i hate the way my installation of linux varies on every machine i put this on. this is my third installation and every new one has a complete different default setup. i'm all frustrated.

on the first two machines i was able to play dvd's. not the case now. on the other machines i'd just pop in my dvd and it would auto find a suitable program and play the dvd.

i assumed the best program i have to play dvd's would be xine but it's not working. i found out that there are packages missing that are required for dvd encoding. so i went in search of those packages. it was suggested that i install this and that package all of which will not install due to package dependencies. so i look for the dependencies which will not install either because of further required dependencies. after about the third group of tependency phases i find myself in i start getting lost in all the packages i'm trying to download and install.

can someone please help me get dvd's playing on this system? i'm probably going to need someone to hold my hand and guide me through. i'm not good with linux at all but i'm learning new things all the time at every step and i'm enjoying it. i just wish things would run a little smoother .

Hi, the problem U R facing right now is dependencies with Xine player. I too faced lot of such problems. And now i am using mplayer. With that also i faced problems while installing. But after installing ( i don't have GUI. I still use shell to start mplayer. But it is simple. Just type mplayer dvd://<track to play>)i am able to play all types of files. May be U can also try that. Download latest mplayer from net and try While compiling and installing, U can choose GUI installation which enables a GUI like xine.

i did look into mplayer. the problem there is that they only offer source files and i believe you have also been helping me get gcc in an earlier post...so i don't have anything to compile those mplayer source file with, if you'll remember.

i guess then first thing is first, get a compiler.


lol

if you're using mandrake look into urpmi... should handle all your dep. problems too

nice, i love it, the urpmi thing. thanks for the useful tip, completely new to me.

however, this is not making any sense. i tried urpmi on binutils which was required by a gcc package i'm trying to install. like this

#urpmi binutils*

it gave me this, and i quote:

"Everything already installed"

and so i tried to install my gcc package again and it still said this, and i quote,

"installation failed:
binutils >= 2.15.92.0.2-1mdk is needed by gcc-3.4.3-7mdk"

what the hell?!