GettingDVDWorkingUnderLinux

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Here's the horrid order of events:

1. Download VLC (http://videolan.org)
2. Download OMS (http://www.linuxvideo.org/oms)
3. Download glibc2.2
4. Install glibc2.2, deal for a couple days with a completely unstable system
5. Upgrade whole system to Mandrake 8.0 b1, erasing all system preferences and getting used to whole new window manager (WindowMaker^? segfaults under Mandrake 8b1)
6. Download nVidia drivers for my video card
7. Reinstall SDL
8. Get XFree86 4.0.2 working
9. Plug all preceding items into a working system

Now, I get 2-20 fps of jerky DVD video! Yes!

This just in!

Samuel Hocevar wrote:

> CREATIVE DVD-ROM DVD6240E (6x)

Did you enable DMA for this drive ? I suspect your crap performance come from this. You'll have to use hdparm(8) for this, it's probably a package in your distribution.

Assuming /dev/hdc is your DVD device:

* "hdparm -d 1 /dev/hdc" will activate (Ultra)DMA for your drive.

* "hdparm -c 1 /dev/hdc" will activate 32-bit transfers (instead of the default 16-bit).

* "hdparm -X 34 /dev/hdc" (resp. "hdparm -X 66 /dev/hdc") will activate DMA (resp. UltraDMA^?) mode 2 transfers.

Now the system gets normal framerates even at about 1280x900 (just a guess at the resolution) and only pauses every minute or so.

For getting anything at all, I'd like to thank the OMS and VLC teams, the EFF, and the OpenDVD^? group. These guys must be fucking saints to work into all hours of the night to get this working when all they get is attention from the corporate assholes who want to make it illegal for me to watch the DVDs I've purchased.

Go to http://opendvd.org and be amazed. Go to http://videolan.org and be amazed. See also http://www.eff.org .

Overall, it's taken me about 3 weeks to get functional DVD under Linux, but I've got this super-cool Mandrake install which kinda makes me happier than the old RH6.2 I was running. So it's been not all bad.

A big FUCK YOU goes out: for making it nearly impossible for me to watch my own DVDs under Linux, I'd like to thank the MPAA and DVD CCA, Sony and the Time/Warner conglomerate and affiliates in general. Thank you greedy, corporate bastards for wasting three weeks of my time! You have finally topped Microsoft as the #1 self-serving entity that has wasted the most of my time in my life! Great job!