personally, I am quite happy with playing (and encoding) audio/video under FreeBSD thanks to applications like MPlayer (the best) and many others that also work in FreeBSD, sometimes even better than in Linux.
Comparing Bill Gates to Hitler shows your intelligence.
BTW: The correct spelling is “Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer”.
I was expecting this article to go “Install Xine and mplayer and you’ll be set…”
It certainly didn’t, and seemed much more aimed towards people who wanted to display multimedia web content, which is perhaps 0.01% of what I do in the multimedia department.
Usually I’ll have downloaded a video to my storage server, and watch it in Windows over SMB.
Of course, what works almost equally as well is watching it over NFS in mplayer or Xine.
1) Mplayer, http://www.mplayerhq.hu
Takes care of the video needs
2) AlsaPlayer, http://www.alsaplayer.org
Takes care of the audio needs
-fooks
except that Bill Gates once said something very similar “One world, one program, one OS” or something close to that.
Usually I’ll have downloaded a video to my storage server, and watch it in Windows over SMB.
And why not just download it to windows NT and *just* fsck’in play it ? It seems more practical to me.
I decided to be nice today and feed a troll who’s obviously resorting to desperate measures to get some hand-outs.
*hands MonkeyOmlette a raw steak*
There ya go boy! Off to your XP now!
>If you want the best os your only choice is windows. It is >stable, secure and FAST. It also has the most intuitive >interface. All other operating systems are sub-standard >compared to windows.
Fast? In many ways – yes. Stable? Depends on the hardware. Secure? I almost spewed. Security has always been a sore spot with Windows, and continues to be. As far as intuitive interface – er, NO. I’ve taught computer and networking classes – and I still have to explain the basics of the interface to the absolute newbies. None of it is obvious – “start” might be helpful, but its on the very button – its very small, and its in a corner. Mac OS remains more intuitive IMHO.
Well, looks like this thread is dying so I’ll throw this in here (and Eugenia, feel free to ‘moderate’ me if you wish) ….
It’s funny that whenever there’s an article posted about a new Windows/IE/Outlook hole and there’s a talkback/forum available, within 5 minutes or so, there’s usually at least 800 anti-MS zealots that are all over it like a pack of wild dogs on a 3-legged cat. M$ this, Windoze that, stupid sheep, etc.
However, when you start talking about stuff like multimedia apps under *nix (especially as they compare to other OS offerings), they seem to get noticeably more quiet. So, where are all the fanatics now? Certainly, God’s gift to OS’s can do EVERYTHING better than the rest, can it not?
*tosses some small children to the troll.
Here, eat them, be happy.
Go back under the bridge now troll.
Thank you.
Re: mra
As for playback of audio and video I just don’t understand going through the hassle of tweaking a browser and configuring the kernel and the other steps it takes to get Linux and *BSD to be where Windows is *out of the box*. The only argument that seems valid to me is not want to pay for, or not agreeing with the license.
So, one should boot into windows, or physically move to a windows box, whenver one wants to see a video? I have fiddled with things to get multimedia to work, as i don’t happen to be using windows on my primary workstation, neither at work or at home. And i certainly can’t be bothered to reboot or change location just to watch a movie file. I know its hard to understand, but there are some who actually use linux because they like it. And i think getting video playback to work was worth spending a little time on, while playing a video file once or twice a week certain does not make it worth for me to switch to windows, or even reboot.
Re: Darius
So, where are all the fanatics now?
Well, it sure seems to me like some of the anti linux fanatics are here alright. If you think windows is superior then just go use it instead of complaining about linux. Fanatics are tiresome, no matter if they are pro or anti linux.
i use freebsd as everything. a server, workstation, and multimedia goof off machine.
its great. apart from games, which is where linux emulation comes in, or linux.
media wise mplayer, ogle, xmms, and a host of others are perfect, and run very quickly if you take time to ./configure and make them properly like any self respecting *nix user should do.
once youve done this, freebsd is the perfect media machine.
and you dont need windows media spy player or anything else.
so there.
I have spent the time and effort in making multimedia work under Linux and FreeBSD. I just am in the lucky position of being able to have multiple systems, which I apply to different tasks. I have given up trying to be multimedia and in other ways Windows compliant on my desktop since I find it is much easier to just run Windows.
This was probably helped by the management which last owned the company where I work. They were a PC company from Texas in bed with Microsoft, so all the internal resources were Explorer only. Add to that the fact that our Unix wasn’t exactly the best supported by Netscape, and that the most advanced version was Netscape 4.7x and you can probably see why I gave up in apathy at work and moved my PC system to Win2k. Once I did that my home system was quick to follow. I did not however move any actual data onto the systems. My mp3s and videos are all still kept safe in FreeBSD boxen.
Once I did this I realized the tremendous security gain that I had just made for myself. I have a totally untrusted Windows client with normally readonly access to my media. When I want to add data to the store I do it manually at the command line. Basically no matter how bad my Windows system gets it can’t take my data out. As for Windows media player spyware I just chuckle when I see my firewall/proxy block the packets.
I find it funny to see comments about how I’m an MS troll. I think that people try to make their OSes one size fits all. I don’t think that is the best way to go, I thin you should look at the strengths and capitalize on them. <bait>If BeOS was still alive I’d probably be using it for multimedia instead</bait> (sorry couldn’t resist
You are lucky that you have easy access to serverel computers then. I do too actually, but i still prefer only using one. I find it impossible to arrange a nice work place with more than one computer available, unless using a monitor/keyboard/mouse switchbox. But even this switch i find annoying and that it is slowing me down. This is why i pretty much insist on using a “one box fits all” system. And for me, the system that gets closest to this is linux. Had you asked me a year and a half ago i would have said windows, but then i got older 🙂
The definite multimedia unix is osx. And it even outperforms windows in terms of stability and functionality.
Yes it is. If only one could just run it, and all its programs, without having to use aqua, then i might actually consider buying a mac. Yes, i know im strange, most people seem to love os x because of aqua, but for me it is the biggest turn off. I basically like apples hardware, but i absolutely cant stand their software. I don’t think you will find all that many “real” unix users who would want to switch to os x.