[PLUG] Playing an avi file? (Trying to RTFM)

[guy1656]

Okay. 

I am a Linux 'user.'

I am running KDE 2.2.1 in Mandrake 8.1.
I have XMMS installed, and want to play AVIs.

I don't want to use MPlayer, because the MPlayer page mentions some kind of 
security vulnerability ( I got fried here the last I brought this up, but the 
jyst is that the vocabulary which describes said vulnerability is WAY over my 
head.) Discretion being the better part of valor, I decided to look for other 
alternatives to Mplayer, especially ones WITHOUT mention of security 
vulnerabilities, 'known bugs' or hellaciously complex installs.

Over the past several weeks, I have spent short packets of time searching for 
files named "[This-plays-AVI's].i386.rpm" but haven't found anything useful.
Meanwhile, no AVI's for me.

So I am biting the bullet and trying to go to the next level and looking into 
.tar.gz's. (Ugh.) One of these which looked promising is:

http://freshmeat.net/redir/avi-xmms/545/url_tgz/avi-xmms-1.2.3.tar.gz

so I nabbed that. Upon unpacking it, the 'README' file contains the following:

"This plugin uses the aviplay library version 0.53.5. Avifile is included
in the archive and will compile to a static library and then static linked
into the plugin. This means there will not be any other files installed
exept for the plugin itself. Please make sure you don't have avifile linked
to xmms as avi4xmms require that to function, if you do you will not be
able to play any avi files as there will be a conflict between avifile
versions."

:-) -> OK, so if XMMS was already installed when the [VERY GOOD PERSON WHO 
DESERVES A GREAT DEAL OF CREDIT AND GRATITUDE - Thanks!!!] set up my system, 
I have no idea whether "avifile" is "linked to xmms" or not. Shall I take the 
plunge, or no?

:-) -> The following seems arduous. How do I know if I'm using 
[Letters-I-never-heard-of-before] decoding, whether I have 
bunch-of-other-letters-or better .... ? And of course, the penalty for NOT 
guessing right is a crash. (Not any worse than Windoze, right?)

" Also, SDL library (www.libsdl.org) is required to play movies using 
avi-xmms. If you plan to use software YUV decoding, you should have SDL 1.1.7 
or better, because software YUV decoders of SDL 1.1.6 (and previous versions 
also) are broken and will cause XMMS to crash.'


:-)  -> Good heavens: (does this thing work, or not?)
"We have the big issue with this plugin: If SDL is compiled using Xfree 4.0
and NOT Xfree 4.0.1 it will not work in a correct way and crashes a lot.
Xfree 4.0 has a threading bug in libXv.a that SDL compiles statically and
XMMS is a threaded application and that's why this plugin won't work with
Xfree 4.0. Please upgrade Xfree to 4.0.1 Else you can compile SDL without
libXv.a but you won't get Hardware acceleration do (in SDL directory):
./configure --disable-video-x11-xv"


:-)  ->  HELP IN SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS WANTED PLEASE ....
          and feel free to e-mail me privately... (preferred.)

-GLL