Non-buntu Distro Easy to Install Mp4 Playback

I'm looking for a distro that's easy to install and doesn't use any flavor of buntu. The main usage would be media playback, Mp3 and Mp4, and a little web surfing. Anyone have a suggestion? Thanks for any help.

 

I played around with Fedora a few months ago and it does everything you mentioned.

It is not based off Ubuntu but it does use Gnome 3 and that seems to bother some people.

Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk 2

 

I would second Fedora. Basically just as easy to use as -buntu, but uses a different package manager.

 

pclinuxos

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pclinuxos

 

Can you tell why you're not going with Ubuntu?

If you're familiar with Ubuntu just install Debian. The only big difference is the non-free driver section.

VLC Media Player should come with the codecs you need, but there's no way to be sure. (MP4 is a container format.)

 

One reason could be because of Amazon's spyware (though this can be uninstalled).

Debian's another excellent choice. Basically Ubuntu-like, but upstream from Ubuntu so none of the Canonical changes.

 

My R60e, which was my Linux box, bit the dust. I want to put it on my HTPC, but I am having some trouble with stutter and tearing with Ubuntu. I asked over at AVSForum what might be a good distro. A few people stated buntu flavors aren't a good choice. I tried to ask which distro to use, but it devolved into fighting before I got an answer. Thanks for the replies.

 

Graphics shuttering and tearing? Sounds like a driver problem.

I have a R60 as a backup system and it runs fine with both Ubuntu and Debian as long as the non-free ATi legacy driver is installed.

 

The people over at AVSForum seem to think the unity interface is an issue for video playback. I get tearing and stutter whenever I play 1080 Mp4 videos. It's not terrible, but noticeable. When unity first came out a few years ago, I tried to install it on the same box, but could never get it to work right no matter which software or codecs I tried.

 

If you still have a working ubuntu installation and don't want to use unity, you can install the gnome-shell package and log out, then select 'gnome' as your desktop environment from the dropdown at the login prompt.

 

Im going to through Manjaro into the mix, Arch Linux but without all the setup mess. Its my new goto distro.

 

Didn't we do that last time? I'll give Fedora a try. I can always go back to Windows, which works quite well.

 

If you did that and still have tearing then Unity is not the issue. As mentioned try better drivers...................

 

Well, that's what I did and it didn't work. I don't think my card is supported anyway.

 

I can confirm that the latest ATi legacy driver in Debian Wheezy's repo works fine with the X1400 on a R60. Check the version number and compare it to the Ubuntu version you got.

 

I ended up buying a nVidia GT520, which I think and I could be wrong, has better Linux support. Unfortunately, the card is broke, but the seller practically gave it to me, so I'm going to get it replaced under warranty. Actually, I've used Ubuntu for a long time and I'd like to try something else. Once I get the card replaced in a few weeks, I think I'll give Fedora a shot.

 

Xubuntu isn't bad, otherwise Fedora.

These two are always my first/second choice.

As for drivers, especially ATi, I never get screen tearing with ATi's open source driver, only with their proprietary driver.

Can't speak for Nvidia, never ran Linux with Nvidia graphics before but from what I've heard, Nvidia is better supported under Linux.

 

How would one install the open source driver?

 

On *buntu based distros, it's 'apt-get install libgl1-mesa-glx xserver-xorg-core', not sure about Fedora but I would assume it's 'yum install libgl1-mesa-glx xserver-xorg-core'

In my case, I never needed to do that, it was already installed.

 

Not completely sure unity is the problem.. The intel 950gma is actually well supported in general on linux distros now without any extra drivers.

But depending on the source file format, you could run into a long range of problems with mp4 on the standard open codec pack. So maybe try installing ffmpeg and an mplayer based player. Such as smplayer. I use that on my EeePC, and it runs pretty much anything I throw at it, even the higher resolution streams in downscale with some tweaking. ..Using the "intel texture" overlay for rendering instead of a direct render might be an idea with a 3d desktop. Disabling filters and so on will help as well. But I don't think you need to do that on the r60.

About distros... Have you tried OpenSuse? Put that on a friend's Lenovo with similar hardware as your thinkpad. Was infinitely more mature than Suse was just a few years ago.. And you can fetch most things without needing an extra repo, and what is not there can be pilfered with the "direct from browser" installations. Essentially just had one snag then, in the sense that it needed a second boot after the install completed, after the Suse cleanup routines finished after the first boot.

 

That brings up the question: ZaZ, what are you using for video playback? Have you tried mplayer and vlc?

 

Tried 'em all. Here's a little refresher.

 

use the LTS ubuntu to sidestep the weird new stuff

 

That's one whopper of a refresher. Looks like there's some confusage about ati vs nvidia etc. On fglrx you definitely want tear-free desktop for video playback.

Can you give the output of

Code:

cat /proc/cmdline

so that we can see what boot params are being given (if any)?

Also, I'm not sure if you posted it or not, what version of ubuntu are (were?) you running? And what version of what graphics driver?

 

Back then I think I was on 10 or 11, but recently tried 12 and 13. They all produced the same results. I think I'm going to wait for my GT520 to come back from Asus and give Fedora a try.

 

I was asking what driver and version of the driver you were using, not the distro. Within any distro there are choices of driver packages, it's hard to help without more specific info.

 

Honestly, I couldn't really tell you. I just installed whatever came in the software center.

 

I recently had to put an old GT240 in my media server because I'd gotten a new TV and it had only HDMI inputs and my old box I use for that didn't have native HDMI. I run Ubuntu 12.04. It was a bit nightmarish. I had to plug an old monitor into the VGA port with the new one in the GT240 to get the older nvidia drivers to work from a repo, then after it rebooted, I was able to select the drivers install tool that lets you install proprietary drivers to get the latest and greatest NVidia drivers. Now it works like a champ but it was pretty painful to get setup, an I'm a linux geek who keeps $25k+ linux servers happy all day. So I can totally understand ZaZ's frustration at getting his stuff working.

 

OK, so I got the card back from nVidia, yay, but when I run the Fedora Live disc, I can't see the edges of the screen, which makes it difficult to do anything cause I can't see anything on the edge of the screen. Does anyone have a fix for this? I presume once I get the graphics drivers installed, I can then scale the image to the right size. That's the way it worked with Ubuntu, but I'm hosed until then.

Anyone know how to install the nVidia drivers on Fedora 19? Thanks for any help.

 

I don't run Fedora anymore, but this guide looks useful.