Multimedia and DVDs in Ubuntu
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So, you've bought a DVD-ROM from the Thrift Store, and you want to play DVDs on your FreekBox. You'll need to install a few programs and mess around with some files. This page will lead you through it.
Physically Install your DVD-ROM
Dan's guide WIP
All media players seem to look for the first optical drive by default so you can avoid the step of configuring the software if you set the DVD drive to master. Some media players don't seem to even have any option of using any drive but the first.
Once the drive is installed it is time to setup symlinks, and permissions.
From a root shell cd to the /dev directory.
freekbox3:~#cd /dev
The DVD drive will probably be /dev/hdc verify this by running the eject command.
freekbox3:~#eject /dev/hdc
If you got the right drive the tray will open, and if it isn't the tray of the drive that device node corresponds to should open.
Create a simlink to this drive.
freekbox3:/dev# ln -s /dev/hdc dvd
If the dvd drive is /dev/hdd, or you have another optical drive useing that device node you will probably have to change the permissions for it.
freekbox3:/dev# ls -l hdc hdd brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 22, 0 2005-02-25 22:38 hdc brw-rw---- 1 root disk 22, 64 2005-02-25 22:38 hdd
Notice how the dvd drive is in the cdrom group, and the cdrom is in the disk group. This means that normal users don't have permission to access this drive. Change the group for this drive to the cdrom group.
freekbox3:/dev# chown root:cdrom /dev/hdd freekbox3:/dev# ls -l hdc hdd brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 22, 0 2005-02-25 22:38 hdc brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 22, 64 2005-02-25 22:38 hdd
Install some Programs
- Install kaffeine and some DVD navigation tools. Open a terminal and become root, then run a couple of commands:
apt-get update apt-get install kaffeine libdvdplay0 libdvdnav4 libdvdread3
- Install the libdvdcss2 library.
This one's about as complex as installing mPlayer.
Open a terminal and become root.
Add the following line to /etc/apt/sources.list where <dist> is the version of debian you are running (stable, testing, unstable):
deb http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian <dist> main deb-src http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian <dist> main
Then type the following command:
apt-get install libdvdcss2
Make the DVD-ROM Accessible
If you don't have a terminal open already, open one up and become root. Then type:
chmod a+r /dev/hdd
This is assuming that your DVD-ROM is plugged in to the IDE ribbon cable end that would make it hdd.
Configure Kaffeine
Once you've opened Kaffeine, go to the 'Settings' menu and select 'xine Engine Parameters'.
Select 'media' along the left-side menu, and scroll down to the field marked "dvd device: device used for DVD playback".
Type /dev/hdd into that field.