On Fri, 15 May 2020, Celejar wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2020 01:41:21 -0400 (EDT) moelmoel2714 <moelmoel2714@gmail.com> wrote: [...]vlc worked fine before I did something I know not what. and it works fine on the other computer. but, to repeat, the working system has a ton of modules listed but this one has four or so.Debian's vlc plugins seem to be in packages vlc-plugin-base and vlc-plugin-video-output, but there's no point in trying to figure out what's wrong with your system until you install official versions.
probably due to your advice, not sure, but I have gotten a resolution. thanks are owed to you in any case and also to Jude DaShiell, tomas and Roberto for useful tips and information.
here's what happened: I removed the deb-multimedia and did a purge of vlc.
apt-upgrade yielded the dreaded 'unmet dependencies' message and a list of vlc-related files. some of the usual countermeasures didn't have any effect; I won't detail them.
I stumbled on the advice to do sudo aptitude install vlcthis worked wonders, offering various scenarios for removing or retaining files. choosing prudently was easy.
now vlc has a large list of 'access modules' available and the problem which led me to suspecting the lack of these modules was at fault is also gone.
(4qos is just another DE over Debian, like Mint and so on (based on Trinity Desktop, derived from KDE3). nothing exotic.)
the 'aptitude' thing is interesting. I had used 'apt-get', then 'apt' and 'synaptic' but 'aptitude' did the trick.
thank you again. f. -- Felmon Davis