On 11/05/2011 11:57 AM, Nico Kadel-Garcia wrote:
On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 2:02 AM, Yasha Karant<ykar...@csusb.edu> wrote:
I am attempting to install vlc-1.1.11-72.el5.i386.rpm from
http://packages.atrpms.net/dist/el5/vlc/
There is a long list of dependencies missing, appended below. Is there a
way to specify to get just these packages from ATrpms without "damaging" the
underlying production EL 5.7 system (e.g., replacing SL packages by other
packages from ATrpms that then cause problems and instability with EL 5.7)?
Is there another add-on EL 5 RPM repository that requires fewer additions
to stock EL 5.7 but still has a vlc 1.x version?
First warning: vlc supports MPEG formats and playing DVD's. There are
various patents and reverse engineering legal issues which interfere
with open source and especially genuine freeware licensing or
deployment of such software. This is why such tools are not in our
favorite upstream vendor's codeline, nor will they be, unless such
cumbersome licensing can be resolved. Since VLC can typically deal
with DVD's, there's the whole libdvdcss sawsuit history that makes it
unavailable for our favorite upstream vendor's core distributions. So
it's *not* going to work fully without such non-Scientific-Linux
provided components, unless our friends at Scientific Linux were to
take that on. I don't see a point to that when atrpms and the other
repositories are doiing such a good job.
That said, if you're in a legal position to use these patented
software tools, and you suspect some of the dependencies are
extraneous, you can use "mock" to try building the SRPM in a clean SL
5.7 environment. I can send you, or the group, my /etc/mock files for
using a local repo for precisely this sort of work. It's much, much,
much more efficient to use "mock" from local repositories than
reaching out to external mirrors, and different configs to work with
JPackage or RPMforge repos as well. This keeps from cluttering your
working system with a lot of libraries and dependencies that may cause
other adventures.
But Yasha, VLC is a powerful and flexible multimedia player, It
*needs* access to those libraries in order to manage even half of the
different formats and encodings it manages.
Thank you. I am (well) aware of the power of VLC, particularly compared
with a number of other offerings/applications, both open systems and
proprietary for fee. Although I would very much like to comment upon
the issues you have raised concerning the reading and use of legally
purchased and owned for-personal-use DVDs across region codes, as this
list repeatedly has stated that it is strictly technology for
technicians/technologists and devoid of any intellectual issues or
discussions -- including societal issues as required under the ACM code
of ethics, I shall not take the bait.
I would very much appreciate it if you would provide the tools, syntax,
etc., for the needed mock build environment, as I presume that the
resulting containment is "safer" than allowing ATrpms to have free reign
(and free update requests) for a production end-user stable EL workstation.
Yasha Karant
