HOWTO RealPlayer10Gold

From Gentoo Linux Wiki

[edit] Requirements

This howto has been tested with the following browsers:

• Firefox 2.02 (04/14/2007)
• Firefox 1.5 (06/01/2006)
• Firefox 0.10_pre (24/09/2004)
• Firefox 0.9 (05/09/2004)
• KDE Konqueror (3.3.1)

I really think people who use Mozilla or older versions of Firefox probably will find this howto very useful, too.

Finally, if you don't mind about not having RealPlayer10Gold integrated with your browser and you only want to use it in a stand-alone way, there are no requirements at all!

[edit] Installation

Verify your certificates have been updated. If not your RealPlayer download will fail:

# emerge ca-certificates

Now start the RealPlayer installation:

# echo "media-video/realplayer nsplugin" >> /etc/portage/package.use
# emerge -av realplayer

To verify everything if plugins have been installed correctly you have to type "about:plugins" in the (firefox) address bar; scroll the list of installed plugins: you should see something like this:

Helix DNA Plugin: RealPlayer G2 Plug-In Compatible

    File name: nphelix.so
    Helix DNA Plugin: RealPlayer G2 Plug-In Compatible version 0.4.0.622 built with gcc 3.2.0 on Jul 18 2006

MIME Type 	Description 	Suffixes 	Enabled
audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin 	RealPlayer Plugin Metafile 	rpm 	Yes

[edit] For Firefox 1.0.6 and Prior

You'll need to create links to the plugins in /usr/lib/nsbrowser/plugins:

# cd /usr/lib/nsbrowser/plugins
# ln -s /opt/RealPlayer/mozilla/nphelix.so
# ln -s /opt/RealPlayer/mozilla/nphelix.xpt

[edit] RTSP and PNM Protocols Support

All internet addresses which begin with rtsp:// or pnm:// are to be opened via RealPlayer. Let's tell our browser to do so.

We have to create (only if doesn't exist yet) a file called user.js in the user's Firefox directory and add some lines. It is located at ~/.mozilla/firefox/<random>.default/user.js. Please don't touch prefs.js.

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.external.rtsp", true);
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.rtsp", "/usr/bin/realplay");
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.external.pnm", true);
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.pnm", "/usr/bin/realplay");

[edit] Konqueror integration

If you want to get Konqueror browser integration, create the following file as root /usr/share/applnk/Multimedia/realplayer.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Categories=Application;AudioVideo;Player;Music;KDE;
Comment=Version 0.5
Comment[de]=Version 0.5
Comment[sv]=Version 0.5
Encoding=UTF-8
Exec=realplay
GenericName=Mediaplayer
GenericName[de]=Ein auf xine basierender Media Player
GenericName[sv]=Mediaspelare
Icon=realplay
MimeType=audio/vnd.rn-realaudio;audio/x-pn-realaudio;audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin;vnd.rn-realvideo;
Name=Realplayer
Name[de]=Realplayer
Name[sv]=Realplayer
ServiceTypes=
Terminal=false
Type=Application

You can create other MIME handlers in this directory, to achieve for example, realplayer to handle real audio and video, and kaffeine to play other media types.

[edit] Troubleshooting

[edit] Streaming Fix for Mozilla

If you cannot get RealPlayer to play audio on sites such as BBCNews.com, and you are running KDE (hence the arts sound system), then you should edit file /usr/bin/realplay:

$REALPLAYBIN "$@"

aoss $REALPLAYBIN "$@"

Note: if you do not have installed aoss or the sound does not work even after the change mentioned above, you are very probably missing an OSS compatibility layer in ALSA. Check out whether the alsa-oss package is installed.

[edit] Firefox Cannot Find the Plug-in

Even if your installation is successful some sites (Czech TV) complain with a message box: Could not find an appropriate hxplay or realplay in the system path to use as an embedded player.

This can be fixed (workarounded) by linking the RealPlayer into /usr:

# cd /usr
# ln -s /opt/RealPlayer/ realplay