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191 lines
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<TITLE>Developer Cries - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux</TITLE>
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<H1><A NAME="appendix_e">Appendix E - Developer Cries</A></H1>
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<P>There are two major topics which always cause huge dispute and flame on the
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<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A>
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mailing list. Number one is the topic of the</P>
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<H2><A NAME="gcc">E.1 GCC 2.96</A></H2>
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<P><B>The background:</B> The GCC <B>2.95</B> series is an official GNU release
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and version 2.95.3 of GCC is the most bug-free in that series.
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We have never noticed compilation problems that we could trace to GCC 2.95.3.
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Starting with Red Hat Linux 7.0, <B>Red Hat</B> included a heavily
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patched CVS version of GCC in their distribution and named it <B>2.96</B>. Red
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Hat included this version in the distribution because GCC 3.0 was not finished
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at the time, and they needed a compiler that worked well on all of their
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supported platforms, including IA64 and s390. The Linux distributor
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<B>Mandrake</B> also followed Red Hat's example and started shipping GCC 2.96
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with their Linux-Mandrake 8.0 series.</P>
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<P><B>The statements:</B> The GCC team disclaimed any link with GCC 2.96 and
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issued an <A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-2.96.html">official response</A> to
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GCC 2.96. Many developers around the world began having problems with GCC 2.96,
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and started recommending other compilers. Examples are
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<A HREF="http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql-3.23.html">MySQL</A>,
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<A HREF="http://avifile.sourceforge.net/news-old1.htm">avifile</A> and
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<A HREF="http://www.winehq.com/news/?view=92#RH%207.1%20gcc%20fixes%20compiler%20bug">Wine</A>.
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Other interesting links are
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<A HREF="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rgooch/linux/docs/kernel-newsflash.html">
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Linux kernel news flash about kernel 2.4.17</A> and
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<A HREF="http://www.voy.com/3516/572.html">Voy Forum</A>.
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MPlayer also suffered from intermittent problems that were all solved by
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switching to a different version of GCC. Several projects started implementing
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workarounds for some of the 2.96 issues, but we refused to fix other people's
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bugs, especially since some workarounds may imply a performance penalty.</P>
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<P>You can read about the other side of the story
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<A HREF="http://web.archive.org/web/20011024212120/http://www.bero.org/gcc296.html">at this site</A>.
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GCC 2.96 does not allow | (pipe) characters in assembler comments
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because it supports Intel as well as AT&T Syntax and the | character is a
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symbol in the Intel variant. The problem is that it <B>silently</B> ignores the
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whole assembler block. This is supposedly fixed now, GCC prints a warning instead
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of skipping the block.</P>
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<P><B>The present:</B> Red Hat says that GCC 2.96-85 and above is fixed. The
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situation has indeed improved, yet we still see problem reports on our
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mailing lists that disappear with a different compiler. In any case it does not
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matter any longer. Hopefully a maturing GCC 3.x will solve the issue for good.
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If you want to compile with 2.96 give the <CODE>--disable-gcc-checking</CODE>
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flag to configure. Remember that you are on your own and <B>do not report any
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bugs</B>. If you do, you will only get banned from our mailing list because
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we have had more than enough flame wars over GCC 2.96. Please let the matter
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rest.</P>
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<P>If you have problems with GCC 2.96, you can get 2.96-85 packages from the
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Red Hat <A HREF="ftp://updates.redhat.com">ftp server</A>, or just go for the
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3.0.4 packages offered for version 7.2 and later. You can also get
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<A HREF="ftp://people.redhat.com/jakub/gcc/3.2-10/">gcc-3.2-10 packages</A>
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(unofficial, but working fine) and you can install them along the GCC 2.96 you
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already have. MPlayer will detect it and use 3.2-10 instead of 2.96. If you do
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not want to or cannot use the binary packages, here is how you can compile the
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latest GCC from source:</P>
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<OL>
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<LI>Go to the <A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html">GCC mirrors page</A>
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page and download <CODE>gcc-core-XXX.tar.gz</CODE> where <CODE>XXX</CODE> is
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the version number. This includes the complete C compiler and is sufficient
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for MPlayer. If you also want C++, Java or some of the other advanced GCC
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features <CODE>gcc-XXX.tar.gz</CODE> may better suit your needs.</LI>
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<LI>Extract the archive with<BR>
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<CODE>tar -xvzf gcc-core-XXX.tar.gz</CODE></LI>
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<LI>GCC is not built inside the source directory itself like most programs,
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but needs a build directory outside the source directory. Thus you need to
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create this directory via<BR>
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<CODE>mkdir gcc-build</CODE></LI>
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<LI>Then you can proceed to configure GCC in the build directory, but you need
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the configure from the source directory:<BR>
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<CODE>cd gcc-build<BR>
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../gcc-XXX/configure</CODE></LI>
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<LI>Compile GCC by issuing this command in the build directory:<BR>
