Flash videos

[renkai]

Hello everyone I am fairly new to Linux and today has been my first day trying out Linux Mint. So far I like it much better than other distros I've been fooling around with (ubuntu 7.04, suse 10.2, xandros desktop 4)...

Anyway I can't get flash videos to play in Linux Mint and wondering if I could get some suggestions about that. I've got a bunch of CS3 tutorial videos, all in .flv format fresh off one of the discs with the new release from adobe. I'm not running photoshop or any software from CS3 on Linux Mint, but I would like to be able to view the tutorial video files.

What happens when I try to play the videos is: Movie Player opens up and attempts to play the file, but all I get is a blank screen. I click the play button and it seems like it's about to play, but I get nothing. I don't get any errors or system hangups or anything either, just no video. Any suggestions?

[skampo]

vlc from the software portal works pretty good

[renkai]

Thanks I will try that one... when I can log back in to Linux Mint again. Currently I can't log in any user, something suddenly is now locking me out

[renkai]

Not sure what happened - I cannot log in to Linux Mint with any user/pass combo. Seems I am completely locked out now. The login prompt appears on boot, I try each user/pass that I've always used and it just beeps and redirects back to the login page. By 'redirect' I mean ... I see a black screen with cursor prompt for 1-2 seconds, then a beep and I'm back at the login screen, over and over.

Anyone have an idea about that?

[Boo]

It sounds like the DM is crashing due to a video problem.
most likely due to an update or maybe a beryl setting.

can you login in safe mode or terminal?
choose at the login a different session type (below the username window).

[renkai]

nope, couldn't login to a different session type.

What's 'DM' refer to?

I'm trying to recall what I was doing last. I believe all I did was restart after just using the browser and an IM chat for about an hour.

Anyway this is just an x40 ibm thinkpad I've got and messing around with some multi-boot options so I'm just going to try a reinstall of the mint os. I'm already that reinstall over the same partition now. I've been able to dual boot with ubuntu 7.04 but somehow the boot manager got messed up and I can't boot into xandros desktop 4 anymore (I first installed Xandros, then ubuntu, then Mint bianca. Wonder if xandros uses the same boot manager - grub isn't it?

[Boo]

mint and ubuntu use grub but i don't know about Xandros.

you could use the mint cd to restore the mint GRUB to the mbr or repair other problems.

there are other posts about grub and restoring it.
here is one:
http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... +grub&t=75

[Husse]

What about starting in rescue mode and then change the video driver to "vesa" as described in http://www.linuxmint.com/wiki/index.php ... ur_Live_CD
It seems to be a problem with video as Boo suggested
Provided your grub is not all that messed up that you can't boot Bianca.
After that you could edit menu.lst as described in
http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2703
Delete the PClinuxOS lines, look in menu.lst of Feisty and Xandros to see what you should add.
Please don't do this if you feel unsecure about it, as it can completely mess your boot!!

[renkai]

Hey thanks for the tips everyone.

I'm not too worried about messing up the boot. This is just an older IBM x40 laptop I recently bought from a friend, which I'm fooling around with and if need be I don't have a problem wiping the entire drive and starting from scratch. It's all part of learning for me right now.