[linux-laptop] ALSA and DVD play problems

[Paul Hummer]

Hi everyone,

	I'm a mailing list virgin, so you'll have to forgive me...  However, I'm not by any means a Linux n00b.  I haven't used a computer in a while though, and my last kernel wsa 2.4.16, so my new Debian 3.0r1 sarge install with a custom 2.6.12.4 kernel is somewhat new to me.  I have two problems, one with ALSA, and the other with playing DVDs.  I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a ATI Radeon MObility x300 (using firegl driver on x.org), intel ac97 (using snd_intel_8x0 and snd_ac97_codec), and a DVD+-RW drive listed at /dev/dvd.

	First things first:  Sound works, however, not exactly.  It loads all the modules, loads ALSA, looks like everything is good.  However, no sound is set up at all, and when xmms or any other audio program gets action, it appears to be playing, but no sound...until I run alsaconf, and set up the driver again.  Then everything is peachy.  However, it gets old having to run that on every boot.  Is there a way that I can set it up (maybe in rc.d) so that it does it all automatically?

	Next:  The audio thing is probably a pretty easy fix (if I knew what I was doing...I'm retarded...)  However, I've used mplayer, xine, and ogle, and none of them work.  I used to have mplayer on my old system, and I love it, and now there's apparently a good gui as well (which I also can't get to compile, because I use x.org from a hoary hedgehog apt source and the libraries do some wierd version mismatches so they won't download required libraries...I'll fudge with that later...)  However, I got apt-get install xine-ui, and this is the output for that while playing the "Sin City" DVD:

pop-up window says: "-xine engine error-"
"There is no demuxer plugin available to handle '/dev/dvd' Usually this means that the file format was not recognized"

Don't know what the muzz that is. Run as root, same error.  So I fall back to my good ol' mplayer, which still hasn't seemed to hop on anyone's apt server yet, which I'm surprised at, it being so very popular...  Here's the mplayer output.

# mplayer /dev/dvd
MPlayer 1.0pre7-3.3.5 (C) 2000-2005 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel  (Family: 6, Stepping: 8)
Detected cache-line size is 64 bytes
CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE SSE2


Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Invalid argument
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.
Playing /dev/dvd.
MPEG-PS file format detected.
MPEG: No audio stream found -> no sound.
VIDEO:  MPEG2  720x480  (aspect 2)  29.970 fps  8000.0 kbps (1000.0 kbyte/s)
Can't open /dev/fb0: No such device
[fbdev2] Can't open /dev/fb0: No such device
vo_cvidix: No vidix driver name provided, probing available ones (-v option for details)!
vosub_vidix: Couldn't find working VIDIX driver
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [mpegpes] MPEG 1/2 Video passthrough
VDec: vo config request - 720 x 480 (preferred csp: Mpeg PES)
VDec: using Mpeg PES as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [null] 720x480 => 720x540 Mpeg PES 
Selected video codec: [mpegpes] vfm:mpegpes (MPEG-PES output (.mpg or DXR3/DVB card))
==========================================================================
Audio: no sound
Starting playback...
V:   3.3  93/ 93  0%  0%  0.0% 0 0                  

Exiting... (End of file)

Then nada.  It played for maybe three seconds.  Run as root, I see the green FBI warning for a split second, then the screen goes all scrambled, and sometimes I can Ctrl+Alt+Backspace and restart X, and sometimes it's a hard lock.  BLAST!  I have support for framebuffer devices in my kernel builtin, so I don't know why it can't open /dev/fb0.  However, no -vo setting seems to work at all.  I have libdvdread, libdvdplay, and just about every other freakin' library.  I put the codecs from mplayer into the corresponding codec directory.  I don't know why it has to be so stupid.

Usually I would post in a forum, but I've heard good things about the elite on this mailing list.  Hopefully, someone's got a solution for me, or can at least point me in the right direction...

Thanks, Paul