Enabling Multimedia bits in Centos

Centos is the community version and binary compatible version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

It is 98% of RHEL with the exception that all logos, names and references to Red Hat are removed.

While is a very capable and robust Server OS, it can also be used as a workstation. The missing multimedia bits in Centos has caused many to label it merely good for Server.

To enable multimedia in Centos 5.x, first download the rpmforge rpm from here http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/rpmforge-release/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm

Install it by either double clicking on the RPM or issue the following command as root:

rpm -ivh rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm

Install yumex, the GUI front-end for yum:

yum -y install yumex

Once that is done you can launch yumex from the Applications -> System Tools menu or just as root launch it from the CLI by typing yumex.

Let it run for a while (it needs to refresh a bit) and then click on All in the packages bar. Put in gstreamer in the search bar and hit enter or click on the binoculars icon.

Select :

1. gstreamer-plugins-bad
2. gstreamer-plugins-ugly
3. gstreamer-plugins-bad-extras
4. gstreamer-plugins-ffmpeg
5. xvidcore
6. libquicktime
7. mplayer-plugin (to enable viewing of online streaming content)
   

The click process que.

To enable Realplayer playback download the RealPlayer11Gold rpm from http://real.com/linux and click on Red Hat Package. Install it as per to the rpmforge rpm above.

To enable flash support (Youtube etc) install the following:

1. flash-plugin
2. libflashsupport

Hope this will be useful for those intending to start with using Centos on the desktop.

For Fedora 9 pls refer to http://www.mjmwired.net/resources/mjm-fedora-f9.html