Why are CD's and DVD's such a headache in Linux...

Okay, here's my problem. When I put in an audio CD and start-up KsCD, it is supposidly playuing, but no sound comes out. I went through the troubleshooter, including checking all my Kamix levels, making sure it was pointing to the right drive, and making sure that other sounds work. The last step told me enable direct digital playback, but the KsCD configure screen didn't have such an option, I guess it's not applicable to my system. I also tried typing in audiocd:/ into Konqueror and dragging and dropping the Track*.wav file into amaroK. It supposedly starts playing, but no sound comes out and the levels are not moving.

Onto the DVDs. I put a DVD into my dvd player, and Kaffine told me that because of some legal issues, I'd have to download a plugin. I don't really care about legal issues, but I can't figure out what plugin I need. If someone can tell me, that's be great.

I'm running KDE 3.4 on a SuSE 10 system, but I'm sure you Linux buffs already figured that out. :P

One last question: Is there a program for Linux like Windows Media PLayer for windows that can play EVERYTHING and eliminate the need for separate programs such as Kaffine (Xine), amaroK, and KsCD. Don't even suggest VLC, it's RPM hell.

Thanks for the help!

Hello,

I seem to have fined the Audio CD problem. I uninstalled everything relating to xine and kaffeine, and then reinstalled it (make sure to install libxine1, very important). Add the following to installations souces:
Type: HTTP
Server: packman.iu-bremen.de
Directory: suse/9.3 (10.0 isn't available yet, but it shouldn't make a difference)

Install everything, it'll get all the win32 codecs automatically.

Now, I have to look into libdvdcss for DVD playback.

Yup, got libdvdcss and everything works like a charm. Be sure to set the device of your DVD properly in the kaffeine options, it defaults to /dev/dvd, but you might have something like /dev/dvdrecorder.

Properly set-up, kaffeine is the equivalent of windows media player. =)

Looks like I answered all my own questions, hope someone finds this useful.

Ciao.

OK- so I will ask - how in the world did you figure all that out, evilmonkey?

I am not able to play audio CDs. I -can- play streaming audio and I hear system sounds. I have tried changing the audio cable that runs from my CD player/burner to my audio card (Ensoniq 1371) and I've tried changing the port that the audio cable plugs into on the sound card. (There are three.)

On thing that I've noticed that might lend a clue is that, when I right-click on the volume icon and choose Preferences, there are no audio channels listed in the volume control preferences window that are available to control.

What resource creates audio channels to control and why aren't they there?

Thanks!

/David C.

Hi David,

I'm running SuSE, so I have my Kamix doesn't even have a preferences option. However, if you have system sounds, the audio channels aren't the problem. Try an MP3 just to make sure. Make sure you have kaffeine and all the xine libraries installed. Other than that, I've never really seen fedora, I spent my Linux days on old mandrake and lately SuSE, perhaps someone else can be of more help than me.

Good luck!