[MPlayer-users] Problem with playing DVDs as non-admin user...

[The Wanderer]

Christopher Koeber wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> When attempting to play DVD's in mplayer as a regular user in Linux I
> am confronted with the following message:
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> MPlayer dev-SVN-r26753-4.1.2 (C) 2000-2008 MPlayer Team
> CPU: Intel Celeron 2/Pentium III Coppermine,Geyserville (Family: 6,
> Model: 8, Stepping: 6)
> CPUflags:  MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
> Compiled for x86 CPU with extensions: MMX MMX2 SSE
> 
> Playing dvd://mnt/cdrom.
> The hostname option must be an integer: mnt
> Struct dvd, field hostname parsing error: mnt
> Option stream url: This URL doesn't have a hostname part.

I don't recognize these messages, but I think they indicate that you
specified 'dvd://mnt/cdrom' on the command line, and that that is (as my
own memory indicates) incorrect syntax. 'dvd://' or 'dvd://NUMBER' would
be correct. MPlayer appears to be falling back to simply 'dvd://'
because it doesn't recognize the track number.

For future reference, please always provide the exact command line used
as well as the full output when reporting a problem.

> Couldn't open DVD device: /dev/dvd (Permission denied)
> No stream found to handle url dvd://mnt/cdrom
> 
> 
> Exiting... (End of file)
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> However, when playing under the root user account everything works
> fine. Any ideas?

This isn't really an MPlayer question, it's a general
*nix-file-permissions question. Still, I'm feeling helpful this evening.

Who owns /dev/dvd, and what are its permissions? What groups are you a
member of?

My /dev/dvd is

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 2008-09-15 22:18 /dev/dvd -> scd0

That's a symlink to /dev/scd0, which in turn is

brw-rw---- 1 root cdrom 11, 0 2008-09-15 22:18 /dev/scd0

That's readable and writable by owner (root) and group (cdrom).

The 'groups' command tells me

wanderer dialout cdrom floppy audio video plugdev users

and that indicates that I am a member of the 'cdrom' group; therefore, I
can access the device.

-- 
       The Wanderer

Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.