[MPlayer-users] Problem with playing mpeg2 files smoothly - Kernel upgrade

[Konstantinos Karydas]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mplayer-users-bounces at mplayerhq.hu
> [mailto:mplayer-users-bounces at mplayerhq.hu]On Behalf Of Jonathan Rogers
> Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 1:06 PM
> To: MPlayer user's list.
> Subject: [MPlayer-users] Re: Problem with playing mpeg2 files smoothly
>
>
> [Automatic answer: RTFM (read DOCS, FAQ), also read DOCS/bugreports.html]
> Martin Grim wrote:
> > This was indeed the problem! Without DMA I had a throughput of
> about 3 Mb/s
> > from disk. In the end my kernel, 2.4.18, didn't support setting
> of DMA with
> > hdparm, so I had to upgrade to 2.4.20-20. Now I run my movies
> without any
> > problems. Euh, almost without problems... the upgrade killed my
> sound :-(
>
> I suspected that was the problem, since I can't usually play movies
> smoothly from CD-ROM drive that doesn't have DMA turned on. But it's
> very odd that you had to upgrade from 2.4.18 to 2.4.20, since I've been
> using hdparm to control DMA since 2.2.
>
> Jonathan Rogers
>


I think that there must be a problem with the Kernel when trying to use
hdparm since I am getting:
---------------------------------
# hdparm -d1 /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
----------------------------------
I am using Red Hat Linux 7.3 (Kernel version 2.4.18-3) on a VIA EPIA-M 1000
with a CLE266 Processor and 128Mb Ram and of course I am root when I try
that. But I get this strange "Operation not permitted" message. So are there
any other suggestions than upgrading the Kernel? If I have to upgrade the
Kernel finally how can I do that? I've never done this before. Is this a
difficult and risky operation for the stability of my system? Which Kernel
version would you recommend in the case I finally upgrade? Where can I find
it? I would really need to use DMA since my system is VERY slow for mpeg2
playback with mplayer (the graphic display drivers for linux are total crap
for this platform!). Thanks in advance.


Kostas