I know there are many of these guides already on the Internet; but I include this one here on my blog more for my own reference than anything else!
Ubuntu ships with Totem as its default video player; but due to legal reasons the codecs required to play DVDs on Ubuntu are not installed by default. Follow these steps to set Ubuntu up to play DVDs. (For instructions for Ubuntu 11.04 see this post)
I personally prefer VLC Video Player to Totem so we will install that too.
- Open a terminal
- Type “sudo -s” and enter your password when prompted to become SU
- Type “apt-get install vlc”, when prompted type y to install the software
- Type “apt-get install gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse”, when prompted type y to install the packages
Now we need to install the libdvdcss2 package. Again for legal reasons this can not be included in the Ubuntu repositories but there is a script that you can run to install it for you. These instructions are based on Ubuntu 10.10; earlier versions may have the script in slightly different locations.
- Back in your terminal type “sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh”
If this script completes successfully you should now be able to play DVDs in both the VLC and Totem Players.