I take it you are talking about the Slackware update packages here?8Geee wrote:UPDATE: I D/L this and wowa 20Mb binary (gnome-mplayer = 5Mb) plus a lot of docs and foreign language. If you need it, go for it, if you don't older equipment may do better just where you're at. Next up... ffmpeg patch.
You are certainly correct to say that the user should consider what is best for them, depending on what tasks they wish to perform.
Just to clarify a couple of points though, my gnome-mplayer package for Slacko is around 625k unpacked, There is a separate NLS package which is a little larger but optional of course. Gnome-mplayer is just a front end which depends on your mplayer binary (be it old or new). My gnome-mplayer is 1.0.9 which should be effectively a version upgrade in most (if not all) Pups.
My mplayer (gmplayer) packages do not contain any DOC or NLS stuff, but the binary is BIG compared to the old originals as I mentioned before. As you said, it is up to the user to decide. I believe much of the size is due to it containing statically linked ffmpeg libraries (the default build configuration), but because these are the latest they give all the increased functionality such as new codecs to play formats such as HEVC / H265 and VP9.
It is possible to compile mplayer against your existing system ffmpeg libraries. This will make the binary smaller but restrict you to the functionality of these. Some of the newer formats won't play. In the case of Precise and Wheezy you have a fairly old libav package in place of ffmpeg. Slackos have ffmpeg but never as recent as the latest. Sometimes, size does matter.
