Why bother with various media players when there is superior vlc?

[MikeWalsh]

We don't need to use a separate 'app' for playing DVDs, etc.

OOTB, when you load a disc, the 'handler' component of Puppy's desktop drive icon setup detects it. As soon as you 'mount' it, the 'handler' asks if you want to play it.....and if you say 'Yes', it will automatically launch via Puppy's default media player, pMusic.

You can of course choose your default media player to suit yourself.

Personally, as previously stated, I use VLC for most things, but I, too, occasionally come up against stuff that VLC just won't play (rare, but it does happen). My fallback media app for this scenario is Mpv.....which always just 'works'.


Mike.

 

[MikeRocor]

We don't need to use a separate 'app' for playing DVDs, etc.

I use vlc for playing music and the occasional mp4 file but now I'm feeling like I might be a little behind the times - I have literally never played a DVD on a PC. I'm going to have to try that some time - maybe get one from the library, 'cause I don't think there are even any in the house.

 

[MikeWalsh]

I use vlc for playing music and the occasional mp4 file but now I'm feeling like I might be a little behind the times - I have literally never played a DVD on a PC.

^^^ Lol!!

Oh, it might be an old-fashioned way of doing things, Mike.....but you never have the worry of a file going AWOL due to....whatever.

I actually have two DVD drives. One came with the HP desktop rig, but's it's a cheapo, flimsy laptop-style drive. I don't like it. I don't think I've ever used it, TBH.....apart from the very first boot, when I used a Puppy DVD to wipe Whinedoze off it for good!

As to the other one, I'd bought myself a brand-new 'drawer-loader' to replace the clapped-out one in the ancient Compaq desktop rig, less than 3 months before the Compaq itself turned up its toes and raised the white flag. After almost 17 years, you couldn't really complain about the dried-out power caps!

So; rather than waste a perfectly good drive - the HP has nowhere suitable to put it - I turned it into an external drive, by the simple expedient of using a SATA-to-USB 3.0 adapter cable (making sure to get the type that would work with an optical drive. Research shows that not all of them will.....the correct ones possess an additional small chip on the circuit board that handles the signal, apparently).

The original drive was PATA-connected with those old-fashioned, wide, flat cables......which are impossible to make tidy. Newer ones are now SATA3, of course, but I DID have a spare SATA port on the Compaq's mobo, so it got put to good use. The Compaq was built around the time when mobos were transitioning from ATA to SATA, and - conveniently - it had ports for both.

It now sits on top of the HP's tower, firmly held in place with some large lumps of Blu-Tak, permanently hooked-up to a rear USB 3.0 port.....and is set in the BIOS as the 'default optical drive'.

I much prefer a drawer-loader, if I'm honest. (I've even written a wee YAD-powered GUI app to open & close the drawer for me.....to save me having to reach across and hit the button on the front! How lazy is that??

)


T'other Mike.

 

[AlphaObeisance]

Maybe I should feel embarrassed by this; but I used VLC forever until some time back the dang thing stopped playing media properly (no doubt a misconfiguration on my part); but given I'm typically pretty lazy (HAH!) I never actually looked into why it wasn't working properly anymore and I've been using MPV ever since.

That said, I really only use media players to stream my home security footage anymore, or generally play some course material I've downloaded; so I'm not hugely dependent on media players as my actual media is served via Jellyfin =)

Reading your post literally made me laugh, because I had actually 100% forgotten that VLC quit working for me for some reason, and its literally been months lol! I don't even think I've got it installed anymore.

 

[The Duck]

These days this is all I need for music.

 

[wendy-lebaron]

the other day mixxx caused spirallinux cinnamon to lock up tight. the desktop messed up on my outdated computer for the first time in 1-1/2 years. so it can no longer be a solution.

just download deadbeef and get it overwith. it still works on debian "bullseye". if not there's an "anylinux" appimage for it.

after some years i tried to get along with "xmms" again. it's a windows-only program. i hoped it could play back mptm files. that didn't reference windows vst plug-ins. but the mptm plug-in file was written by different authors. than the maintainers of xmms. so it didn't work on my computer with wine. yay they did nice work with the interface! but i can't care about that right now.

actually i was demanding on purpose. with a windows-only program. why even bother with that when there are dozens of alternatives on linux? including the worst one possible indicated by the op. no please don't make me like it in december. when i checked out manjaro kde in springtime 2022. one of the first programs i ran was elisa. little did i know it required vlc. so when i tried to use elisa in another system. which didn't have vlc or its related binaries installed for some reason. it behaved like a woman shouldn't toward a man who desperately loved her. i don't want to talk about it anymore. i hate vlc media player.

 

[beanburrito]

just download deadbeef and get it overwith

I've thought about trying it again, I hear it's close to Windows' foobar 2000 player without having to run it in WINE.