no dvd movie play back - help

[fruitbat!]

Hi, I really being to enjoy my linux experience things have begun to improve as a result of my using this forum. I tried to install some software( which I can not remember the name of at the moment) to run/play dvd movies with which is really anoying.

Can any body please rescue a desparate indivdual from such a distresting situation - as you can tell I need help.

[psi42]

what distro are you using?

what error messages do you get??

[fruitbat!]

My distro is Mandrake 7.1

[fruitbat!]

I do not get error messages Thing simply doesn't run But I know that it read dvds because has read magazine cover disks!

[Icarus]

Mandrake 7.1? You might want to consider upgrading, they are on 9.1 with the 9.2 beta available ;)

There are 3 common DVD players in Linux...Xine, MPlayer and Ogle. Ogle is solely for DVD playback, the other two run almost every video format you can think of (even quicktime and real now)

To get the error messages run it from the command line in a terminal. This will spew out tons of information at you, but you want to look at the last few lines for an error.

[fruitbat!]

Cheers for your help Mahdi,

I finially manged to Mandrake 9.1 on to my system which I think is great but still no joy with dvd film playing etc. I am not sure which I tried but I think it the default one used under Mulitmedia -> video. I tried opening the files on my dvd disc but it didn't seem to accept the file exetension for the files for the film.

I will consider the programs that you recommended and see how I get on with those.

once again thankz for help.

[fruitbat!]

I am currently running mandriva 2006 and still no joy on a higrade laptop- so I am not sure what to do next - I have no access to the internet at the moment either but I can probably get stuff downloaded if necesary

[dkeav]

install mplayer, make sure you get the libdvdread and libdvdcss packages installed

[je_fro]

You gotta be kidding me...this dude last replied to his thread back in 2003, then comes back like 4 years later for a progress report?!?
Yeah, I guess I'll add another vote for mplayer...

[fruitbat!]

can not rush inperfection!!!!

[mrBen]

Personally, I like VLC....

[fruitbat!]

Hi MrBen

I have never tried VLC - so I can't comment on it but maybe it worth a go - who knows!

fruitbat!

[cybertron]

I actually use Xine for a lot of my DVD playing because it supports menus. MPlayer is a little less user-friendly on that front.

Edit: Either way make sure libdvdread and libdvdcss are installed. In Mandriva you may need to add the plf repos from easyurpmi.