You’d think this would be a natural inclusion in every operating system and yet Mac OS X is the only one to include this for free. Even Windows makes you pay extra for this.
DVD licensing makes this a painful issue for Linux users. Sure there are ways to do it but most are not legal.
Migration Score
GREAT
Migration Options
Fluendo DVD Player
A great, legal, option for DVD playback is the new Fluendo DVD Player for Linux. It works great but costs about $29 USD.
PowerDVD for Linux
Another legal option to play DVDs is to go to the Canonical Store and order the PowerDVD add-on for $50. I did and I can tell you that I had to initially turn off Compiz just to have it play. I can't remember and now have no way to test whether this helped. I was pretty dissatisfied with this option.