installing libdvdcss

[prejudged_fire]

I heard that in order to play dvds on Linux is to download a plugin for it called libdvdcss. Well i downloaded the RPM but when I try to install it, it says that its already installed. I cant find it anywhere on my computer however. I tried to remove it with 'rpm -e [filename]' and it says that it has not been installed. So, if i try to install it, it tells me that its already installed but if i try to erase it, it tells me the opposite. Has anyone else had this problem?

[MikeTbob]

libdvdcss isn't a program to run. it's just a set of libraries that enables other programs like xine, mplayer and VLC to play DVD's

from the freshmeat website.

libdvdcss is a cross-platform library for transparent DVD device access with on-the-fly CSS decryption. It currently runs under Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS, Solaris, BeOS, Win95/Win98, Win2k/WinXP, MacOS X, HP-UX, QNX, and OS/2. It is used by libdvdread and most DVD players such as VLC

So just open/install your favorite DVD player and try to play a DVD.

[prejudged_fire]

I know but it wont even let me install the rpm. And I did try to play my dvds and it still wont work.

[bigtomrodney]

Use

rpm -Uvh libdvdcss.whatever.rpm

This is an update, so regardless of whether the system thinks it is installed it will update it. Failing that -

rpm -Uvh --force libdvdcss.whatever.rpm

Force it! Don't forget to change the filename to the relevent name and path for your situation.

[prejudged_fire]

I think I've already tried the above, but just to be sure I'll try it and get back with you.

[prejudged_fire]

ok, i tried both of those commands and it said "preparing" and then "1. libdvdcss.bunchofversionnumbersandjunk.rpm" with a status bar going up to 100% and then my prompt returned. Not sure exactly what it did, but when I try to play dvds it still says i need the "appropriate plugin". By the way, I guess I should have said this earlier, I'm trying to play it with Totem Movie Player. Does libdvdcss even work with that?? I did the rpm -Uvh command trying to install xine and did the same thing but I dont know, how do I use xine? Sorry for all the newbieness guys, thanks for bearing with me!

[MikeTbob]

Does FC 3 use yum?
I'm thinking it does and it would make your linux life a little more bearable if you used it.

Totem will work for DVD's but you need a lot of plugins.
xine would be better than Totem.
provided you have the proper codecs,,launch xine from a command line or terminal.
just type

xine

or cd to the directory where your videos are and type

xine myvideo.wmv

If all that works, then you could create an Icon for it on your desktop too.

[prejudged_fire]

*sigh* yep it does use yum, but even after installing xine AND libdvdcss, when I type xine, it says command not found. After searching my filesystem using 'whereis xine' i get a folder which has some fonts in it, a folder for plugins, and one for the manual. There is no actual xine binary that i can launch however...

[MikeTbob]

*sigh* yep it does use yum, but even after installing xine AND libdvdcss, when I type xine, it says command not found. After searching my filesystem using 'whereis xine' i get a folder which has some fonts in it, a folder for plugins, and one for the manual. There is no actual xine binary that i can launch however...

OK then, lets kick your machines butt with yum.
first thing to do is add livna to your repos.

login to a terminal or konsole as root.

su -

type

kedit /etc/yum.repos.d/livna.repo

copy and paste this code into kedit, then click save.

[livna]
name=Livna for Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
baseurl=
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/
http://livna.cat.pdx.edu/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/
http://wftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/livna/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/
http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/rpm.livna.org/fedora/$releasever/$basearch/
failovermethod=priority
#mirrorlist=http://rpm.livna.org/mirrorlist-5
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1

then while still logged in as root, type

rpm --import http://rpm.livna.org/RPM-LIVNA-GPG-KEY

then you can install xine.

yum install xine xine-lib xine-skins

And now, xine should work.
If it does work, then go here and finish it up by installing the codecs.

[prejudged_fire]

well ok I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that my Linux isn't connected to the internet. I have an XP that I use for downloading files and then I just burn it to a cd and bring it upstairs to my Linux. (I'll get around to setting up an LAN eventually but until then, this will have to do.) The good news, is that xine works... sort of. The reason why it wasnt working before was because I only downloaded the xine library. But now I have both the xinelib and the xineui (frontend) which I got from http://xinehq.de/index.php/releases. So now, after installing those, I can run the xine program itself. But there is still one problem (of course, it couldnt be that easy). After inserting a DVD, mounting it, and typing

xine /dev/hdc

xine opens and I get an error message saying that there is no input plugin available to handle '/dev/hdc'. Then it says maybe the MRL syntax is incorrect or file/stream source doesnt exist. After closing out of that error, I get another immediately after that says "*sight*, unknown error (permission error /dev/hdc)

Naturally I assumed that this meant that I didnt have the permission to access /dev/hdc. So I switched to root, and gave all permissions to everyone for /dev/hdc with the command

chmod ugo+rwx /dev/hdc

but even after that, I still get the error. So I looked at the terminal and looked where it lists all the things that xine is doing and it said that it cannot access /dev/dvd, no such file or directory. Well, hey in the instuctions it said to create a symbolic link to /dev/hdc so thats what i did. After going to the /dev/ directory, I typed in the following

ln -s dvd hdc

which should have created a link to hdc as dvd. Just to be sure, I performed an 'ls -l dvd' and sure enough, it was there. So now, I'm just as confused as you are...