[commandline] trplayer kludge, but it works (fwd)

[Tony Baechler]

I'm sure I'm not the only one to point this out, but here are my thoughts.

On point #4, why not just use Helix?  It has Linux binaries that work.  
It leaves a lot to be desired in terms of the UI, but it plays audio and 
is compatible with Real.  It's not in Debian, but you can download 
precompiled binaries after registration.  You might be able to get 
source, it's hard to tell.  I think Ubuntu might have Helix or Real also 
but it requires X.  The Helix site is confusing, but it's there.

On point #7, why not just use ldd?  That shows the needed libraries.  On 
a large system, there is no reason to copy hundreds of unnecessary 
libraries.  If you can set up a compressed loop filesystem, you could 
just jail it that way, just making sure the compressed loop filesystem 
is mounted in /etc/fstab.

Finally, the reason why it's no longer maintained is simple.  Matt 
Campbell works for Serotek and probably no longer has the time or 
interest.  I know for certain that it used to work on Debian, so I'm not 
sure where the Red Hat comment comes from.

Of course, you could also use MPlayer which plays Real and avoid the 
hassle altogether, but I don't think it plays Flash.

On 11/26/2009 3:39 AM, Jude DaShiell wrote:
> 4) Telnet into the old machine, where trplayer works.
> Copy /lib/* and /usr/lib/* over to /trj.
> This brings in RealPlayer8, which is under /usr/lib,
> and it brings in the compatability libraries,
> which were necessary for trplayer to run even on the old box.
> Note that trplayer was compiled for an even older redhat, and sorry,
> this is the only binary,
> so we needed compat libraries even to get it to work on that machine.
> Trying to compile it from source would probably take me two weeks,
> if it can be done at all,
> which it probably can't, as I'm sure the real player sdk
> has changed substantially over the past few years.
> Why such a valuable program goes unmaintained, I don't know.

> 7) Remove, about a dozen at a time, the libraries in /trj/lib and 
> /trj/usr/lib,
> until trplayer doesn't work.
> If you took something out that made it break, put it back.
> (Does it hurt when you do that?  Then don't do that!)
> Finally you are left with a handful of shared libraries.
> That's all you need.
> Notice that one of these is /lib/ld-linux.so.2,
> and it is referenced, in bash, and in trplayer, by an absolute path.
> That's why I had to chroot into a new filesystem.
> I couldn't just put these old libraries in a special
> old_tr_libs directory and setLD_LIBRARY_PATH,
> though that would have been so much easier.