Very Computer

I have installed xine to view DVDs on my laptop.  It works almost
OK.  The only problem is that frames get lost, so the playback is
not smooth.  I ran the utitlity xine-check, which reported the
following:

[ hint ] Your DVD drive seems not to be attached via ATAPI.
         This might be due to the use of an ide-scsi emulation.
         If you really have a SCSI DVD drive, your SCSI controller is likely
         to do perfect DMA, so there's no reason to worry about this.
         However, if you're using ide-scsi, there is a chance that DMA is
         disabled for the DVD drive. Moreover, I don't know how to enable
         DMA in that case, so you probably have to live with some performance
         loss. (FIXME: check for /proc/ide, provide solution)

I can barely understand what this paragraph says (hardware is not
exactly my strength).  I am 99.99% sure that my DVD drive is not
SCSI.  Is there any way for me to (a) determine whether DMA is
disabled for my DVD drive, and (b) enable it if it is?  Also, what's
the deal with the "check for /proc/ide"?

My machine is a Toshiba laptop (Satellite 1905-S301) with a 15"
XGA TFT active-matrix display (1024 x 768), and an ATI Radeon
Mobility M6 LY video card.  My kernel is 2.4.18.  My distro is
Debian 3.0.  I'm sure I'm missing some crucial info here, but I'd
be happy to post it if you tell me what it is (and maybe how to
determine it).  In particular, I am not sure what driver my DVD is
using (or how to find out).

Many thanks in advance!

kynn
--
NOTE: In my address everything before the period is backwards.

Check this link to see how you can enable DMA on your system (the only
parameter you need for hdparm right now is -d1, don't use the other
ones if you are not sure that your hardware supports them):

<http://www.andreasjanssen.de/debian-tipps.html#a38>

best regards
        Andreas Janssen

--

PGP-Key-ID: 0xDC801674
Registered Linux User #267976
http://www.andreas-janssen.de/debian-tipps.html

Quote:>Check this link to see how you can enable DMA on your system (the only
>parameter you need for hdparm right now is -d1, don't use the other
>ones if you are not sure that your hardware supports them):
><http://www.andreasjanssen.de/debian-tipps.html#a38>

/dev/hda2       /               ext2    errors=remount-ro       0       1
/dev/hda1       none            swap    sw                      0       0
proc            /proc           proc    defaults                0       0
/dev/fd0        /floppy         auto    user,noauto             0       0
/dev/cdrom      /cdrom          iso9660 ro,user,noauto          0       0
/dev/dvd        /dvd            auto    ro,user,noauto          0       0
/dev/hde1       /flashcard      vfat    user,noauto             0       0

therefore I tried

  sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/dvd

but I got the response

  /dev/dvd not supported by hdparm

Since /dev/dvd is a link to /dev/scd0, I also tried

  sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/scd0

but I got the same error message.

How can I find out the correct designator for my DVD drive?

Thanks!

kynn
--
To  s&e^n]d  me  m~a}i]l  r%e*m?o\v[e  bit from my a|d)d:r{e:s]s.

I assume you have only one drive in the laptop. Do a "dmesg |grep hd" and
check that your drive is indeed the secondary channel slave (hdc). If not,
just change the command accordingly. Once you know the drive:

# hdparm -d1 /dev/hdc

You may want to put it into a boot script so thigns are turned on nicely
for you. On my Debian systems, if I'm being dodgey, I sometimes just add a
line at the end of "/etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh" - simple replicate the
command in the bootmisc.sh file (right at the very bottom, as a new line)
and it'll happen magically at boot.

On a side note, my laptop is a Celeron 400MHz, with 4MB (Neomagic) video
card. With a 2.6.3 kernel I can play fullscreen (i.e. scaled) DVDs and
DivXs with only about 60 - 70% CPU usage. I've always had issues with Xine
on cutback systems - I would strongly recommend MPlayer as a brilliant
allround media player. In my experiences, it's far more efficient and
smarter than most apps. What I'm suggesting is a kernel rebuild, and then
an source or rpm install of MPlayer, and you probably won't recognise your
machine!

http://www.mplayerhq.hu

Good luck!

Tim

--
http://members.swiftdsl.com.au/~tmccoy

ICQ: 160341067

Quote:> I just have one more stupid question:
> how can I determine what designator (hdb? hdc? etc.) to use to
> refer to my DVD drive?  My fstab file says:
> /dev/cdrom      /cdrom          iso9660 ro,user,noauto          0   0
> /dev/dvd        /dvd            auto    ro,user,noauto          0   0

ls -l /dev/cdrom /dev/dvd

to see where the symlinks point to. If they point to SCSI device files
(/dev/scd* or /dev/sg*), e.g. if you use ide-scsi emulation, you have
to use dmesg:

dmesg | grep CD
dmesg | grep DVD

Or you check the contents of /proc/bus/ide.

best regards
        Andreas Janssen

--

PGP-Key-ID: 0xDC801674
Registered Linux User #267976
http://www.andreas-janssen.de/debian-tipps.html