Im new to linux first off.can xine read store bought dvd's?if yes what do i have to do to get it to play in my dvd drive?I dont know how to mount my drives or anything like that.

u wont need to mount dvds to play them. just like how u dont mount audio cds to play them.

but the command will be 'mount /dev/cdrom' or 'mount /dev/cdrom2' etc, depending on how many drives u have, and which one u want to mount.

sorry, i cant remember the site i got these rpms from.. but here's what i needed:[list=1][*]libdvdcss2-1.2.1-1plf.i586.rpm[*]libdvdcss2-devel-1.2.1-1plf.i586.rpm[*]libdvdnav-0.1.3-0.i586.rpm[*]libdvdread-0.9.3-ogle1.i386.rpm[*]xine-devel-0.9.8-4.i386.rpm[*]xine-dvdnav-0.9.13-0.i586.rpm[*]libxine0-devel-0.9.13-1.i586.rpm[*]libxine0-0.9.13-1.i586.rpm? (not sure about exact title of this one)[/list=1]

some of these are for playing dvds, some are for getting the menu system (so u can click on links for chapter selection)

aah, i decided to go the whole hog, and found the link
http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br...e/XINE-0.9.13/

u can download the rpms from there, and they explain what each one is for

Unfortunately due to the nature of the beast and the idiocy that surrounds DVDs you must locate the appropriate plugins for xine.
http://plf.zarb.org
This is where you will find the libraries that are required to install so you can watch the movies you paid for. You will need the css libraries and I would suggest grabbing the dvdnav plugin. If you have urpmi installed it will make your life easier as there are instructions on the site on how to use the site with urpmi.

YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT I JUST INSTALLED MANDRAKE 9.0
AND IT AUTOMATICALLY INSTALLED XING AND IT DOESNT HAVE THE PLUGG INS TO PLAY DVD'S?THATS NOT VERY GOOD.iM STARTING TO REALIZE WHY WINDOWS IS SO MUCH MORE POPULAR THAN LINUX.

This is no fault of Mandrake or linux its against the law to distrubute the libraires to decode DVDs. I think you have to pay for the right to create a decoder for DVDs. Its a US thing. Its crazy and it pisses most of us off. I do repeat this is no fault of the linux distibutors but that of the US companies and goverment.

Do you honestly believe that the movie companies would let you get away with free DVD software? Everything is licensed these days, zero-g. because licensed technology = even more money. Oh but you made the mistake of believing it was enough to pay $20 for the DVD itself.

The good news is that as Linux is on your side. As long as you haven't set the region code for you DVD player (as is necessary in any Windows DVD software before playing a DVD) you will never have to. That means you can play any DVD you pay for, no matter what the 'region.'

But If its too much trouble to download extra software, the shackles of modern capitalism await. :P

When I installed my DVD software in Windows.. I too had to download it. But it wasn't free.

When i installed my dvd player in windows i didnt have to download anything extra to watch dvd's.other than the player its self.

xine is bobbins. http://mplayerhq.hu no exptra pacakges should be need at all to play dvd's

and let's PLEASE not have yet another drab argument about windows vs linux.... but zero-g you're certainly wrong to assume those things.linux doesn't have plugins for dvd as that's not the way linux works.... it certainly plays dvd's a lot lot better than windows imho.

well back to my original question?what do i have to do to get xing to play dvd's?

You need to download the libraries that idiot_child talked about. I actually find it to be

http://cambuca.ldhs.cetuc.puc-rio.br/xine/

What you also need to do is (after that) check that /mnt/dvd exists. If not you need to create a soft link that points to the device that the device name of your DVD drive points to. Assuming your DVD drive is /dev/cdrom, go:

file /dev/cdrom

It will tell you that cdrom is a symbolic link pointing to <destination>. Then go

ln -s <destination> /mnt/dvd

That should do it.

xing? xing is a cd ripper / mp3 encoder for windows.

and Xine still sucks.

where do i type this stuff in at?A command terminal?

Yes, definitely. You also need to be root in order to do all of this. What I usually do is log into the GNOME session as my user and then I go into a virtual terminal (Ctrl-Alt-F1 through Ctrl-Alt-F6, pick one) where I log in as root to do the admin work.

BTW, go Alt-F7 to get back to the terminal your GUI is running on.

when i go to my terminal and type file /dev/cdrom this is what i get /dev/cdrom: symbolic to cdroms/cdrom0 is that what it should say?

also on the rpm's i downloaded do i just doubleclick on them to install them?