linux/Laptop - DVD/movie player

Tech support
1

Hello,

Wondering if you can offer any advice on how to play dvds on linux - my daughter has started using the old laptop that Greg installed Linux on. Its all working fine, playing cds, internet etc but doesn’t seem to want to play a dvd. The dvd home screen shows and play dvd can be selected but nothing shows on the screen? please help!!? thanks

2

@gwmngilfen Was this installed with Silverblue? Hmm, suspect not, the Silverblue install I have here doesn’t have a dvd app as default.

4

Right, this pre-dates pur work with Silverblue, its Fedora Workstation.

At a guess, if CDs play, then perhaps it’s missing libdvdcss?

5

Install vlc from FlatHub. That should work, unless the DVD drive is oddly region locked incorrectly like the first laptop I just tried it in…

6

Ok, thanks for this, is this something i can do or shall i bring it in to the repair hub on the 14th?

7

ok, i can have a rake around the laptop settings to see if it has a region setting!

8

Vlc will work, but it might not be the most ideal solution. Greg’s right, it’s probably libdvdcss that’s missing (DVDs are encrypted this library deals with that), sorting that out might be a better user experience in the long run, so would be worth bringing it down on the 14th either way.

I’m not sure if Greg setup the software manager to offer packages from FlatHub as an option.

9

It’s been a while, I don’t recall. Let’s take a look.

Also, we should add “DVD player” to our checklist for SB installs, I guess

10

Yeah… I don’t know if the flathub Gnome Videos includes libdvdcss. I’ll have to have a play. The problem with vlc is that it’s “Open Disk” menu exposes drive device file names, which isn’t ideal from a newcomers point of view…

11

Marvellous, thanks both!

1 Like
12

@mcFisher If Greg did setup FlatHub as a source of apps in the “Software” manager. You should be able to use the “videos” app from FlatHub, it’s a bit more user friendly than vlc.

  • Open “software”.
  • Click on the magnifying glass in the top left corner of the app.
  • Search for “videos”.
  • Should be the first option in the list that comes up. Click on that.
  • If it is installed, then an blue “Open” button will be displayed towards the to right corner of the window. It might say “Fedora Linux” under it.
  • If it does, then click on “Fedora Linux” and hopefully you get a menu which also lists “Flathub”.
  • If this is the case, click on “Flathub”, the open button will probably get replaced with an “Install” button. Click that.
  • Once installed, click on “Flathub” once again and reselect “Fedora Linux”. Click on the trash can to uninstall the Fedora Linux version to make sure the Flathub one gets used.
  • You can find “Videos” in the app menu. If you have a DVD in your drive, it should be listed in that app and play.