Play a cd

Playing a CD under Linux is like rocket-science. Find out your distribution and proceed accordingly:

SUSE Linux 11.4

We will use vlc as media player. Do not reboot during the following instructions:

• Log in as root and open a console
• Find out your CDROM device:

# hwinfo --cdrom --short
cdrom:                                                          
  /dev/sr0             HL-DT-ST DVD+-RW GH50N

• Priviledge ordinary users to access the CDROM drive:

# chmod 777 /dev/sr0

• Find out your sound device

# ls /dev/dsp*
/dev/dsp

• Priviledge ordinary users to access the sound device:

# chmod 777 /dev/dsp

• add a repository: yast2 -> software -> software repositories -> add -> community repositories -> pacman
• install vlc

# yast -i vlc

• create an ordinary user

# useradd -m myuser

• assign a password to the ordinary user

# passwd myuser

• graphically log out and log in again as ordinary user
• start vlc:

# vlc

• select Media -> Open Disc... -> Audio CD
• as disc device, enter your CDROM drive, e.g. /dev/sr0
• start playing with title 0

Generic

CD playing software includes

• vlc
• kaffeine
• totem

See also

• CD
• multimedia