mirror of
https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv
synced 2024-12-29 18:42:09 +00:00
cb5162aa1e
DXR2 patch partially applied (by Mark Guptill) other fixes, updates git-svn-id: svn://svn.mplayerhq.hu/mplayer/trunk@9507 b3059339-0415-0410-9bf9-f77b7e298cf2
191 lines
9.7 KiB
HTML
191 lines
9.7 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
|
||
<HTML>
|
||
|
||
<HEAD>
|
||
<TITLE>Developer Cries - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux</TITLE>
|
||
<LINK REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" HREF="../default.css">
|
||
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
|
||
</HEAD>
|
||
|
||
<BODY>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<H1><A NAME="appendix_e">Appendix E - Developer Cries</A></H1>
|
||
|
||
<P>There are two major topics which always cause huge dispute and flame on the
|
||
<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A>
|
||
mailing list. Number one is the topic of the</P>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<H2><A NAME="gcc">E.1 GCC 2.96</A></H2>
|
||
|
||
<P><B>The background:</B> The GCC <B>2.95</B> series is an official GNU release
|
||
and version 2.95.3 of GCC is the most bug-free in that series.
|
||
We have never noticed compilation problems that we could trace to GCC 2.95.3.
|
||
Starting with Red Hat Linux 7.0, <B>Red Hat</B> included a heavily
|
||
patched CVS version of GCC in their distribution and named it <B>2.96</B>. Red
|
||
Hat included this version in the distribution because GCC 3.0 was not finished
|
||
at the time, and they needed a compiler that worked well on all of their
|
||
supported platforms, including IA64 and s390. The Linux distributor
|
||
<B>Mandrake</B> also followed Red Hat's example and started shipping GCC 2.96
|
||
with their Linux-Mandrake 8.0 series.</P>
|
||
|
||
<P><B>The statements:</B> The GCC team disclaimed any link with GCC 2.96 and
|
||
issued an <A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-2.96.html">official response</A> to
|
||
GCC 2.96. Many developers around the world began having problems with GCC 2.96,
|
||
and started recommending other compilers. Examples are
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql-3.23.html">MySQL</A>,
|
||
<A HREF="http://avifile.sourceforge.net/news-old1.htm">avifile</A> and
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.winehq.com/news/?view=92#RH%207.1%20gcc%20fixes%20compiler%20bug">Wine</A>.
|
||
Other interesting links are
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rgooch/linux/docs/kernel-newsflash.html">
|
||
Linux kernel news flash about kernel 2.4.17</A> and
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.voy.com/3516/572.html">Voy Forum</A>.
|
||
MPlayer also suffered from intermittent problems that were all solved by
|
||
switching to a different version of GCC. Several projects started implementing
|
||
workarounds for some of the 2.96 issues, but we refused to fix other people's
|
||
bugs, especially since some workarounds may imply a performance penalty.</P>
|
||
|
||
<P>You can read about the other side of the story
|
||
<A HREF="http://web.archive.org/web/20011024212120/http://www.bero.org/gcc296.html">at this site</A>.
|
||
GCC 2.96 does not allow | (pipe) characters in assembler comments
|
||
because it supports Intel as well as AT&T Syntax and the | character is a
|
||
symbol in the Intel variant. The problem is that it <B>silently</B> ignores the
|
||
whole assembler block. This is supposedly fixed now, GCC prints a warning instead
|
||
of skipping the block.</P>
|
||
|
||
<P><B>The present:</B> Red Hat says that GCC 2.96-85 and above is fixed. The
|
||
situation has indeed improved, yet we still see problem reports on our
|
||
mailing lists that disappear with a different compiler. In any case it does not
|
||
matter any longer. Hopefully a maturing GCC 3.x will solve the issue for good.
|
||
If you want to compile with 2.96 give the <CODE>--disable-gcc-checking</CODE>
|
||
flag to configure. Remember that you are on your own and <B>do not report any
|
||
bugs</B>. If you do, you will only get banned from our mailing list because
|
||
we have had more than enough flame wars over GCC 2.96. Please let the matter
|
||
rest.</P>
|
||
|
||
<P>If you have problems with GCC 2.96, you can get 2.96-85 packages from the
|
||
Red Hat <A HREF="ftp://updates.redhat.com">ftp server</A>, or just go for the
|
||
3.0.4 packages offered for version 7.2 and later. You can also get
|
||
<A HREF="ftp://people.redhat.com/jakub/gcc/3.2-10/">gcc-3.2-10 packages</A>
|
||
(unofficial, but working fine) and you can install them along the GCC 2.96 you
|
||
already have. MPlayer will detect it and use 3.2-10 instead of 2.96. If you do
|
||
not want to or cannot use the binary packages, here is how you can compile the
|
||
latest GCC from source:</P>
|
||
|
||
<OL>
|
||
<LI>Go to the <A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html">GCC mirrors page</A>
|
||
page and download <CODE>gcc-core-XXX.tar.gz</CODE> where <CODE>XXX</CODE> is
|
||
the version number. This includes the complete C compiler and is sufficient
|
||
for MPlayer. If you also want C++, Java or some of the other advanced GCC
|
||
features <CODE>gcc-XXX.tar.gz</CODE> may better suit your needs.</LI>
|
||
<LI>Extract the archive with<BR>
|
||
<CODE>tar -xvzf gcc-core-XXX.tar.gz</CODE></LI>
|
||
<LI>GCC is not built inside the source directory itself like most programs,
|
||
but needs a build directory outside the source directory. Thus you need to
