is there a mailing list for help with Sakaki's raspberry pi

[n952162]

Is there a mailing list where I can ask questions about Sakaki's raspberry pi image?

I have two immediate questions ...

- the rpi4 doesn't attach to the wlan automatically.
It connects immediately if I select the station from the
pull-down, which is apparently a NetworkManager icon.
It used to connect automatically, before I updated a couple
of months ago. After the update, a wpa_gui dialog is
displayed in the center of the desktop. That appears to be
presented by wpa_supplicant. An attempt to add the local SSID
says that SSID is not in wpa_supplicant's configuration.
Both NetworkManager and wpa_supplicant seem to be running
concurrently.

I would prefer NOT to use NetworkManager.

- I can read a data DVD or an audio CD with a USB-attached drive, but
I can't view DVD movies:

VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///dev/sr0'. Check the log for details.

Note that the decoding libraries are present:

[NeddySeagoon]

n952162,

Welcome to Gentoo.

Sakaki has a sticky topic Bootable 64-bit RPi3/Pi4 Gentoo image (OpenRC/Xfce/VC4) Pt 2.
Post your questions there, although Sakaki may well answer your post here.

DVD movies have a property called the Region Code.
DVD drives also have a property called the Region Code. The two must match or the drive will not accept the movie.
Its a market control thing.

Test with a Region Free or all regions DVD.
Now it gets worse. The Region Code in a DVD drive can be changed a limited number of times before it becomes region locked.

I bought a cheap USB DVD drive for my Pi. When it arrived, it was set to region 3, which was no use to me at all and it had one Region Code change left.
I managed to set it to region 2 first time, so it works with my DVD collection now.

Try app-misc/regionset.
Reading the region is harmless. Setting the region decrements a counter in the drive.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

[n952162]

Thank you for your reply

I haven't had a problem with the region code for years, also, I used two different drives, one of which, at least, has played DVDs under linux. But it could clearly be just a bad coincidence of circumstances.

This is a good tip: app-misc/regionset. Thank you.

[Sakaki]

Hello n952162,

apologies for the slow reply, things have been extremely hectic at work last couple of weeks.

You can prevent NetworkManager from controlling an interface using e.g. the instructions here, which should prevent any clash with wpa_supplicant.
_________________
Regards,

sakaki