Introduction
Real Networks has developed a Linux version of RealPlayer 7. According to the post on freshmeat.net from someone at rea.com, the 7.0 version is finally considered “stable.” It will work as a Netscape plugin; however, to do so you must follow the instructions below.
The key is to run the installation script under your login, NOT as root. This will allow you to setup the plugin under your plugins directory ~/.netscape/plugins. You can do this for each user on your system for the RealPlayer plugin to work.
RealPlayer 7 Installation from Self-executable File
- Download the setup file from Real Networks. From the Select OS menu choose Linux 2.x (libc6 i386) Self-Extracting.
- Change the permissions of the setup file to make it executable with the command chmod +x rp7_linux20_libc6_i386_cs1.bin
- Create the directory bin under your home directory. For example, execute the command mkdir /home/yourusername/bin replacing yourusername with yours. If you do not create this directory, the installer will not be able to fully install the plugin and you will see an error messaging saying it could not write the file.
- Execute ./rp7_linux20_libc6_i386_cs1.bin from the directory you downloaded it.
- Click Accept.
- Leave the default Destination Directory. It is /home/yourusername/RealPlayer7.
- When it asked to to choose the Netscape plugin directory, it does not allow you to enter a directory by hand. I have found that it works if installed in /home/yourusername/bin. (The directory you created in step 3.) Click Finish. The install will then show you the progress of the install. The installation script will create a symbolic link called rpnphelper in the bin directory. It will also create the files raclass.zip and rpnp.so in your ~/.netscape/plugins directory. Do NOT copy the rpnphelper file into your ~/.netscape/plugins directory. I have found this to cause Netscape to core dump and not start.
- You will then see a screen stating whether or not the plugin installation was successful. Click Next.
- You will see a screen showing the results of the MIME Type installation. Click OK.
- The last part of registration asks you to register. If you choose Cancel to not register, you need to start the standalone version with the command ~/RealPlayer7/realplay, go to View->Preferences->Connection, and choose your connection speed.
- Restart Netscape for the plugin to take effect.
- Test the plugin installation by typing about:plugins in the Location window of Netscape (where you type the URL). You should now see Real Player listed as a plugin from your personal plugins directory.
- You can also run ~/RealPlayer7/realplay for the standalone version.
RealPlayer 7 Installation from the RPM
- Download the setup file from Real Networks. From the Select OS menu choose Linux 2.x (libc6 i386) RPM.
- You might need to rename rp7_linux20_libc6_i386_cs1_rpm to rp7_linux20_libc6_i386_cs1.rpm if it is downloaded with the wrong name.
- As root, execute rpm -ivh rp7_linux20_libc6_i386_cs1.rpm from the directory you downloaded it. It might give you the message file /usr/share/mimelnk/audio/x-wav.kdelnk from install of RealPlayer-7.0-7 conflicts with file from package kdebase-1.1.2-33. If this happens, you can use the command rpm -ivh –force rp7_linux20_libc6_i386_cs1.rpm. This will force it to install anyway. This is safe because x-wave.kdelnk is just a MIME type that tells KDE what application to use to open .wav files.
- After the RPM is installed, it will open RealPlayer7 and the registration box. See step 10 above for further instructions.
- I don’t think the RPM sets up the plugin for each user as described in the first set of installation instructions. You may need to do this by hand.
