NOTE: if you're running a 2.6 Kernel, life is a lot easier and you don't have to bother with all this. Just go to Getting DVDs to mount so I can watch movies. (2.6 Kernel).

Well it took some searching but...

1. I did search for an application to view the DVDs
   sudo apt-cache search dvd |grep player and came up with:

   gxine - the xine video player, GTK+/Gnome user interface
   libxine-dev - the xine video player library, development packages
   libxine1 - the xine video/media player library, binary files
   ogle - DVD player with support for DVD menus
   ogle-mmx - DVD player with support for DVD menus
   okle - DVD player for KDE
   totem - A simple media player for the Gnome desktop (dummy package)
   totem-gstreamer - A simple media player for the Gnome desktop based on gstreamer
   totem-xine - A simple media player for the Gnome desktop based on xine
   vlc - multimedia player for all audio and video formats
   xine-ui - the xine video player, user interface

   I then chose oKle because I'm running KDE
   sudo apt-get install okle

2. I then ran oKle and discovered that it wouldn't read DVDs mounted as /dev/hdc/ or /cdrom
3. I then went to google and did a search for getting dvd to mount in debian and I found Debian on DELL Inspiron 4150 which said you needed to pass options to the kernal so that it would allow the CDROM/DVD to mount as either SCSI or IDE
   I then had to work out how to pass the kernal options a boot time. (I'm still a novice at all this.) I found a number of references to doing it in LILO and a couple for GRUB. I'm use to LILO but this install uses grub so I the had to wrk out how to use GRUB (Tutorial: GRUB in Debian HOWTO, Version 1.0 Was invaluable)
   To edit GRUB you need to:
1. vim /boot/grub/menu.lst (in some installs it may be /etc/grub/menu.lst)
2. I then tacked hdc=ide-scsi to the kernal I normaly boot from so the entry looked like:
   

   title           Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.4.27-1-386
   root            (hd1,5)
   kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27-1-386 root=/dev/hdb6 ro hdc=ide-scsi
   initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.4.27-1-386
   savedefault
   boot

3. Then I rebooted the computer.
4. I then ran oKle from the command line and noticed it pumped out a large number of errors culminating in:
   

   libdvdread: Encrypted DVD support unavailable.
   ************************************************
   **                                            **
   **  No css library available. See             **
   **  /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/README.Debian  **
   **  for more information.                     **
   **                                            **
   ************************************************

   It seems that for legal reasons some of the key libs are unavailable in some countrys. I just followed the instructions in
   less /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/README.Debian

5. I downloaded http://download.videolan.org/pub/libdvdcss/1.2.8/deb/libdvdcss2_1.2.8-1_i386.deb
   

   NOTE: I haven't linked directly to the download because in Australia it's not legal to play encripted DVDs (just about all commercial movie DVDs) without a licence and I'm a bit parranoied. Theoretically if you own a DVD player or have a licenced player for Windows you own a licence but...
   just copy the URL and paste it into the address bar of your browser and go.
   Sorry for the inconvenience.

6. then I did sudo dpkg -i libdvdcss2_1.2.8-1_i386.deb
7. NOTE: These libs worked fine on my 2.6 kernel. I havne't tested them on a 2.4 kernel.

• Installing Debian/GNU Linux on an IBM T41 Thinkpad
• HowTo use DVD ROM under Linux
• Linux Drivers and the Kernel