Actually, Blu-ray may not work so well: https://www.howtogeek.com/240487/how-to-play-dvds-and-blu-rays-on-linux/
FSF re Blu-ray: https://www.fsf.org/news/blu-ray
I just tried this. It said:
dbrokaw@DRBL14:~$ apt --fix-broken install
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend), are you root?
The device is an LG GP60 ultra slim prortable DVD writer. I’ve used it only for playing commercial DVDs on another Windows laptop without a CD drive.
“Are you root?”
Sounds like you didn’t log in as root before doing these command inputs. Log in as su or sudo then redo those commands.
If that still doesn’t work then maybe it has to do with LG GP60. I looked it up, nothing mentions it would work on linux but that doesn’t necessary means it cannot run on linux as some other devices may not mention it. Example, this Acer dvd+rw device mentions it does support linux system 8.6 or above,
So if any devices without mentioning of linux support, best to stay away. Plus always check around linux communties on said devices before getting one.
I’m thinking I likely go the Linux supported device route. My hope was that all the devices I already had would just work on the L14, but it’s quickly showing to be more trouble than it’s likely worth.
Thanks for the recommendation of the drive you listed.
Sorry, as @Eyegore explained, I should have written sudo apt --fix-broken-install. What do you get from that?
Why on earth would tech savvy people play DVDs/Blurays instead of ripping them once, burying them in the attic and playing the files? So long as you own the discs, making rips for your own use (backup copies) is perfectly legal.
Maybe he’ll do that but most important thing is getting his device to work with PureOS first before he can do that. Maybe he doesn’t want to bother with ripping off dvds that he just want to watch whatever is on his purchased dvds. So who cares.
Maybe some of his dvds won’t work on his LG dvd rom due to regional coded. I have 2 dvd players, first one is old and limited to US region, so I brought another that finally work with other regional dvds. I still order dvds from other countries because US tech companies have been so pushy for everybody to be on streaming with DRM making it harder for us to find new movies available on dvds in US marketplaces or online stores. Many movies/shows made by Apple, Disney, Hulu, CBS, Amazon, etc aren’t available on dvds in US but you can order their films on dvds from other countries like UK, EU, China, etc. I refused to sign up and pay monthly to have an access with any of these streaming companies for watching movies or shows. I already have Netflix and Roku, I just don’t want to have too many accounts. So for regional coded issues, here
Also, if you read any of my previous posts you’ll see that I squarely fall outside the category of “tech savvy” 
It is my lack of savvy that necessitates so many posts about basic things that are probably already understood by most.
And, believe it or not, where I live there is still a brick and mortar DVD rental business nearby that my wife and I visit all the time. It’s always busy too. So as long as they can tap the nostalgia of the last generation of people who grew up doing this they’ll probably stick around.
They also sell alcohol, which I’m sure helps their foot traffic. 
1 Like
Whenever you see “Permission Denied,” and “Are you root?” it means the command needs to be executed with elevated (ie. administrator) privileges. Simply hit the up-arrow on the keyboard to bring back your last command, use the left-arrow to go to the beginning of the command, and add sudo to the far left. Then hit Enter.
I think I have this same DVD writer. Works great with Linux Mint, right out of the box. (Mint can be installed with all the necessary multimedia codecs by default.)
Is it maybe not a good idea to log in as root, especially as a new user could cause some unintended consequences if they don’t understand what they’re doing? Better to just use the sudo command when needed. It elevates privileges for only a short time.
You have to first have the DVD writer to be able to rip them.
Anyway, I still physically play them in the multi-region DVD player attached to my TV/audio receiver setup. (I need the writer to make copies of my CDs, also, so I can load them on my phone, computers, music players, etc.)
The major film studios probably disagree. However, I disagree with their disagreement.
PureOS probably requires a little more initial work and troubleshooting than many other Linux distros, so don’t despair! 
To “rip” a disc means to read, decrypt (if needed) and save data from it on computer hard drive. Been doing it for decades, no writers needed.
1 Like
Understood. I just meant that you need a device to put the disk in. I should have said at least a “DVD player”, either external or internal.
1 Like
… and you need the time and the disk space to convert each DVD / BluRay.
Regardless, Linux is about choice! You wanna convert to files on disk. All good. You wanna play from optical media. All good. It isn’t for us to tell you what you can and cannot do. You should be allowed to do both.
Anyone tried an external (USB) optical media reader (or writer!) on a Librem 5 yet? 
1 Like
Just tried! 
…
LG DVD writer, micro-USB to USB-A+adapter to USB-C, using VLC Media Player (flatpak version).
2 Likes
OK, so a bit untidy. Would need to dig deeper to find out where it is falling down.
I would probably start with a data DVD and try to access it from the command line. Or even a music CD.
As I type this I am watching a DVD. 
All did was retry these steps you listed here with the revision of typing debconf instead of debconf-2.0 as you recommended.
I don’t really know what I did differently. I might have just entered the commands properly without any typos. I’m not going to question it though.
Thank you for these steps, I have had success!
5 Likes
Good for you 