Howto: Compile the development version of vlc under the latest Ubuntu release

[brooklynfunk]

Great! Lets keep this guide alive !

[andrew.46]

The vlc guide has returned after a substantial time away for me where life buffeted me more than a little. Updates have been:

1. Updated to Saucy Salamander. I have rebuilt the guide running on a fresh Virtual Machine dedicated to building the development version of vlc solely. Some may rememeber that this is the recommended approach for this guide . This VM has 8gigs RAM allocated from my 16gigs, 30gigs of HDD from my 2TB and 6 cores of my 8 core machine, I run the vlc compile at -j 12 and it screams along! Only testing the 64bit Ubuntu at the moment, hopefully if there are any specifically 32bit problems somebody in this thread will post...
2. Updated FFmpeg installation to 2.1.1 "Fourier" which was released on 2013-11-20. Most will realise that a decent and up to date version of FFmpeg is essential for a solid build of vlc.
3. Live555 libraries are no longer hosted on my website as I have shut this down and come from the VideoLan website. I have not had a good look to see if this newer version is working well or not, this will be a job for the next couple of weeks...
4. I will continue to give instructions for compiling libdvdcss rather than use a PPA which I seem to be on my own for cordially disliking. Left a quick note about Medibuntu's demise.
5. Updated to the latest versions of libbluray and libaacs for those like myself with bluray drives. I have added in a few line and a code snippet to allow people to easily place KEYDB.cfg in the correct location for decrypting bluray disks.
6. I have removed the instructions for building goom and the vsxu visualisations with the aim of simplifying the guide a little and concentrating on the core idea of tracking vlc development rather than playing with eye candy.
7. Took out the thumbnails at the base of the guide as this seemed again to be simply eye candy that the guide could do without.
   

So hopefully the guide will attract some interest. I am aware that it is a little far from standard fare for Ubuntu users and will never attract a huge following but I am sure it has a place in these Forums and it certainly gives me a fascinating hobby . For reference the latest successful build on my machine is:

andrew@corinth:~$ vlc --version | head -n 2
VLC media player 2.2.0-git Weatherwax (revision 6d07bbb)
VLC version 2.2.0-git Weatherwax (6d07bbb)
Compiled by andrew on corinth (Jan 10 2014 14:39:51)

Happy compiling and troubleshooting

[MountainX]

Thank you for the guide! I'm going to try it with Kubuntu 12.04 64 bit. Is there anything I should know about differences with 12.04 before I get started?

Maybe you should also post this over on AskUbuntu. (I looked there first.)

[mc4man]

Thank you for the guide! I'm going to try it with Kubuntu 12.04 64 bit. Is there anything I should know about differences with 12.04 before I get started?

Maybe you should also post this over on AskUbuntu. (I looked there first.)

You may run into a couple of issues with some outdated or unavailable packages in 12.04.
Currently I'm on the road for a while with only a portable 4g hotspot device for internet access so not in a position to test 12.04.
I'll list some possible ones & means to resolve

yasm - it's almost definite 12.04's yasm is too old, if so you can build a newer version or get from a ppa
libopus/libopus-dev - not in 12.04, again build or get from ppa
The 2 above I have in an mplayer ppa, if desired add/upgrade from here -
https://launchpad.net/~mc3man/+archive/mplayer-test

Looking at the videolan master ppa, they added 3 additional packages for 12.04 builds, whether you need them you'll need to see. Again, if so then either build newer versions or in these cases just get from the ppa
chromaprint _ you may not need
dbus - may not hurt to use the updated ppa packages..
gnutls28 - not sure about as the guide uses a lesser version - libgnutls-dev which is libgnutls26 & available in 12.04

So in the 3 above maybe only the dbus packages are of value?, you could try without & if needed add from ppa
https://launchpad.net/~videolan/+archive/master-daily

In any event you should be able to get this squared away pretty quickly, post any problems or build issues if they arise..

[andrew.46]

Thank you for the guide! I'm going to try it with Kubuntu 12.04 64 bit. Is there anything I should know about differences with 12.04 before I get started?

You could very well run into a few package name issues with the so-called 'dev' files which have changed a little since 12.04 times. With all other files, that for the most part are external to the Ubuntu Repositories, there should be no trouble. Don't forget too the little note at the beginning of this guide that the development version of vlc is best built in a dedicated VM rather than your main installation...

Maybe you should also post this over on AskUbuntu. (I looked there first.)

I am a 'part time' Ubuntu-ite and my activities in the community are mostly confined to these Forums, I confess I have never really even looked at AskUbuntu. Perhaps I will check it out on the weekend.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

askubuntu seems fairly limited in terms of interesting topics for us multimediaers, but I'll try to provide an answer now and then.

Unfortunately, the interaction often seems to be lacking. You can create a nice answer and you get no indication from the question asker if it even worked for them (usually new or one-time users I guess).

[andrew.46]

I have just started to have a closer look at the finer details of the guide and I notice that the Opus encoder is failing:

checking for OPUS... no
configure: WARNING: Library ogg opus >= 1.0.3 needed for opus was not found

and in fact Saucy's version is too old:

andrew@corinth:~$ apt-cache policy libopus-dev
libopus-dev:
  Installed: 1.0.1-0ubuntu2
  Candidate: 1.0.1-0ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.1-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

According to the Opus website version 1.1 was released on December 5th 2013 (possibly as a 53rd birthday present for myself?) so I have added in suitable instructions to compile the newest version in the 'Optional extras...' section. Note that this does not include the installation of the opus-tools source which includes the commandline encoder, decoder and info applications. Interestingly enough I cannot see the opus encoder in the vlc options so I would be interested to hear if anybody can ferret out the required menu?

In a job for next weekend I see that the development version of vlc now supports x265 decoding and encoding so this will be a fascinating area to delve into for sure

[MountainX]

Don't forget too the little note at the beginning of this guide that the development version of vlc is best built in a dedicated VM rather than your main installation...

Yes, I guess you can never remind people too often! I admit that I probably would have skipped that advice if you hadn't repeated it here. I'll start by setting up a VM now

And thanks again for the great guide!

[andrew.46]

Yes, I guess you can never remind people too often! I admit that I probably would have skipped that advice if you hadn't repeated it here. I'll start by setting up a VM now

It is a suggestion that is a little conservative in nature as the guide is relatively safe but it still deals with development software and thus would be better suited to the more insulated environment of a VM. I actually purpose built a computer to run VMs smoothly and this makes a big difference.

And thanks again for the great guide!

I hope that is the same sentiment when you have installed vlc from this guide . I have some plans for over the next week or so:

• Set up the acoustic ID settings of vlc using libchromaprint, should be working now. Looks like the repository version should be ok.
• See what is involved in getting VP9 encoding organised through vlc.
• Set up h265 encoding through vlc, this arrived a few months back.

Some interesting politics with 2 of these atm. I will be probably only adding these sections in each weekend but it should be a lot of fun...

[andrew.46]

I had a small spare moment hiding inside from the 40° Celsius heatwave and I have updated the FFmpeg installation to 2.1.3. Also added in a little snippet to completely remove the older FFmpeg files, not really a mandatory thing but it is a little bit of housekeeping that some might like. The syntax is reasonably conservative in case people have added other libraries etc.

Latest successful build:

andrew@corinth:~$ cvlc --version | head -n 2
VLC media player 2.2.0-git Weatherwax (revision cdbe3ee)
VLC version 2.2.0-git Weatherwax (cdbe3ee)
Compiled by andrew on corinth (Jan 18 2014 19:58:55)

Which reminds me, I must fix up the package naming for vlc which looks a little amateurish...