At the time of our meeting, however, my good hacker instincts took over. Instead of grabbing his lapel and yelling, "Where is my DVD playback you jerk?!", I agreed that perhaps my testing was obsolete, or I configured something wrong, and that I would give the dynamic duo of Totem and Gstreamer another chance. Promises are to be kept, and today I assembled this hodge-podge of packages again and gave it a whirl.
The result is in the screenshot.
VLC may cause Steven den Beste's ire, but at least it works. I find it a key advantage.
{Update: Thomas has posted a reply [link]. His reply is very informative and educational, althogh mostly about the disconnect between the worldviews of developers and users. He also misses an important point: the DVD in question is not encrypted. An anonymous commenter raised a possibility that the menu navigation is patented, but so far Thomas hasn't mentioned it either in person or in the entry. On the debuggability and maintanabiliy point he admits the failure and shifts the responsibility squarely onto Bastien's shoulders. The solution seems to be to use magic environmental variables.
Anyway, RTWT. I think that we have an understanding about making the software better, and at least he knows that the problem exists, and is not just voices in my head. I wish he would not spend so much energy on debunking my ancient posts though, but this exchange is far more constructive than the pile of "Totem must die" comments, which I delete or leave screened.}
{Update: Indeed, "totem dvd://2" works (jcollie was the first to point it out). Unfortunately, switching sound tracks kills the sound [232964]. Seeking DVDs also fails [232971].}
{Update: The comments left by Totem partisans are every bit as inane as those from Totem haters. The level of denial is stunning. One notable thing is that real hackers, e.g. Thomas and Bastien, are capable of recognizing the bugs and addressing them, but the uninvolved crowd keeps getting on the "patents are bad, therefore you suck and Totem rulez" track.}
