DVD Support on Ubuntu Breezy

The other evening I wanted to watch a DVD on my new laptop.
When I originally setup my desktop PC I installed all the required libraries and codecs for DVDs etc., without keeping any record of where I got them from.

This time round I ran into a couple of issues, as the libdvdcss2 packages were not available.
Fortunately someone has gone to the trouble of putting together a very handy utility called Automatix which automatically installs all of the software you could possibly need.
The package provides an easy installation of:

1) Installs multimedia codecs
2) Installs all Firefox plugins (java, flash, etc) (except Adobe reader and mplayer)
3) Installs RAR, ACE and UNRAR archive support
4) Installs skype
5) Installs Acrobat reader 7 and firefox plugin for the same.
6) Installs Gnomebaker (CD/DVD burning s/w for GNOME)
7) Installs gftp (FTP client for GNOME with ssh capability)
8) Installs DC++ , amule and Limewire (file sharing progs)
9) Installs Frostwire (GPL clone of Limewire)
10) Installs multimedia editors (Audacity (audio), Kino (video), EasyTag (ID3))
11) Installs DVD (dvdrip) ripper
12) Installs Mplayer and mplayerplug-in version 3.05 for Firefox
13) Installs totem-xine, VLC and Beep Media Player (with docklet)
14) Installs Opera Browser
15) Installs Debian Menu (shows all installed applications) (this kills and restarts your gnome-panel without warning u but its a completely harmless operation!)
16) Installs Bittornado and Azureus (Bittorrent clients)
17) Installs Avidemux (Video editing tool) (New version 2.1.0)
18) Enables Numlock on (turns numlock on Gnome startup)
19) Installs Programming Tools (Anjuta (C/C++ IDE), Bluefish (HTML editor) and Screem (Web Development Env.))
20) Install GnomePPP (Graphical Dial up connection tool)
21) Installs MS true type fonts
22) Configures ctrl-alt-del to start gnome-system-monitor (aka windows)
23) Installs Streamripper and Streamtuner
24) Installs NON-FREE audio and dvd codecs
25) Installs ndisgtk (WiFi configurator Graphical user interface)
26) Upgrades Open Office to 2.0 (final version), installs openoffice clipart and installs OO2 thumbnailer. (no support for AMD64 and ppc packages)
27) Adds 3 nautilus scripts (open any file with gedit as root; open a nautilus window as root in any folder; open gnome search tool in any folder (Right click in a nautilus window and look under “scripts”)
28) Installs SUN’S JAVA JRE version 1.5
29) Installs SUN’S JAVA JDK version 1.5
30) Installs wine (u need to run winecfg manually after installation)
31*) Installs firestarter (GNOME firewall frontend) and adds firestarter to GNOME startup
32*) installs gdesklets (GNOME eyecandy) and adds gdesklets to GNOME startup
33*) Gamepads (Makes USB gamepads work)
34*) Turns DMA ON on Intel and AMD machines (needs a restart)
35*) NVIDIA cards (Detects Nvidia cards and installs drivers) (Needs a restart)
36*) Adds midi capability to your Ubuntu box [b](test by playing a midi file with timidity or pmidi from terminal)
37*) Installs Firefox 1.5 and its plugins(themes and extensions are not retained, bookmarks need to be copied from backup folder)

Some of the packages it supports are available via other methods, but why waste time messing about? It’s so much easier to just use this utility to handle it all for you.