Suse 8.2 proffessional questions

[minakoaino]

Hi everyone,
Last week I installed a dual-boot of Suse 8.2 proffessional and Windows XP Home, I have a few questions about running things in Suse, and was wondering if anyone could help me.
1. When I try to play avi/divx/xvid files in MPlayer, I get an error. I know it's possible to install Linux versions of divx codecs and such, but how do I do it? :/
2. Likewise, when I go to play a DVD, I can mount the device fine, but there's no picture or sound. Is there a free dvd playing software that can fully handle dvd playback?
3. Are there any good html editors for Linux? I know there's the Gimp for image editing, but when I tried one of the html editors (I think it was WebDesigner, but I'm not sure), it didn't work properly. (Instead of showing the text in the specified font, it showed the html code).
4. How do I set my user account to root or admin? I don't mind having to change users when I need to install a program, but I'd like to be able to edit things without getting a "You do not have the neccessary permissions to edit this file" mesage.
5. Is it possible to run a MySQL database and cgi-bin in Suse? Is it also possible to run journaling software (such as <a href="http://cafelog.com/" title="b2">b2</a>  from a desktop computer? Would I have to set up a web server, and if I do, how do I?
Sorry for asking so many questions, but I've looked on newsgroups and FAQs and I haven't been able to find any answers.
Thanks for your help  

[Refalm]

I was able to play DivX movies from Slackware without installing anything. Anyway, you might want to check this:
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/divxcodec_linux.html
This is probably the video player you want:
http://xine.sourceforge.net/

Download Mozilla. It's got a very good HTML editor.
If you don't like that, try OpenOffice which got a very good HTML editor too!
I use Vim, which is Notepad on steroids  

DO NOT SET YOUR USER ACCOUNT ROOT  
Instead, open Konsole or xterm and type "su", your root password, and then Nautilus or Konqueror.
If that doesn't work, try logging in as root just to edit some lousy file  

For webserving, try Apache. You can access your pages tru http://localhost/fishcorn_sucks.html or something.

[BouncingAyatollah]

I use Suse 9 on one machine here so I'll have to assume 8.2 is similar

 

quote:1. (...) divx codecs and such (...)  

Normally installing stuff in Suse is easy, just use YaST (from System menu) Software->Install and Remove Software and choose from Package Groups. It will handle dependencies for you. Since MPlayer is not listed have a look at the mplayer website:

http://www.mplayerhq.hu    and the docs
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/DOCS/HTML/en/index.html

You can get all the codecs you need from their site.

 

quote:2. (...) dvd playing software (...)  

Once mplayer is sorted THAT should do, or Xine (which you can get with Install and Remove...)

 

quote: 3. (...) good html editors (...)

Try BlueFish or Quanta Plus, in Install and Remove under Publishing->HTML group. They are usually "work on code then preview" like AceHTML or HTMLKit under Win. I love Quanta, just code away and hit the eye icon to preview.

 

quote: 4. (...) set my user account to root or admin? (...)

As stated, from a command line use "su" or "sudo", or log in as root. Be careful though, best to use a normal user and use "su" when you need to.

 

quote: 5. (...) MySQL database and cgi-bin (...)  journaling software (...)from a desktop computer? (...)

This is a whole new topic in itself. apache (webserver), PHP, MySQL etc. are all available from Install and Remove. thttpd is a small and simple to try webserver too. If you wanted to run a live webserver you would "normally" use another machine to do so, and this involves other issues such as handling DNS, let alone whether your ISP would allow it. However, it is not unusual to run a server on your own machine for testing purposes. Having said this, it could be done, yes.

In a very general sense you would choose a webserver, get it, install it and read the docs. Make it start up as a service (YAST2->Network Services->HTTP server). Configure it to know where on your machine to find your webpages to serve, and put some there. Test it by pointing a web browser at your own IP address, port 80 and see if you get expected pages. Adequate for testing. For a live server you would need a domain name and a way of handling DNS queries to it, again there is more than one way to do this - including free "dynamic DNS" services. Be aware though, that opening a port and a service on your machine has security implications, i.e. you may be hacked. This is why servers are usually run on another separate machine.

Once up and running add other requirements such as PHP, MySQL and so on one at a time.