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Linux DVD Player on a Bootable CD?

Posted by Cliff on Thu Jan 17, 2002 07:58 AM
from the ultra-convenient-AV-component dept.
Software Linux
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?
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Linux DVD Player on a Bootable CD? 31 Comments More /

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  • You have got to be kidding me.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by redhotchil (44670) on Thursday January 17 2002, @08:09AM (#2853713) Homepage Journal
    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.
  • 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.
    • 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.
      • 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.
    • 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.
  • 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 [sourceforge.net] (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.
    • If he already has a system, then he doesn't need some booting CD distribution. Whether the native OS of the system is windows or Linux, there are players available.

      If you mean doesn't have a DVDROM, then he's pretty much SOL as far as playing DVDs is concerned, anyway.
    • But if he's got a system, why not install Linux on it & then he can tune parameters to his heart's content, and easily add MP3 playback, or web-browsing or whatever.

      If he doesn't already have a system, what's he going to burn the CD on? :)

      I can only assume he wants a silent box in the living room, which is SO much easier to achieve with a real DVD player. Plus it'll give you better quality pictures and you get a remote control, so you don't have to buy a 30m mouse cable!
  • 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 [linuxdevices.com] discusses some utilities ('mkrootfs' , 'mkkernel' and 'mkboot')that might help.

  • Starting Point (Score:3, Informative)

    by penguinboy (35085) on Thursday January 17 2002, @02:22PM (#2856564)
    A good starting point might be the RedHat based SuperRescue ISO [freshmeat.net]. 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.

  • Some pointers (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 17 2002, @03:51PM (#2857362)
    You can divide the question into two parts.

    First, how to make a bootable Linux disk. Check out The BBLCD Toolkit [bablokb.de], Bernhard's Bootable Linux CD or Build your own Bootable Linux CD, and of course the CD-Writing HOWTO [linuxdoc.org]. 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 [linuxnow.com] 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.

  • forget changing the disc, just plunk down a couple extra bucks for a second cdrom for the OS. Otherwise everything would have to be in RAM.
  • Are you to cheap to buy an old 1gig harddrive?

  • Mike (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    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!
    • simple, just load the required player software onto a RAM disk, and execute from there. The whole system should be fairly simple to put together. even multiple type of video card could be accomodated with trivial amounts of scripting

  • What about video cards with TV output? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am trying to build a similar Linux system. However, I would like to be able to play DVDs in my TV. I would like also to plug my satellite receiver in the system to use it as a TiVO like solution. The problem is that I am not able to find a video card with TV-Out supported on Linux. A large numbers of cards supported on Linux have TV output but this feature is not supported on Linux. The task becomes even harder if you try to find a card that has TV output and input support on Linux. I haven't started to look for software that would implement the TiVO solution yet but I've heard of a few projects like OpenPVR etc. Would any one of you guys know of good video cards and software that I could use in a solution like this? Have you guys tried to do the same? Any help would be appreciated.
    • I am using the NetStream 2000 TV card from Sigma Designs for TV out and hardware decoding MPEG-2. They have a linux driver for the NetStream 2000 card which also supports the NetStream 2000 TV card. You can contact Sigma at http://www.sigmadesigns.com.

      I used my PlayStation 2 to play DVDs but I gave it to my cousins for Christmas. I am now in the process of building a DVD player out of old PC parts. I have the basic DVD functionality working with the NetStream 2000 TV card and I am in the process of making a user interface using Mozilla and the Flash plugin.

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