Make?

[Leo J Mauler]

On 24 Dec 2003 23:48:09 -0500 Katherine Chant <renlinux at comcast.net>
writes:
> Ok, I finally managed to install Mandrake 9.1 on my
> production system as a multiboot.  Woo Hoo!!  Now,
> I am trying to get my CD-RW/DVD-ROM to function
> as a DVD player...gotta get my dose of Buffy!...and I
> am running headfirst into problems.  So I DL dvdread,
> in gzip form.   Unzip and yadda yadda, try to make.
> Nope, says no makefile (when I can see that there is a
> Makefile.in and a Makefile.am in said folder).

I was able to find the tarball for dvdread (http://tinyurl.com/32dlp),
and you're right, there's no Makefile in the file other than Makefile.am,
and there's no configure script either.

You probably don't need the dvdread driver, as Mandrake 9.1 uses the 2.4
kernel and
kernel 2.4 and up supports DVDs internally.

Try out http://linuxtv.org/dvd/ for some links on the matter,
http://dvd.sourceforge.net covers all the Linux DVD player software
available, and http://www.opendvd.org covers the legal issues as well as
some of the player information.

Full packages for DVD viewing (among other formats) include Xine
http://xine.sourceforge.net/, MPlayer
http://www.MPlayerHQ.hu/homepage/info.html, and Ogle
http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/groups/dvd/.  You're still going to need a
DeCSS library to add the ability to view encrypted DVDs (read: most any
DVD you bought on a store shelf) on your Linux system, and that may take
some searching, as movie viewer sites usually want to distance themselves
from DVD decryption information.  Binary and source code packages for
Xine, MPlayer, and Ogle do not support DeCSS decryption "out of the box",
but will play un-CSS-encrypted DVDs (and un-CSS-encrypted VOB files, more
on this later).

A good clearinghouse site for DeCSS information is
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/.  You can even order the DeCSS source
code on a T-Shirt from a link on this site.

Someone claims to be writing Movietime, billed by
http://dvd.sourceforge.net/ as an out-of-the-box DeCSS decrypting DVD
viewer, but Movietime at www.sourceforge.net has released no files yet.

OpenDVD reported that LiViD http://www.linuxvideo.org/ has released the
Open Media System DVD Player for Linux back in 2001, but my browser times
out when attempting to connect to www.linuxvideo.org. Of course, the
newest "news" on OpenDVD.org is from 2001.

The Linux DVD FAQ http://helo.org/dvd/howto/DVD-Playing-HOWTO has been
removed as "outdated", and advises people to go to
http://www.linuxvideo.org/docs/ for information on playing DVDs in Linux.

However, you can go to http://www.au.linuxvideo.org/, this site appears
to be working.  It only hosts the old, outdated Linux DVD docs (which may
still be useful).  Open Media System DVD Player uses a hardware DVD
Decoder Card to handle the DeCSS, supported cards are the Matrox DVD
Module, and the Creative Labs Dxr2.

IMPORTANT POINT: You probably will not be able to pop in a DVD and just
watch it like some of our Windows counterparts can do.  CSS encryption
information is not an open standard, it is tightly controlled in the DVD
Forum in Japan http://www.dvdforum.com.  As such, you have to pay for
access to it, and you have to sign a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) to
get to use it.  This hinders most Linux development of a *legal* DeCSS
descrambler, or at least one which is legal under the DMCA ("fair use"
provisions of existing copyright law make any DeCSS descrambler legal,
provided you either view the content as it is being descrambled, or make
exactly one copy of the DVD).  The paid part of CSS, mind you, not the
NDA: developing proprietary software for Linux is perfectly fine and need
not be GPLed.  Throw in a cost and force source code to be
region-specific, and you hinder the development of Linux DVD players.
Force a closed-source model, and you encourage source code bugs; hinder
use of the application by open-source-only shops, homes, and distros; and
slow development.

If you are willing to go against the DMCA, and merely uphold existing
copyright laws, you have an option for viewing your DVD movies on your
Linux computer.

First, you have to rip the DVD onto your hard drive.

Once you have the VOB files, you can then apply a DeCSS descrambler to
them (several are available for Linux, most in source code), either
converting them into a descrambled file, or feeding the output to a
viewer.  Either one is legal under existing copyright law, the former
being slightly easier for the newbie;  to be nearly completely legal
(completely under existing copyright law, but not at all under the DMCA)
with the former, make only ONE COPY and delete the encrypted VOB files
once you have an unencrypted version.

Then watch the unencrypted VOB files in your Viewer Of Choice.  Xine,
MPlayer, and Ogle can all watch unencrypted DVD VOB files.

This method will require lots of time, effort, and hard disk space.  The
longer movies take up to 7GB (standard DVD is about 4GB but movie DVDs
typically compress to fit a 7GB DVD video file onto the 4GB DVD) and you
need 14-21GB to both store the original and make the unencrypted copy.

Given that "fair use" of existing copyright laws mean you can make one
backup copy, some people convert their unencrypted VOB files one step
further, making a much smaller MPEG1 or MPEG2 file (or some other format,
such as AVI), or a pair of such files, for computer viewing.  This means
that your backup copy video may be of lesser quality than the original
DVD video, but the copy takes up less space on your hard drive.

> I tried to make both as user AND as Su, thinking maybe I
> needed to root to install.

Whatever solution you find, chances are you will need to install it
(especially if a compile is needed) as root.

> Anybody able to point out my clear newby mistake?

No mistakes were made, other than not noticing the lack of a configure
file.

The dvdread tarball is probably a kernel patch, unnecessary with kernels
2.4 and higher.