Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Linux DVD Player on a Bootable CD?

Posted by Cliff on from the ultra-convenient-AV-component dept.

Kumar asks: "I'm trying to make a bootable Linux CD with nothing more than XFree86 4 and ogle to play DVDs. I'm trying to make it as simple as possible: boot the system, change the CD, hit 'play'. If anyone has attempted anything like this before I'd like to hear of their successes and/or any tips on achieving this goal." A Linux box set up like this might make a nice alternative to an expensive DVD player. Is anyone working on something like this?

12 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. You have got to be kidding me.. by redhotchil · · Score: 3, Informative

    How could you possibly make a computer for under $99 (the price of DVD players I've seen at real, tangible stores) that would have the capacity to play dvds, in software mode, in linux? Riiiiight.

    1. Re:You have got to be kidding me.. by isorox · · Score: 3, Funny

      On top of that It'd have to play DVD's, MP3 CD's, VCD's and svcds to comete with my £90 dvd player. Oh and not use much power, be 100% stable and urn on in less then a second!

    2. Re:You have got to be kidding me.. by rtaylor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Don't forget be very quiet...

      --
      Rod Taylor
  2. Why not just use Windows? by Howie · · Score: 3, Informative

    If the PC is already running Linux, then you don't need to go through all that. Obviously that isn't the case, because your question would be silly then :)

    So, why not just get PowerDVD, or WinDVD? No rebooting. It probably even came bundled with your DVDROM drive - I know I have a few copies kicking around.

    The only situation where the requirement makes sense that I can think of is that someone on a corporate network has a new PC with DVDROM, but isn't allowed to have DVD Player software installed, but that person is likely to not have access to the BIOS to allow CD-Booting, either.

    --
    "don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
    1. Re:Why not just use Windows? by innocent_white_lamb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The only situation where the requirement makes sense

      is where someone has an "out-of-region DVD" that they want to play; the official Windows players all do that handy region-checking thing, I think.

      --
      If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
    2. Re:Why not just use Windows? by Howie · · Score: 2, Informative

      Neither PowerDVD nor WinDVD does anything that can't be gotten around with DVDGenie, for free. The only bit you'd be stuck with is if the drive itself is RPC-2 region-locked, and I think that does screw you regardless of the OS.

      --
      "don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
    3. Re:Why not just use Windows? by markj02 · · Score: 2

      Maybe he hopes for better performance and reliability than PowerDVD or WinDVD, both of which are kind of iffy. Or maybe he has a kiosk application in mind, where the bootable CD provides security and robustness. Or maybe he runs some business version of Windows that doesn't have DVD players but would like to be able to play a DVD on occasion. There are lots of possible reasons.

  3. You know... by mkmiller · · Score: 2

    have you people ever thought that he might already a system and NOT a DVD, which would be why this question was asked. I would start with LRP or slackware. Or even try and get that bootable ISO from simply GNUStep (though I believe the ISO is still not available for download)and add a DVD player to it. You would need just the basics. You might want to stick with CDRWs until you get it right.

  4. Use an embedded linux distribution? by Memetic · · Score: 2, Informative

    Perhaps one of the embedded Linux distributions might help, they often have demo versions already tailored to run stripped down and "headless" etc.

    This review of LynuxWorks' BlueCat Linux discusses some utilities ('mkrootfs' , 'mkkernel' and 'mkboot')that might help.

  5. Starting Point by penguinboy · · Score: 3, Informative

    A good starting point might be the RedHat based SuperRescue ISO. It's got everything: drivers, networking (probably not necessary), XFree86, etc. Adding in a DVD player app and taking out the unnecessary bits probably wouldn't take long.

    And as a side effect of this project, you could get quite a bit more space by using a DVD-R(W) disc, since a DVD drive is guaranteed to be available.

  6. Some pointers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
    You can divide the question into two parts.

    First, how to make a bootable Linux disk. Check out The BBLCD Toolkit, Bernhard's Bootable Linux CD or Build your own Bootable Linux CD, and of course the CD-Writing HOWTO. Do some searches on your favorite search engines for more information on making bootable Linux CDs.


    Second, how to start X-windows and run a dedicated application on start up. Check out the Kiosk HOWTO for information on which scripts need to be modified (they talk about booting up netscape, but you'll get the idea). You should also become familiar with Linux and X-windows boot up sequence to find out which scripts need to be modified.

  7. Mike by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Check out demolinux.org. I was going to come up with a similar concept myself. I just wanted to have a portable linux system with some X Window capabilities to use on other people's computers and at work without having to muck with formatting other peoples hard drives. Though a boot floppy could give me a really basic linux system I wanted something with more tools. I came across the demolinux site in search of trying to see if anyone else had already come up with the concept. The demolinux site also has some links to pages that explain in a really rough and incomplete way how to go about building a live file system on a cdrom. I tried out the demolinux and of course it is really slow and pretty much unusable with only 64 megs of ram which is all I have on my test machine that I tested it on. But it does run and load on even just 64 megs of ram. The iso that I downloaded and burned onto a cdrom from the demolinux site runs a full version of KDE right off the cdrom. So you could literally run an entire linux system without the need for a hard drive! But of course for it to be practical you would need RAM coming out your arse to make it work well. But it's definitely doable. Basically to accomplish the DVD idea you would just use the same concepts that demolinux used to create their distro and strip it down and just add the bare essentials with of course DVD apps loaded. Hope this helps you out!