DMA and Ubuntu

One of my readers is having a bit of a hard time with DVD playback, after reading my article:
Playing Encrypted DVD's in Ubuntu 7.10, he has been unable to get dvd's to playback smoothly.

One really common solution to slow, jerky, and unreliable playback is turning on DMA.
DMA stands for: Direct Memory Access. DMA allows a piece of hardware to talk directly with the RAM, reading and/or writing independent of the CPU (Central Processing Unit). In other words the hardware can use the system memory, bypassing the CPU, allowing the device to read and write much faster.

By default Ubuntu has DMA turned off (set to 0), this can be changed in the /etc/hdparm.conf file, like so:

1. First make a backup of your hdpram file:# sudo cp /etc/hdparm.conf /etc/hdparm.conf.bak
2. Now edit the file using your favourite text editor, I'm using gedit, however you can use the editor of you choice just change the following command to suit your needs: # sudo gedit /etc/hdparm.conf
3. Once the file is open you will need to add the following at the end of the file:/dev/cdrom {
   dma = on
   }
4. Once you restart your computer you should have DMA turned on.

Troubleshooting
I have been reading about a number of problems with turning DMA on. Here are a couple of solutions if DMA still doesn't work after trying the instructions above:
First try re-editing the hdpram.conf file to read /dev/dvd instead of /dev/cdrom, then restart the computer.
If you are getting the error:
`HDIO set dma failed: operation not permitted'
You may need to edit your /etc/modules.conf file, for more information please see this forum thread: #post93238.
Personally none of my systems have these issues so I can't test this solution.

I hope this proves useful to someone, have fun.

Playing Encrypted DVD's in Ubuntu 7.10

If you would like to play encrypted DVD's in Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) you will need to install a couple of extras, to get everything working properly.

**Edit: 22/10/07
Playing DVD's using Totem
Totem is the default movie player for Ubuntu 7.10 therefore I'll show you how to play DVD's using totem first. If you would like to use another movie player please see below.
**End edit

*Please note: We have to make a bit of a compromise running the movie player: totem, because we're installing totem-xine. This means that the totem-gstreamer plugin will be unavailable to stream media in firefox.
However there are other firefox plugins, which can do the same task.

To enable DVD playback first enable the extra repositories, especially universe and mulitverse. (If your not sure how to do this please see: Repositories/Ubuntu).
Now we can install the following plugins and applications:
# sudo apt-get install libdvdread3 totem-xine libxine1-ffmpeg
# sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
Once you have restarted your system you should be able to play DVD's using totem without a hitch.

*Edit: 22/10/07
Using Other Media Players
I just wanted to add a quick note about using other media players. There are a few other really good players that you can install in Ubuntu 7.10 (a.k.a. Gutsy Gibbon) and they aren't difficult to run once you have the right plugins. If you decided to use one of these instead of totem, you won't have to worry about losing the totem-gstreamer plugin for Firefox.

To play DVD's using VLC
Enable the extra repositories, especially universe and mulitverse. (If your not sure how to do this please see: Repositories/Ubuntu).
Now install the following plugins and applications:
# sudo apt-get install libdvdread3 libxine1-ffmpeg vlc
# sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
Once you have restarted your system you should be able to play DVD's using vlc.

To play DVD's using MPlayer
Enable the extra repositories, especially universe and mulitverse. (If your not sure how to do this please see: Repositories/Ubuntu).
Now install the following plugins and applications:
# sudo apt-get install libdvdread3 libxine1-ffmpeg mplayer
# sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
Once you have restarted your system you should be able to play DVD's using MPlayer.

To play DVD's using xine-ui
Enable the extra repositories, especially universe and mulitverse. (If your not sure how to do this please see: Repositories/Ubuntu).
Now install the following plugins and applications:
# sudo apt-get install libdvdread3 libxine1-ffmpeg xine-ui
# sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh
Once you have restarted your system you should be able to play DVD's using xine-ui.
*End edit

If you need more assistance please feel free to contact me, and I'll see what I can come up with.

Disclaimer: Please check the applicable copyright laws in your country before undertaking this modification to your system, as in some countries this may be illegal.

Device hell

After installing my new DVD player, and a new network card I seem to be in device hell on my Ubuntu (edgy) desktop. The DVD player has a different name every time I boot. Yet more annoying than this is my new network card, which can't make up it's mind weather it is eth1 or eth2. I can't get it to be stable, it changes every time I boot, and messes up my iptables script, and many of my other tools.
I am going to do a re-install. I can't see any other way to get the kernel to pick up the devices properly. I am thinking that I maybe better off with a different OS.

New DVD Burner

I got a present today, it is so cool. I have now moved into the new age of optical storage. I only had a CD burner before this. Now I have a Dual layer DVD burner. It is a LiteOn I have always liked LiteOn, so I am very happy with it.
After installing the burner into it's new place in my tower it booted straight away and all of my software picked it up fine. I installed a few DVD codecs away I went with my all time favourite DVD.
I am so happy with it. Thank you Babe!!!