How to Play DVDs in Ubuntu Linux

Ubuntu linux comes ready to do many things out of the box, but DVD playback isn't one of them.  However, it's quite easy to enable this feature by following the steps below.

To play DVDs in a movie player like VLC or Totem Movie Player (Ubuntu default) you require a package called libdvdcss2.  You can't get this package directly from the repositories, probably for legal reasons, but it can be downloaded via the libdvdread4 package.

sudo apt-get install libdvdread4

Now run the libdvdcss2 install script:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

This is all you need to play DVDs....Just open via Totem, VLC, or your favourite movie player.  I had to restart the system before it would take effect.