Fedora Extras @ livna

rpm.livna.org provides many useful packages that can not be distributed in Fedora (previously known as Fedora Core and Extras) for one reason or another, including multimedia applications.

rpm.livna.org is not a standalone repository, but an extension of Fedora, Fedora Core and Extras repositories.

To add livna Fedora 8 packages to your list of repositories:
> rpm -ihv http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-8.rpm

Installing Xine on Fedora 8

This procedure details the installation using the available prepackaged RPMs. The trick is that they're not all in the same place!

Install the main xine libraries (available from the main Fedora repositories):
> yum install xine-lib

Grab the main package and dependencies from RPM Find [1] and RPM pbone.net [2]:

1. xine (xine-0.99.5-1.fc7.i386.rpm) [1]
   
2. xine-lib-moles (xine-lib-moles-1.1.11.1-1.fc8.i386.rpm) [1]
   
3. vcdimager (vcdimager-0.7.23-7.fc8.i386.rpm [2]
   
4. libdvdcss (libdvdcss-1.2.9-2.fc7.i386.rpm) [1]
   
5. libfame (libfame-0.9.1-12.fc7.i386.rpm) [1]
   
6. libmad (libmad-0.15.1b-4.fc7.i386.rpm) [1]
   

Note that on Fedora 8 you need the above version of xine-lib-moles for compatibility with xine-lib.

Install them directly with rpm to avoid the need of disabling yum's signature check:

> rpm -ihv libdvdcss-1.2.9-2.fc7.i386.rpm libfame-0.9.1-12.fc7.i386.rpm libmad-0.15.1b-4.fc7.i386.rpm vcdimager-0.7.23-7.fc8.i386.rpm xine-0.99.5-1.fc7.i386.rpm xine-lib-moles-1.1.11.1-1.fc8.i386.rpm

Another way is to add livna to your list of repositories and do a:
> yum install xine

Didn't try this though...

Java and Firefox 3 Beta 5 on Linux

This post is about configuring Java with Firefox 3 beta 5 on Linux i386. It might work for similar versions of Java and Firefox though.
The JRE coming with JSE v1.6.0_03 is currently not working. BUT the one coming with JSE v1.5.0_08 does work!
You just need to follow the usual instructions (which can be found here) and create a symbolic link the the Java plugin library:

> cd ${FIREFOX_HOME}/plugins
> ln -s ${JAVA_HOME}jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so libjavaplugin_oji.so

Restart Firefox and check at this URL: about:plugins if it's loaded and here if it works.

Note: Actually "works" is perhaps a little bit of an overstatement. I found out an applet which is supposed to update itself with streaming data and is not doing it. So maybe it's a matter of waiting on Firefox's final version...
On the other side Firefox 3 is much much faster and less memory consuming than Firefox 2.