No link?
Is it looking for a /dev/cdrom or /dev/dvd or something like that?
If your using most distros you would have a symbolic link (shortcut) that links the /dev/hd* device and the /dev/cdrom
So if you have a dvd player as a secondary master ide device then the command to create the link would be:
ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom
Other then that, if your using Gentoo, which uses the devfs system which dinamicly creates /dev files as you need it you'll have to edit a configuration file.
directions are aviable here on how to use devfs
I am not sure about what you mean by "missing link", but that may be it.
Otherwise the only issues with DVD drives in linux is that the dvd protection stuff is a huge legal problem. There are fixes to fixing this in Linux, but the legalities make it so that most distros won't do it automaticly. Xine should have some documentation on what to do about this.
If that doesn't help you, why don't you copy the error code exactly?
Also a nice trick to find a answer is to do a search in linux using the exact error code (or at least the first part of it) with " " marks around it so google does a exact match. Probably find a answer quicker that way.