[MPlayer-users] Re: Recoring this *.ram to WAV with mplayer works while logged in but not from at.

[Corey Hickey]

Adam Funk wrote:
>>>>> MPlayer was the first program I ever obtained and installed from
>>>>> CVS, and I've never seriously regretted it.
>>>> OK, when I'm feeling a little brave I'll try it.
>>> Unless you try to install Debian packages which depend on the MPlayer
>>> package (unlikely, since the MPlayer package itself is unofficial),
>>> there should be no problems with having MPlayer installed via a non-deb
>>> means; I've certainly never had any problem with it.
>> It's very easy to compile your own Debian package of mplayer.
>>
>> 1. Get mplayer source as usual.
>> 2. Run ./configure and look at what drivers/codecs are enabled.
>> 3. Install libraries and -dev packages for drivers/codecs you want.
>> 4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until you're happy.
>> 5. $ export DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS='--options-you --pass-to-configure'
>> 6. fakeroot debian/rules binary
>> 7. Install any necessary debian-building packages if step 6 fails.
> 
> But what would be the advantage to me of doing all that to make and
> install a binary package over just compiling the source code and doing
> make install?

Once you get it set up, steps 5 and 6 are the only ones that need doing 
each time. Anyway, besides what The Wanderer wrote, there are a couple 
advantages:

* If you're about to remove some weird-looking library that you didn't 
know mplayer depends on, apt-get/aptitude/whatever will show you.

* You can easily remove mplayer even if you don't have the source to 
'make uninstall'. If you never uninstall mplayer this might not apply to 
you, but it still is a general advantage of making a debian package when 
possible.

-Corey