This is my first post to this site. I've found the site very useful and appreciate the effort folks have given to share their knowledge.

I've installed RedHat 8.0 on an HP Pavillion 751n with a Pentium 4 processor and integrated video and audio (My defense?: don't laugh; it's paid for - or if you have to, laugh harder). I read finegan's post today in the building a computer thread and groaned. Is it possible to get a DVD movie to play under Linux with this setup with the drivers that are available out there? The DVD player is a Pioneer 117.

To make matters worse, I've messed up the Windows based DVD player that came with the computer when I was repartitioning the drive to install Linux in a dual boot system. All the websites I've checked out (including Microsoft's and HP's) say that if you hose or destroy your DVD drivers, codecs, and player software that came with the computer, you've got to buy new ones (because the computer ships without disks). You get what you pay for, I suppose. Anyway, my rationale was that I want to learn more about Linux anyway. If I can play the DVD movies from Linux/RH8/Gnome, this would be preferable.

I have ideas for using Linux in specific apps if I get proficient enough, but that topic is for another post/thread. In the meantime, if anyone can enlighten me I'd be most grateful. I know I screwed up by buying the cheap HP computer; I needed the Pentium 4 and XP for the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET programming app and this is what I could afford. I've left myself wide open on this one, but I really need the help.

Sheepishly,

CBT

Well to tell you the truth I have an older Pioneer I think its the 114 and I have no problems watching DVD's from within Linux. When I had Windows on that machine, I could only get Cyberlink PowerDVD or something like that to work with it to be able to watch DVD's. But in Linux I use MPlayer with no problems, actually looks and performs better in Linux than it did in Windows.