|
||
create this directory via<BR>
|
||
<CODE>mkdir gcc-build</CODE></LI>
|
||
<LI>Then you can proceed to configure GCC in the build directory, but you need
|
||
the configure from the source directory:<BR>
|
||
<CODE>cd gcc-build<BR>
|
||
../gcc-XXX/configure</CODE></LI>
|
||
<LI>Compile GCC by issuing this command in the build directory:<BR>
|
||
<CODE>make bootstrap</CODE></LI>
|
||
<LI>Now you can install GCC (as root) by typing<BR>
|
||
<CODE>make install</CODE></LI>
|
||
</OL>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<H2><A NAME="binary">E.2 Binary distribution</A></H2>
|
||
|
||
<P>MPlayer previously contained source from the OpenDivX project, which
|
||
disallows binary redistribution. This code has been removed in version
|
||
0.90-pre1 and the remaining file <CODE>divx_vbr.c</CODE> that is derived
|
||
from OpenDivX sources has been put under the GPL by its authors as of version
|
||
0.90pre9. You are now welcome to create binary packages as you see fit.</P>
|
||
|
||
<P>Another impediment to binary redistribution were compiletime optimizations
|
||
for CPU architecture. MPlayer now supports runtime CPU detection (specify
|
||
the <CODE>--enable-runtime-cpudetection</CODE> option when configuring). It
|
||
is disabled by default because it implies a small speed sacrifice, but it is
|
||
now possible to create binaries that run on different members of the Intel
|
||
CPU family.</P>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<H2><A NAME="nvidia">E.3 nVidia</A></H2>
|
||
|
||
<P>We dislike the fact that <A HREF="http://www.nvidia.com">nVidia</A>
|
||
only provides binary drivers (for use with XFree86), which are often buggy.
|
||
We have had many reports on
|
||
<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A>
|
||
about problems related to these closed-source drivers
|
||
and their poor quality, instability and poor user and expert support.
|
||
Some examples can be found on the
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?s=6d83dc289805c37caef49b77857a0b7e&daysprune=&forumid=27">
|
||
nVidia Linux Forum</A>.
|
||
Many of these problems/issues keep appearing repeatedly.
|
||
We have been contacted by nVidia lately, and they said these bugs
|
||
do not exist, instability is caused by bad AGP chips, and they received
|
||
no reports of driver bugs (like the purple line). So if you have a
|
||
problem with your nVidia card, you are advised to update the nVidia driver
|
||
and/or buy a new motherboard or ask nVidia to supply open-source drivers.
|
||
In any case, if you are using the nVidia binary drivers and facing driver related problems,
|
||
please be aware that you will receive very little help from our side because we have
|
||
little power to help in this matter.</P>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<H2><A NAME="barr">E.4 Joe Barr</A></H2>
|
||
|
||
<P>Joe Barr became infamous by writing a less than favorable
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1214.mplayer.html">
|
||
MPlayer review</A>. He found MPlayer hard to install, but then
|
||
again he is not very fond of
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-06/lw-06-exam.html">reading documentation</A>.
|
||
He also concluded that the developers were unfriendly and the documentation
|
||
incomplete and insulting. You be the judge.
|
||
He went on to mention MPlayer negatively in his
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1227.predictions.html">10 Linux predictions for 2002</A>
|
||
In a followup
|
||
<A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0125.xine.html">review of xine</A>
|
||
he continued stirring up controversy. Ironically at the end of that article he
|
||
quotes his exchange with G<>nter Bartsch, the original author of xine, that
|
||
perfectly summarizes the whole situation:</P>
|
||
|
||
<BLOCKQUOTE>
|
||
However, he also went on to say that he was "surprised" by my column about
|
||
MPlayer and thought it was unfair, reminding me that it is a free software
|
||
project. "If you don't like it," Bartsch said, "you're free not to use it."
|
||
</BLOCKQUOTE>
|
||
|
||
<P>He does not reply to our mails. His editor does not reply to our mails.
|
||
Here are some quotes from different people about Joe Barr, so you can form your
|
||
own opinion:</P>
|
||
|
||
<P>Marc Rassbach has <A HREF="http://daily.daemonnews.org/view_story.php3?story_id=2102">something to say</A>
|
||
about the man.</P>
|
||
|
||
<BLOCKQUOTE>
|
||
You may all remember the LinuxWorld 2000, when he claimed that Linus T said
|
||
that 'FreeBSD is just a handful of programmers'. Linus said NOTHING of the
|
||
sort. When Joe was called on this, his reaction was to call BSD supporters
|
||
assholes and jerks.
|
||
</BLOCKQUOTE>
|
||
|
||
<P>A <A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/2001-December/009118.html">quote</A>
|
||
from Robert Munro on the
|
||
<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A>
|
||
mailing list:</P>
|
||
|
||
<BLOCKQUOTE>
|
||
<P>He's interesting, but not good at avoiding, um... controversy. Joe Barr
|
||
used to be one of the regulars on Will Zachmann's Canopus forum on Compuserve,
|
||
years ago. He was an OS/2 advocate then (I was an OS/2 fan too).</P>
|
||
|
||
<P>He used to go over-the-top, flaming people, and I suspect he had some hard
|
||
times, then. He's mellowed some, judging by his columns recently. Moderately
|
||
subtle humor was not his mode in those earlier days, not at all.</P>
|
||
</BLOCKQUOTE>
|
||
|
||
</BODY>
|
||
</HTML>
|