On Thu, Jan 26, 2006 at 07:28:21PM +0000, Digby Tarvin wrote: > Still finishing off my first Debian install, and am puzzling > over the apparent absence of some very basic programs which > I thought were pretty much universally available on *nix > systems... > > Can anyone tell me why 'apt-cache search' doesn't find the > likes of the following: > > 1. xv - John Bradley's X image viewer/manipulator..
Non-free shareware. I've actually emailed John and received clarification on current xv status: I'm not sure that it is actively developed any longer. Commercial licenses mean that it is still valid for some users :) I replaced it by zgv as a quick viewer on my system but also have ImageMagick [??spelling??] available. > 2. xlock - I don't use it for locking the screen, but it is > a good for benchmarking x-servers because most systems have it... Superseded by xscreensaver / xlockmore ? > 3. mplayer - most players work ok with mpeg etc, but this is the > one with which I have had the most success with troublesome > formats like wmv. > See long flamewars at various times and places as to why mplayer is not currently in Debian and why various codecs can't be packaged :( There is an (unofficial, non-Debian) repository of packages: Googling for marillat and mplayer will find it. Totem / xine do well for me here: both are free and GPL. Non-free codecs from <forgotten his first name> Marillat may help you play wmv and other foreign formats with both of the above and also with mplayer: the codec licensing status may be dubious: use/install them at your own risk :) > Am I just searching in the wrong place, or does the Debian package > selection really lack some very fundamental utilities, does anyone > know of the explanation? > > Perhaps there are newer alternatives that are considered better, > but I would rather use the same programs on the various computers > that I need to use, and to date these have always been the common > denominators... > Dependent on your local sysadmin :) > I assume there won't be any problem installing a tarball in the > traditional way, but I want to make sure that not duplicating > effort if a debian package exists somewhere I havn't looked... > > Regards, > DigbyT > -- > Digby R. S. Tarvin > digbyt(at)digbyt.com > http://www.digbyt.com > > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]