[Triumf-linux-managers] FYI - Firefox, Totem plugin and audio/video

[Andrew Daviel]

FYI, for desktop users:

I recently found a solution to something that's been annoying me 
off-and-on for some time.

SL/CENTOS ship with a native Firefox which is now updated reasonably 
regularly, so it makes sense to use it instead of installing from 
Mozilla.

SL also includes the Totem media player, which because of licensing 
issues does not include codecs for MP3, WMV, MPG or most any real-world 
media. However, it also includes the Totem mozilla plugin, which is 
hard-coded to handle all those content-types. The result is, you click on 
a link, Totem launches, then says it won't play.

One can install extra codecs e.g.
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-good gstreamer-plugins-extras
# yum install gstreamer-plugins-fluendo
# yum --enablerepo dag install gstreamer-plugins-bad
"bad" will get you an MP3 player
But there are still problems e.g. MPEG1, some AVI, Realmedia.

One can disable the Totem plugins in the Add-Ons manager per
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-issues-with-plugins-fix-problems
Then Firefox will fall back to the application manager, ask what player 
you want to use, and optionally remember it. (under 
Edit/Preferences/Applications)

If you decide you want the plugin to handle, say, audio/wav but not 
video/mpeg, you can go to about:config per 
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_files_using_plugins
and add "video/mpeg" to the config string 
"plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types"


On a slightly related note, Firefox now supports some open codecs 
natively, e.g. OGG. So Firefox itself plays the sound. Like the Flash 
plugin, Firefox has no sound settings, and seems to ignore the system 
preferences set in gnome-sound-properties. On one system, that meant no 
sound till I found http://www.seehuhn.de/pages/alsa and configured
/etc/asound.conf to use the working soundcard.


-- 
Andrew Daviel, TRIUMF, Canada
Tel. +1 (604) 222-7376  (Pacific Time)
Network Security Manager