Watch DVD's in Ubuntu Linux

Surprisingly, one of the things that Ubuntu Linux does better than Windows is play DVD movies. After installing Ubuntu, I went to the Add/Remove item on the applications menu, and I installed the restricted add-ons. This gave me full DVD movie playback ability.

I popped a DVD in the drive, and Linux fired up a player and I was watching movies in full screen instantly. Unlike Windows, the movie was not choppy and did not choke intermittently. It played just like it was on the DVD player on my TV set.

It has longer irritated me that I have this beautiful 24" LCD monitor on my PC with surround sound speakers and yet could not watch a DVD movie either in Windows XP or Vista.

In Linux, it works great!

Some might ask why you have to install a package - why doesn't Ubuntu Linux come with drivers for DVD's built in? Well, because Linux is given away for free and all of the software in it is open source, any drivers or programs that are "closed" must be installed by the user separately for legal reasons.

Ubuntu Linux builders would be helping out new users dramatically by including a nice icon on the desktop that you could double click to launch an applet to install typically desired closed source support programs like video card drivers, DVD support, and MP3 playback and burning capability. Instead, new users typically go to Google and search on "Ubuntu play MP3's" and read postings in a forum somewhere or articles like this one to figure out what to do.