Playing DVD

Message

Shienarier · Post by **Shienarier** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 1:09 pm

I am trying to get mu DVD installed in Linux and i have a few questions.

For starters i don't seem to have an /dev/dvd.
Do you make that one yourself?

Second, those /dev/cdroms, what do they do/what are they good for?

And lastly, what do i write in /etc/fstab?

QPegasus · Post by **QPegasus** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 3:01 pm

If you're using Xine, in the input > dvd device, just set it to either /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 or /dev/cdroms/cdrom1, depending on which one is the DVD drive.

You could create a symlink if you want though, and link /dev/dvd to either of those.

mkdir /dev/dvd
ln -s /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /dev/dvd

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 3:09 pm

Shienarier,

You make /dev/dvd as a symlink to your real DVD device or you point the program to your real DVD in its setup.

/dev/cdroms contains symlinks to your real CDROM (and DVD devices) one of these (if you have more than one) will point to the real device.

What goes into /etc/fstab depends on how you want to solve your problem. If its playing DVDs, they are not normally mounted to be played.

Heres what I have.

/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/dvd iso9660,udf noauto,ro,users 0 0

I have a mount point called /mnt/dvd, which normally gets /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 mounted on it. The system will try iso9660 and udf filesystems before complaining about the type. the filesystem is not automatically mounted at boot, its read only and users are allowed to mount cds and dvds. It is never dumped (backed up)

Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Shienarier · Post by **Shienarier** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 3:59 pm

Thanks, now i know more.

But i still wonder if there is any differens in using say /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 and /dev/hdc (both seem to be my DVD). Is the fist just a link to the last?

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 4:15 pm

Shienarier,

When you do ls --color /dev the colours provide useful info.
The dark blue, like cdroms are directories. The pale blue (cyan or magenta?) entries that are difficult to read are symbolic links to other things and the yellow text against a black background are the real device files.

You should avoid chains of symlinks, since they cost a disc read for every one in a chain.

You can follw the chain manually by doing ls -al /dev/hdc, which will show you where /dev/hdc points, then reapeting with the destination of the link.

Regards,

NeddySeagoon

sr20seth · Post by **sr20seth** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 4:15 pm

I wont answer your question, but I will tell you how to find out.

#ls -lh

that will show you the links:

cd /dev
ls -lh hdc

Post by **NeddySeagoon** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 4:18 pm

sr20seth,

You learn something every day. I didn't know about the -h switch before.

Thanks,

NeddySeagoon

Shienarier · Post by **Shienarier** » Sun Nov 30, 2003 6:03 pm

ls -al /dev/hdc
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 30 Nov 30 17:06 /dev/hdc -> ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/cd

ls -lh /dev/hdc
lr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 30 Nov 30 17:06 /dev/hdc -> ide/host0/bus1/target0/lun0/cd

The commands seem to give me the exact same response.
And none points to the /dev/cdroms/cdrom0

b-llwyd · Post by **b-llwyd** » Mon Dec 01, 2003 9:11 pm

...and as you might have noticed by now, /dev/cdroms/cdrom0 is also a symlink pointing to the exact same location!

ls -l would work just as well. The -h only tells ls to print out the size in Human-readable format. -a tells ls to show you all the files, even the hidden ones. None of those two really mattered in this case.