Hi! I am using Mepis 3.4.3. When installing the kaudiocreator it says no encoder is available. WHat mp3 encoder am I going to use and how can I install it? Is the kaudiocreator the faster ripper for Linux? How about the DMA? How can I enable DMA of my cd drive?

You'll want LAME (LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder).
sorry, I don't know about the DMA.

I've downloaded lame but I can't compile it. Is there a package in synaptics that include encoder and ripper. What libraries do I have to download to make it work?

Could you show us the error messages you got when you ran "./configure" on the lame source tarball? That should give us ideas which components are missing from your system.

And yes, lame is one of the best MP3 encoders out there. I use it with KAudioCreator. Works perfect.

I don't get errors when I issue ./configure. After I issued "make install", I get:

brhist.c:63:21: error: curses.h: No such file or directory
brhist.c:65:20: error: term.h: No such file or directory
brhist.c: In function 'brhist_init':
brhist.c:176: warning: implicit declaration of function 'tgetent'
brhist.c:182: warning: implicit declaration of function 'tgetnum'
brhist.c:190: warning: implicit declaration of function 'tgetstr'
brhist.c:190: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
brhist.c:195: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
brhist.c:200: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
brhist.c:205: warning: assignment makes pointer from integer without a cast
make[1]: *** [brhist.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/dmv/Installers/lame-3.97/frontend'
make: *** [install-recursive] Error 1

Any help?

That means you need the "ncurses-devel" package installed on your computer. I'm sure Mepis provides it. If not, you can download the source tarball from here:

http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ncurses/

Okay thanks...It compiled successfully. Haven't tried ripping CD's though...Maybe later...Thanks.

re dma you need to use hdparm

Sounds good. Hope everything works out for you.

According to the hdparm, the DMA is set to 1 or On. But everytime I full-screen the DVD movie, the video is in slow mo..Can your suggest a good player or package?

what is your pc spec?
hdparm you need to look into -i, and -tT (post these)
(man hdparm)

mplayer is great, kaffeine I like a lot (xine engine)

Do not think it is a software issue in your case, but by all means check

I am using a Acer 3620 laptop with the following specifications:

Intel Celeron M processor 370 1.5 GHz
256 MB Ram
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900
40 GB Hard Disk
Combo Drive DVD/CD Writer.

I installed Windows XP before and the DVD is playing fine. I don't think its a hardware issue.

Seeing your config, let me rephrase this, it not a software issue,
it is a software tweak or memory issue

1) Dig more in hdparm -X parameter
2) Use icwm or or windowsmaker, i.e. any light desktop manager
to free some memory, even try to boot
single video=vesa and try mplayer

tweak xine engine
increase buffer for mplayer
check hdparm for main HD as well

something is not right, yes playback should be smooth

You can try geexbox live cd as player

I am using Kaffeine as the player. I tried to use xv on the engine but it won't work so I set it to auto. Is there a how-to on tweaking? I'm just a newbie..