laptop w/ dvd player; need install software; don't remember what i tried in past - didn't work.

Try VLC. If you still can't read the DVD, try looking up how to add DeCSS.

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hddfsck,

Open a terminal and use this command:

This link should help you:
https://itsfoss.com/play-dvd-ubuntu-1310/

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Thanks. I did try VLC previously, but I'll try it again.

Install libdvd-pkg and reconfigure it for libdvdcss2.

... and answer "yes" when asked to install libdvdcss2.

Or, install an upstream VLC package.

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Thanks, I'll try it.

Got the following: sudo apt-get install libdvd-pkg
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

Another way, and maybe easier; download the libdvdcss2 package directly from here, then run the following command in a terminal;

Download the package called libdvdcss2_1.2.13-0_amd64.deb for a 64-bit system. As long as you have VLC installed, it should pickup the above library and play back DVD's encrypted with CSS.

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....

simply run the code it said to run

The method described above, to get libdvd-pkg and then to configure it, works like a charm.

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Worked like a charm! Thanks.

Excellent that it was solved with that package.

Since your question was about playback on GNU/Linux, look at the 1999 legal case against Jon Lech Johansen (aka DVD Jon) in Norway for background. That case dragged on for around four years. Even though DVD Jon was neither in the EU nor was the EUCD even in effect until 2001 in the EU itself, and even though he enabled playback, and even though anyone could copy a DVD without decoding it or playing it back, he was nevertheless prosecuted over copyright and accused of enabling illegal copying. Even those that made it into a t-shirt got sued.

Again the heart of the case was about playback but neither MPAA nor M$ wanted that brought up. So instead the court and the media went on and on and on about copying, successfully keeping playback on GNU/Linux out of the news. Only two articles I ever saw identified that issue correctly. Even in 2004 the media was still referring to DeCSS incorrectly as "copy protection".

The EFN page linked to above now contains lots of dead links but some of them can still be found with the Wayback Machine at archive.org.

Of course that was when there was a far, far more active trade press than today and there were, in absolute numbers, more tech people around than today.

Are you saying using VLC to play a dvd might be considered illegal activity?

No. Read the courts' conclusions in the links above, if you have insomnia. I'm saying that M$ went to great lengths to make it difficult to play video back on GNU/Linux and it is still unnecessarily difficult some 20 years later because of them. Around the middle of that saga they were also starting to piggyback DRM into their updates for WMP.

Again, DeCSS has nothing to do with copying and everything to do with playback, though both of which are quite legal as much M$ may continue to try to impair both. Yes, even copying in most jurisdictions is legal if done in the right context. The key phrases to look for there are "media shifting" and "format shifting". I bring up copying because M$ via the MPAA made copying a major red herring to distract from the topic of playback. However, playback is what VLC and DeCSS enable. Playback is (also) legal.

It is just another example of M$ holding another market back a couple of decades.

If it was/is legal to copy from windows, why try to 'silence' linux, especially when most people use windows?