I like RealPlayer and use it often, but I know that installing it on any Linux system can be a hassle for first time Linux users. Unfortunately the port of RealPlayer to Linux is a non-paid Community project, and therefore not perfect.

For Windows users this may seem like another example of a good reason to stay away from Linux, but RealAudio makes the vast majority of it's cash on Windows systems and they don't have the resources to devote to full time Linux developers.

Frustrating for new users, but what better way to work your way around the system and learn a little about the UNIX way of doing things? And there is no point in blaming Linux. RealAudio owns the program, not the community that took time out of their day to bring it to UNIX/Linux.

Here is the easy way and it takes no longer than 10 or 15 minutes.

First, go to https://player.helixcommunity.org/2005/downloads/ and download RealPlayer10GOL.bin ( it's an archive). Save this to My Documents. To make things simple it may be best to be in Full Desktop mode to do the following steps.

• Start an Administrative File manager using Launch → Applications → System → Administrator Tools → File Manager (Administrator).
• Navigate to All File Systems → / → home → user → My Documents and copy the downloaded RealPlayer10Gold.bin file to your root directory, My Eee PC → My Home
• Right click the newly copied file and click Properties and in the RealPlayer10GOLD.bin Properties window select the Permissions tab.
• In the Access Permissions section check each box in the Exec column and click OK.
• Now, for you command line junkies, you get the opportunity to open a terminal as root and install RealPlayer. For those nervous about using the terminal window as root, don't worry and just be careful. It's not difficult and it's not rocket science, but it is the best way to complete the installation. To open the terminal click Launch → Applications → System → Administrator Tools → Console (Administrator)
• The terminal window will open and ask for the password to entered when you originally set up the system. Type in your password and hit the enter key. Notice that your computer name will be in red lettering. This is intentional and a constant reminder that you are in an Administrative login as the root user.
• To make sure that the file exists and is in the proper mode you may either type dir and RealPlayer10GOLD.bin will list in a green color, or you can do it the UNIX way and type ls -l and view the file, size and permissions which will show at the beginning of the line and read
  

rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 5790356 2008-04-05 21:37 RealPlayer10GOLD.bin

(the rwxrwxrwx stands for User/Group/World read/write/execute permissions which is what we want).

• To start the installation just type the following: ./RealPlayer10GOLD.bin and click the enter key (the ./ is essential in order to tell the system that it will find the program in your immediate PATH since the directory you are now in does not appear in the path of any of the system users, including root).

• The screen will show Extracting files for RealPlayer installation….. and shortly afterwards show the Welcome Screen. Follow the directions and press the ENTER key to continue.

• Instead of accepting the default path [/root/RealPlayer]: enter the following path on the command line, /usr/lib/RealPlayer, and click the ENTER key.

• Press the ENTER key again to accept the above path you typed in.

• When asked to configure the system wide symbolic links, enter n and press the ENTER key.

• At this point the program will be installed, however there is more to be done. We now have to setup a symbolic link so that all users on the system (you) can launch the program from Launch → Applications → Multimedia → RealPlayer 11 location.

• On the command line, type in the following:
  ln -s /usr/lib/RealPlayer/realplay /usr/bin/realplay
  and press the ENTER key. The ln program sets up the link, the -s switch makes it a symbolic link (like a Windows shortcut). The first location is the target and the second location is the link name. To make sure you have it, then type in
  ls -al /usr/bin/real*
  and you should see something like
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 2008-04-08 14:04 /usr/bin/realplay → /usr/lib/RealPlayer/realplay

• Are we done? No! We have a problem with the realplay startup script located in /usr/lib/RealPlayer. If you're curious, type in realplay at the command line and press the ENTER key. the results will show a segfault (memory segmentation fault) and the line $REALPLAYBIN “$@”. This tells us that the RealPlayer supplied script has not found the directory where it's located in order to properly start up.

• Change to the directory by typing
  cd /usr/lib/RealPlayer
  and pressing the ENTER key.

• On the command line enter
  cp realplay realplay.bak
  and press the ENTER key. This will give you a backup of the original file just in case you mess it up. Then type
  chmod -x realplay.bak
  which will make the backup file non-executable.

• On the keyboard type
  nano realplay
  and press the ENTER key.

• Cursor down to the line right after #!/bin/sh and press the ENTER key.

• Enter the following lines:
  export GTK_IM_MODULE=
export QT_IM_MODULE=
export LC_ALL=“C”
export LANG=“C”
  ( I want to thank San, an EeePC Forum member with a web page explaining this at http://isaac.hk/blog/archives/3-RealPlayer-10-for-Linux.html#extended for the above, which I believe is necessary for those with SCIM installed and using the Chinese character set? )

• Scroll down to the lines:
  # if REALPLAYDIR detection doesn't work, hardcode the directory here
REALPLAYDIR=`dirname $REALPLAYSCRIPT`
  and comment out the second line with a # so that it looks like this:
  # if REALPLAYDIR detection doesn't work, hardcode the directory here
# REALPLAYDIR=`dirname REALPLAYSCRIPT`
  and then highlight the second line without the #

• At the very top of your console screen click Edit → Copy

• Use your arrow keys to move the block cursor to the end of the line you commented out and press the ENTER key to go to the next line.

• At the very top of your console screen click Edit → Paste.

• Now, notice the opening and closing apostrophes, ` and '. Between these delete the words dirname $REALPLAYSCRIPT and enter /usr/lib/RealPlayer. It should all look like this when you're done:
  # if REALPLAYDIR detection doesn't work, hardcode the directory here
# REALPLAYDIR=`dirname $REALPLAYSCRIPT`
REALPLAYDIR=`/usr/lib/RealPlayer`
  

• You're done. On the keyboard, enter Ctr-X, then enter y and press the ENTER key to save the buffer as realplay.

• Now, as the normal user start RealPlayer, Launch → Applications → Multimedia → RealPlayer 10 and follow the directions. When you come to the Almost Finished screen, check the Check for updates and Configure mozilla helpers checkboxes before you click OK.

There is more to be done in order to have the player load automatically from web page links. I'll follow up with those instructions later.

Nb : there is a new version , RealPlayer11 , that you can download from : http://www.real.com/linux only when following the above instructions you get blocked at the second part of the nano business . Has someone a solution , a new script ?