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<CODE>make bootstrap</CODE></LI>
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<LI>Now you can install GCC (as root) by typing<BR>
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<CODE>make install</CODE></LI>
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</OL>
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<H2><A NAME="binary">E.2 Binary distribution</A></H2>
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<P>MPlayer previously contained source from the OpenDivX project, which
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disallows binary redistribution. This code has been removed in version
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0.90-pre1 and the remaining file <CODE>divx_vbr.c</CODE> that is derived
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from OpenDivX sources has been put under the GPL by its authors as of version
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0.90pre9. You are now welcome to create binary packages as you see fit.</P>
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<P>Another impediment to binary redistribution were compiletime optimizations
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for CPU architecture. MPlayer now supports runtime CPU detection (specify
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the <CODE>--enable-runtime-cpudetection</CODE> option when configuring). It
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is disabled by default because it implies a small speed sacrifice, but it is
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now possible to create binaries that run on different members of the Intel
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CPU family.</P>
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<H2><A NAME="nvidia">E.3 nVidia</A></H2>
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<P>We dislike the fact that <A HREF="http://www.nvidia.com">nVidia</A>
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only provides binary drivers (for use with XFree86), which are often buggy.
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We have had many reports on
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<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A>
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about problems related to these closed-source drivers
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and their poor quality, instability and poor user and expert support.
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Some examples can be found on the
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<A HREF="http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?s=6d83dc289805c37caef49b77857a0b7e&daysprune=&forumid=27">
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nVidia Linux Forum</A>.
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Many of these problems/issues keep appearing repeatedly.
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We have been contacted by nVidia lately, and they said these bugs
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do not exist, instability is caused by bad AGP chips, and they received
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no reports of driver bugs (like the purple line). So if you have a
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problem with your nVidia card, you are advised to update the nVidia driver
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and/or buy a new motherboard or ask nVidia to supply open-source drivers.
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In any case, if you are using the nVidia binary drivers and facing driver related problems,
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please be aware that you will receive very little help from our side because we have
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little power to help in this matter.</P>
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<H2><A NAME="barr">E.4 Joe Barr</A></H2>
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<P>Joe Barr became infamous by writing a less than favorable
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<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1214.mplayer.html">
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MPlayer review</A>. He found MPlayer hard to install, but then
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again he is not very fond of
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<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-06/lw-06-exam.html">reading documentation</A>.
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He also concluded that the developers were unfriendly and the documentation
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incomplete and insulting. You be the judge.
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He went on to mention MPlayer negatively in his
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<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1227.predictions.html">10 Linux predictions for 2002</A>
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In a followup
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<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0125.xine.html">review of xine</A>
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he continued stirring up controversy. Ironically at the end of that article he
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quotes his exchange with G<>nter Bartsch, the original author of xine, that
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perfectly summarizes the whole situation:</P>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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However, he also went on to say that he was "surprised" by my column about
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MPlayer and thought it was unfair, reminding me that it is a free software
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project. "If you don't like it," Bartsch said, "you're free not to use it."
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P>He does not reply to our mails. His editor does not reply to our mails.
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Here are some quotes from different people about Joe Barr, so you can form your
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own opinion:</P>
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<P>Marc Rassbach has <A HREF="http://daily.daemonnews.org/view_story.php3?story_id=2102">something to say</A>
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about the man.</P>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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You may all remember the LinuxWorld 2000, when he claimed that Linus T said
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that 'FreeBSD is just a handful of programmers'. Linus said NOTHING of the
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sort. When Joe was called on this, his reaction was to call BSD supporters
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assholes and jerks.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P>A <A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/2001-December/009118.html">quote</A>
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from Robert Munro on the
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<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A>
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mailing list:</P>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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<P>He's interesting, but not good at avoiding, um... controversy. Joe Barr
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used to be one of the regulars on Will Zachmann's Canopus forum on Compuserve,
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years ago. He was an OS/2 advocate then (I was an OS/2 fan too).</P>
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<P>He used to go over-the-top, flaming people, and I suspect he had some hard
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times, then. He's mellowed some, judging by his columns recently. Moderately
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subtle humor was not his mode in those earlier days, not at all.</P>
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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