Help File Library: Slackware: Xanim Installation

If you're anything like me, you are dual-booting windows and linux because there are some things you just can't give up--one of those things being quality video files.

The program I installed to do this is called XAnim, by Mark Podlipec, and, just so you know, I'm doing this on Slackware 7. The tarball can be downloaded from http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/xanim2801.tar.gz

Personally, I like downloading my stuff to /var/tmp, but you can put it anywhere you jolly well please, just remember where it is :) Once it's downloaded, you'll need to extract it:

tar -xvzf xanim2801.tar.gz

This should extract into ~./xanim2801 go ahead and "cd xanim2801" and take a look around--you'll spend a bit of time here. First off, you'll want to go into the docs directory, and "vi README.dll" (or, instead of vi, use whatever text editor you like best) This file contains information concerning what lines in Imakefile you may need to comment out.

Once you've determined what you need to do, open up Imakefile in ~./xanim2801 and do so. I didn't need to comment any out, in fact, I uncommented one line:

XA_MULTIBUF = -DXMBUF that line can be found just above the "End of Sections" section... uncommenting it allows double buffering to be compiled into the program (stores video data using both hardware and software).

Once you have edited Imakefile to your preferences, you'll have to determine whether or not imake and xmkimf are in your current path. On my computer, they're located in /usr/X11R6/bin it may be different on yours. To verify, type:

"locate imake" and "locate xmkmf" then search through the returns to find a file called imake (and a file called xmkmf), and nothing more than imake (or xmkmf)

Now, check to determine whether or not that directory is in your path. to do so, type:

"echo $PATH" If the directory is not listed, you'll need to add it in... "PATH=$PATH:" where is the location where imake is located...so for me, I typed: "PATH=$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin"

Once that is done, you'll be ready to compile xanim. first, convert Imakefile to a makefile: "xmkmf" now you're ready to compile! So...

make xanim

Voila! It's done... Now, since you're a space hog, go ahead and clear things up "mv xanim /usr/local/bin" (that places the xanim program into the location where most other programs are stored). You can now delete the directory you're in:

cd ..

rm -rf xanim2801"

The only thing left to do is to download the proper codecs... so, head on over to http://xanim.va.pubnix.com/linuxELFx86g21.html (supposing you have glibc2.1) and download to your heart's content. Extract the nasty little buggers, and pay attention to those files that have a ".xa" extension...

"mkdir /usr/local/xanim" then "mkdir /usr/local/xanim/mods" to create the directory that XAnim will search for codecs in... Now, go back to where you extracted the codecs, and "mv *.xa /usr/local/xanim/mods"

Now, when you run XAnim, you'll have support for all those spiffy avi and mov files!