Baslinux mailing list

["David Moberg" <davidjmoberg AT lycos.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>

> >> Probably a newer version than mine (2.2.5).
> >>
> > Yep, 2.3.2 on my end.
> 
> 
> Below I see 1.0pre7-3.3.2 - did you mean 3.3.2 not 2.3.2?

We were talking about glibc versions. 2.3.2 is correct.

> Do newer versions do more are or they mostly bug fixes?

Both, though MPlayer seems very solid for its size. I should eventually
build a newer version than what I have. I discovered that the new
versions have a command line option that can greatly speed up the video
decoding (at the expense of quality).

> >>> It plays pretty well everything that a normal MPlayer build would
> >>> (ogg, mp3, XviD)
> >>>
> >>
> >> So mplayer -vc help prints a lot of different things, including DLLs?
> >>
> > MPlayer 1.0pre7-3.3.2 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team

I have 1.0pre5. I didn't notice this until you pointed it out.

> > CPU: Intel Pentium III Katmai/Pentium III Xeon Tanner (Family: 6, 
> > Stepping: 3)
> > Detected cache-line size is 32 bytes

Steven: Is this a Celeron?

> > CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
> > Compiled with runtime CPU detection - WARNING - this is not optimal!
> > To get best performance, recompile MPlayer with 
> > --disable-runtime-cpudetection.

I'll need to figure out why it says this is not optimal.

> Was this detection so that it can be used on various systems?

Yes. I will probably want to build my next MPlayer with this option.

> Is a 486 a good enough low end since that is the target of BL3?  

Maybe. MPlayer isn't really intended for slow CPUs.

> You can't play DVDs on a 386, can you?

You can. 386s accept DVD drives, don't they? Don't expect a very
fast decode, but processor speed doesn't affect whether or not
you can do something, just how fast it works.

> > I do consider something like AAlib or libcaca necessary myself. 
> > Also, SDL's sound output I find works no matter what, it's quite 
> > good.
> 
> What are all of these used for?

AAlib/libcaca is for converting video into text. Have you seen so-
called ASCII art? It's mainly useful when you want to send video
to a terminal (which Steven (Clement) has said he wants to do).

SDL lets you use many different audio and video drivers, while
having only one or two driver interfaces to MPlayer. It can do
many other things, too. If you're interested, libsdl.org is
its homepage.

> >>> The current statically compiled binary size is 7.7MB, uncompressed.
> 
> David suggested to me that I use 'strip' to make binaries smaller. 
> Someone else suggested using upx (after strip).  Together they cut 
> my binary size by about half.

upx has its downsides. I prefer to bzip2 (verb) mplayer (noun) for now.

David
-- 
_______________________________________________
NEW! Lycos Dating Search. The only place to search multiple dating sites at 
once.
http://datingsearch.lycos.com