Installing GTranscode
To use GTranscode you will first need to install Transcode. Once this is complete you can continue continue through the following steps.
Debian and Ubuntu
Installation under these two platforms is very easy. Infact you don't need to have Transcode installed beforehand as the Package Management Systems of these two vareities of Linux will install Transcode as part of the GTranscode installation process. To install both applications you will need be online (connected to the net) and type the following command in terminal (on the command line):
sudo apt-get install gtranscode
Thats about as simple as it can get. You type the command and then the apt-get command will find the correct files online, download them, configure them, and install them. Not only that, the apt-get application also gets all the files and libraries that Gtranscode depends on including the files for Transcode.
Gentoo
To install on Gentoo you use the inbuilt Package Management System which is know as emerge. Unfortunately at this time there is not a Gentoo package for GTranscode so you will need to install it from source.
Redhat
To use the Redhat Package Manager you will need to find and download the appropriate rpm files. However at the time of writing there are no such files available for GTranscode and you will need to install from source.
Installing from Source
At the time of writing the current version of GTranscode is gtranscode-v0.3
The downloaded source files are therefore gtranscode-v0.3.tar.gz To start the installation process you must first have open a terminal, and locate the directory that contains the downloaded file. You must use the cd command to navigate to the correct directory, or alternatively you can copy or move the files (using the cp or mv commands) to your current working directory. If you don't know how to do this then please first read up on how to change directories in Linux and probably it is a good idea to also learn somehting of the Linux file structure and common basic commands. To check the files are actually in the same directory as your terminal you will need to use the ls (list) command by typing this command directly into a terminal and pressing return. If the files are there you will see them listed in the output of your terminal like so:
The output of the above terminal shows a list of files in the directory I am currently working in. The file gtranscode-v0.3.tar.gz is listed on the left most column near the bottom. This is a good sign. If you don't see it then you will have to locate it in the directory you downloaded it to.
Decompress the Files
Now you will need to unpack (decompress) the file you have just downloaded. To do this use the tar command like so:
tar zxvf gtranscode-v0.3.tar.gz
If all is well your terminal will output something similar to this:
gtranscode/ gtranscode/TODO gtranscode/interface.c gtranscode/interface.h gtranscode/Makefile gtranscode/LICENSE gtranscode/README gtranscode/tcprobe.c gtranscode/tcprobe.h gtranscode/CHANGELOG gtranscode/main.c gtranscode/transcode.c gtranscode/transcode.h
The above files are source files and you use these to install the applicaiton. Use the cd command to change directories to gtranscode :
cd gtranscode
Checking the README
It is at least polite and probably good practice to read the README included any source code. This file can save you a lot of problems if well written. Often source files also come with a INSTALL file which contains information on how to install your software. In this case there is no such file so reading the README will have to do. Open it up wiht your favourite text editor. If you don't have one then you will need to read something about how to open, read, and edit text files in Linux. You can't get very far without this knowledge. In the meantime you could try one of these commands:
less README
vi README
nano README
soffice README
Hope fully one of them will open a text edito for you and you can read the content of the file. The file doesn't say a lot (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). It does state two important things:
Requires ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - transcode (which comes with tcprobe) from http://www.Theorie.Physik.UNI-Goettingen.DE/~ostreich/transcode/ - GTK+ 1.2 (which should come with gtk-config)
This means you require Transcode to be installed before you can install GTranscode. Additionally you will need GTK+ 1.2 which is probably installed on your operating system. To check if this software is installed type this:
gtk-config --version
you should see something like this:
eset@focus:~$ gtk-config --version 1.2.10 eset@focus:~$
The above feedback shows that GTK+ is installed and it is version 1.2.10, because this is a version greater than GTK+ 1.2 we are ok. If you do not see any feedback in the terminal or you get an error message (eg. command not found), or the version installed is less than 1.2 then you need to find a version of the GTK+ software which is 1.2 or greater and install it.
You should also check to see if transcode is installed type:
transcode --version
If it is there you will see some feedback like this:
transcode v0.6.14 (C) 2001-2003 Thomas Oestreich, 2003-2004 T. Bitterberg
If you get a command not found error then Transcode is not installed and you first need to go through this process.
The second inportant piece of information on the README is a tip on how to install the application. The author states:
Installation: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ make cp gtranscode /usr/bin
This is good information. Essentially its saying that the installation should be simple.
Make
Lets try the author on their word. Type the make command in the temrinal and hit return. If you see the following then the application has been built:
gcc -g `gtk-config --libs` `gtk-config --cflags` main.c tcprobe.c interface.c transcode.c -o gtranscode
Testing
Before moving the newly compiled software to the bin directory as the README suggests, lets test the application to see if there are any problems. Try this:
./gtranscode
If the result of the above command is the following then GTranscode is installed:
Moving GTranscode to bin
Most programs (software) on Linux is stored in the bin directory which is found at /usr/b in to copy the application to this location type the following in the command line:
mv gtranscode /usr/bin
You might bot be able to do this if you don't have the right permissions, in which case either the system administrator has to do this for you or you can try this command :
sudo mv gtranscode /usr/bin
Whichever way you use to move the file you should now be able to execute it (start it) by simply typing :
gtranscode