Hi I am new to this site. I am Roberttherock. I use Mandriva 2008, and am using the Gnome desktop. I am not new to computers but not really computer savvy. I am looking for software to convert DVDs to mpg2s so I can save them on my hard drive. I would like to play them on a media player without digging through DVDs. There is no copy rights issue here, they are personal videos I made. I have been unable anything using the software manager. Any suggestions?

most of the mpeg conversion programs in linux are based on ffmpeg. Take a look at this list of programs using it and test a few out. I have used a couple of them myself on a windows machine but they arent cross platform so i don't have any recommendations. Sorry

Take a look at DVD::rip. I would also look at Avidemux (conversions only).

On another topic why mpeg2. The compression ratio of X.264 (mpeg4) is much better. IF I remember correctly it is what both the new HD formats are using.

Thank you for the help. Now I guess this will show my newbe status. Installing software on Linux can be tricky when not using the software manager. Should I just copy the programs installation code then past it in terminal logged in as root? Also does it matter which desktop I am using? I have been trying to learn Mandriva Linux trial and error and have made a lot of errors I could not get out of and had to reinstall a lot. I would like to avoid this as much as possible. I only specified MP2 because I thought if in the future I wanted to burn a DVD it would be easier. What I am doing is I have taken workout tapes (VCR) digitalized them and burned DVDs to play on a computer. I deleted the mepg files (big mistake). Oh well one thing at a time. thanks for the help

That is one of the bigger reasons to stick with a large distro. Fedora, ubuntu, SUSE, (to name a few) will all have a fairly wide selection of applications in their respective repos to do what you are talking about. As you have learned, compiling can be a little tricky and when you are new you have enough other things to learn, you do not need to add one more layer. They also have forums for their specific use. I would visit each of their forums and choose a distro more based on what you see from that. Most of the time a distro specific forum will offer more in depth help than a generic Linux forum. After you are comfortable with one distro and have a firm grasp on the basics, then Linux is Linux and wide scope forums are extremely helpful.