[MPlayer-DOCS] letter to distro mplayer packagers?

[Diego Biurrun]

On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 09:46:30AM +0100, Christian Marillat wrote:
> Diego Biurrun <diego at biurrun.de> writes:
> 
> > First off the package is somewhat unwieldy.  The patch that gets applied
> > is 268kb compressed, which is massive.  Among other things it contains a
> > uuencoded version of the MPlayer default skin, Blue.  Why this is done
> > the way it is done remains a mystery to me.
> 
> Yes, because gmplayer need a default skin otherwise gmplayer doesn't
> start.

I know that of course.  Let me rephrase my unclear words:

Why you include a skin uuencoded in the packaging patch and not create a
skin package that the mplayer-gui package depends on remains a mystery
to me.

> > vo=x11,
> >
> > creates a lot of trouble for the user because this selects the
> > unaccelerated x11 video output driver that does not do scaling by
> > default. Thus people go into fullscreen mode and wonder why the screen
> > is black but an unscaled movie remains in the middle at original size.
> > We get reports about this all the time.
> 
> x11 is the only default which work in all cases. I think I'll add
> "xv,x11" in the next package who is much better.

Better, but leaving it out altogether would do the trick as well.

> > The defaults MPlayer uses have been carefully chosen, there should be
> > no need to ship more than the default config file where all entries are
> > commented out. To further complicate matters there are multiple copies
> > of the example config file scattered over the packaging patch.
> 
> This doesn't work. Here mplayer doesn't start, same for gmplayer.
> 
> ,----
> | ==========================================================================
> | open: No such file or directory
> | vo_mga: Couldn't open /dev/mga_vid
> | open: No such file or directory
> | vo_mga: Couldn't open /dev/mga_vid
> | ==========================================================================
> | VO: [3dfx] 672x288 => 672x288 Planar YV12 
> | Couldn't open /dev/3dfx
> `----

This looks like a bug in the 3dfx video output driver.  It should fall
back on other video output drivers but apparently doesn't.

There is an easy solution to this problem: Just don't compile-in the 3dfx
video output driver.  It has been obsoleted by the tdfxfb and tdfx_vid
video output drivers and is not compiled-in by default anyway.

> > You added quite a few mime-types to the mplayer.desktop file. This is
> > good. I took them all, added a few more and committed everything to CVS.
> > Since the mplayer.desktop file is also hard-coded into the packaging
> > patch, you may not pick this up automatically.
> 
> I add nothing. I've simply packaged a desktop file before you and
> because your changelog is unreadable (the pre8 is more than 130 lines)
> I've not seen you have added a desktop file in pre4.

Yes, there are a lot of changes.  Do you have a suggestion how we could
make our changelogs more readable?

Please just submit such things to us.  We'll let you know whether we
already have it or not.

> > We gladly accept patches from packagers.  Unfortunately we have not been
> > getting any from you, Christian.  You apply many small patches to your
> > packages, yet AFAICT most of the problems they aim to fix are already
> > resolved in upstream CVS.
> 
> I hope you know why I've never send any patches or suggestions to you ?

I have no idea.

Are you referring to some old quarrel with Gabucino (and Arpi) maybe?
If that should be the case then let us please forget about stories from
a few years ago and move on.

Diego