DVD playback with SUSE 10.1

As already mentioned, getting Linux to playback DVDs is a little tricky, because in some countries (including Germany) it’s illegal to use the needed library. It’s OK if you use Windows as your OS and have a commercial software like WinDVD or PowerDVD, but it’s considered to be illegal if you have open source software to playback css-encoded DVDs??? I cannot see the sense in paying for a DVD and than have to pay again for a (Windows-)software to play it.

I found a nice paragraph in a German Ubuntu wiki, so if the language doesn’t bother you have a look at it, it’s right at the bottom of that page. To sum it up, it seems I’m not even allowed to write an HOWTO on this matter. But I like to quote (not literally) the former mentioned paragraph from the Ubuntu wiki. It’s not illegal to search for example via Google for a library which enables Xine to play DVDs protected by css. If, by accident, you are lucky and find it just get the rpm (if you use SUSE 32bit) or the source (for SUSE amd64) and install the former or compile the latter (no special options required). If you installed “libxine1” from Packman you would now be able to play “normal” DVDs - at least I believe so…