How to watch DVD in Ubuntu Gutsy?

While it is a breeze to watch DVD in Windows and Mac OSX, it is definitely not a feature you would get when you install Ubuntu Gutsy. The default installation of Gutsy does not allow you to watch DVD due to legal and technical restrictions. You will have to install additional software to get the movie playing.

With appropriate codecs, DVD movies can be played in gxine, Totem movie player and VLC. I personally prefer VLC as it simply works, without having to do much configuration.

First, install the following library:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

This will install most of the codecs for multimedia (audio and video) playing.

Next, you have to install “libdvdcss2” to watch encrypted DVD. The library package is not available in the Ubuntu repository, you have to use the “libdvdread3” installer script.

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

This will retrieve and install the “libdvdcss2”.

Install the xine library

sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg

Install VLC

sudo apt-get install vlc

Now you should be to watch DVD in your VLC player.

If you want to use Totem Mplayer, you have to install “totem-xine” rather than using the default “totem-gstreamer”.

sudo apt-get install totem-xine