[plug] Watching DVD's under Linux

[Craig Ringer]

> However, I plan to run it on GNU/Linux -
> probably Debian.  I would like to use it to watch DVD movies.  I note that
> there are several Linux/DVD projects; does anyone know how mature these are.

Xine - results vary (dvdnav problems common)
Ogle - results vary (sound problems; dvdnav issues)
Mplayer (haven't tried it yet but I hear good things)

None, IMHO can be called 'mature' really, and your results will vary 
depending on which DVD, studio, DVD-ROM drive, etc you use.

> Also, given that the DVD drive is instead of having a CD-drive, will it act
> like a normal CD player for me to install the OS using standard Debian CD's,
> or am I going to have to do special configuration just for the machine to
> read the Linux CD's off the DVD player?
DVD-ROMs act like normal ATAPI devices, same as any CD-ROM made after 
you had to hook them up to your sound card :-) so everything will work 
the same.
OTOH you could get a bootable Woody DVD and simplify things a bit.

> Alternately, any suggestions on laptops up to the value of $2,500 that
> support Linux are much appreciated.
Look at the ACPI4linux devel list archives, etc for the models you're 
interested in.
There are lots of ACPI biosen that work on under windows (sometimes only 
the OEM's version!) but are in some way broken, preventing their working 
with another ACPI implementation such as that in Linux. A hot laptop 
sure will be _hot_ if ACPI doesn't work and it has little/no APM support 
- fans... what are fans?

As far as I can tell there is also no support for hot-docking/undocking 
yet either, at least for docking stations that have NICs, CardBus slots 
and other PCI devices on them. Someone please tell me I'm wrong on this, 
because I'd like to be able to hot dock and undock my Gateway Solo 5150.

-- 
Craig Ringer
GPG Key Fingerprint: AF1C ABFE 7E64 E9C8 FC27  C16E D3CE CDC0 0E93 380D
	-- if it ain't broke, add features 'till it is.