First I followed the instructions from the Ubuntu Help Center, which you can access from the "System --> Help and Support" menu selection on the task panel. If you follow the link "Music, Videos and Photos" you find a link to "Play movies and videos". There it will instruct you to install the packages gxine, libdvdcss2, libdvdnav4, libdvdplay0 and libdvdead3. You can do that using the "Synaptic Package Manager" under "System --> Administration", where you would use the "search" function to find and install these packages.
The only problem was with the libdvdcss2 package. It couldn't find it in the installed repositories. But you can find instructions on how to install it from the "medibuntu" repository here. You need to execute the two commands you find there by copying and pasting them to a terminal window, which you can find under "Applications --> Accessories". Make sure you exit the Synaptic Package Manager before executing these commands.
After this step I inserted the DVD I wanted to see, and it played like a charm using the "Totem" movie player. Then I made the mistake to continue to follow the instructions from the Ubuntu Help Center, where it says to run the command sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh, and set the gxine as the auto-play program. After that the DVD wouldn't play in either of the two players, and I had to re-install the packages above to get it working again.
What is your experience with playing DVDs on Linux machines?
apt-get install vlc !
I did the same once on a fresh install of Ubuntu (self-installation, no Dell pre-install). The reason it stopped working is probably that you installed libdvdcss2 from two different locations. The install-css.sh script actually installs libdvdcss2 and so you should just have launched that instead of adding the medibuntu repositories. That, or not have launched the script.
I don’t remember exactly, but I think I followed some instructions for replacing gstreamer with xine as backend for totem. That worked good for me so I didn’t feel the need to change the default totem for playing dvds. The advantage of xine over gstreamer is that xine will show the dvd menus, while gstreamer will immediately play the movie itself, at least according to my experience.
A little side note, when you select the xine-plugin for totem in synaptic or add/remove programs, it will automatically propose to uninstall gstreamer-plugin (and gstreamer completely iirc). I have no experience with gxine.
Commercial DVDs will auto play the first track using Totem on Ubutntu, but I am unable to access any of the menus. ???
You can try and install xine or mplayer.
I use Mandriva 2007 worked fine after I followed the DVD player instructions.
@ Ernie:
For menu access on your commercial DVDs, type this in a terminal:
sudo apt-get install totem-xine
It will ask you for your user password. It will then give you a summary of what it will do. Press y for yes. It will then replace totem-gstreamer with totem-xine. It’s the same interface, Totem, but Xine gives it more functionality. DVD menus are one of those.
I belive PCLinuxOS plays DVD’s right off the bat, no need to install any software. I could be wrong though.
I use Kaffeine. My PC has Suse linux 10.2 running on it without any problems. I installed the repos I found on the opensuse.org website and in the software management section/app, I typed in Kaffeine, which it found and installed without a hitch. I haven’t had any problems with playing DVD’s at all.
I have a brand new 1505N and I went Easybuntu (http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/), which is I believe is a script with a GUI that installs lots of codecs – it got my dvd player working with commercial dvd’s. The player that works best for me is VLC Media Player – it is working perfectly with menu’s and the audio sounds better to me than on Totem.
apt-get install vlc
I’ll second that!!! VLC rules and will play just about everything.
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