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

[andrew.46]

Good to hear vlc is behaving again .

[mc4man]

Just to note:
On default current Ubuntu it's not a systray icon, it's an indicator provided by/thru sni-qt
(-and a rather crappy indicator compared to the 'real' systray icon

The real one can be used but sni-qt doesn't support a blacklist so it needs to be removed & for unity the systray needs to be enabled..

[monkeybrain20122]

I have figured it out. The anomalies are indeed caused by the qt-5 libs (this include vlc 2.2 opening two instances when playing a video) Thanks to Andrew for showing me it is not a vlc problem.

[andrew.46]

I have figured it out. The anomalies are indeed caused by the qt-5 libs (this include vlc 2.2 opening two instances when playing a video)

I believe that vlc-git should compile against qt5 although I have not tested this. Might be worth a go though? On my version of Trusty Tahr:

andrew@corinth:~$ qmake -v
QMake version 2.01a
Using Qt version 4.8.6 in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

[qyot27]

Tried again to run a daily build of Utopic Unicorn and it failed to install in VM, seems a little odd this close to release. So looks like this guide stays with Trusty Tahr for the moment although I will make a token try with the release version which I believe comes out in a couple of days. I cannot be the only person having this trouble surely..... and I run multiple VMs of Ubuntu, Windows and others with no issues....

Edit: The solution for me was to use an odd work-around: when the install fails move to TTY1 (with VirtualBox, Right-Ctrl+F1), then move back to TTY7 (with VirtualBox, Right-Ctrl+F7). Very odd.....

Even though the post in question is a couple weeks old, the theme is still being brought up in newer posts, so I'll comment anyway.

It wasn't in a VM, but I had issues installing 14.10 on my actual hardware back when it was released. The solution I ultimately resorted to was that I let it wait on the time zone page until the hard drive was no longer working (thus all the file copying was probably finished), then finished up the user configuration, and once that was done and the slideshow began, do not let it cycle all the way through. I kept turning it back to the first page whenever it popped over to the second. Then it installed fine. This was on 32-bit, 13-year-old hardware, but I used the same tactic to successfully install the 64-bit version to an Athlon64 setup, and the 32-bit to a Virtualbox VM (in which I didn't have a good gauge to when the file copying finished, so I think I let it sit on the time zone page for about 5-10 minutes and just hoped that was enough). All went fine after that. I remember having to do this on one or two previous versions in recent memory as well, so I'm certain it's a bug in the installer, but I'm not sure exactly where in the installer.

I'd tried falling back to text-mode when it failed and froze up during install the first time, and even though I could restart and have it eject the disc, the installation was corrupted and I had to start over. So I went with the most paranoid solution possible for the standard desktop images, and it worked that way.

[andrew.46]

Glad in a way that I am not the only one who experienced a few issues with Utopic . I have no burning need to run Utopic and I spent too much time with installation issues so for the moment I have deleted all of my Utopic isos... My production work (study, email, web site, media conversions etc) is done on a non-Ubuntu distro anyway so my need for a new Ubuntu distro is never great. Still it was a little frustrating that installation was so difficult on a release version...

[andrew.46]

Updated x265 to 1.4 and FFmpeg to 2.4.3. Latest successful compile:

andrew@corinth:~$ cvlc --version | head -n 2
VLC media player 3.0.0-git Vetinari (revision 90c479c)
VLC version 3.0.0-git Vetinari (90c479c)
Compiled by andrew on corinth (Nov 28 2014 07:54:07)
andrew@corinth:~$

[mc4man]

Glad in a way that I am not the only one who experienced a few issues with Utopic . I have no burning need to run Utopic and I spent too much time with installation issues so for the moment I have deleted all of my Utopic isos... My production work (study, email, web site, media conversions etc) is done on a non-Ubuntu distro anyway so my need for a new Ubuntu distro is never great. Still it was a little frustrating that installation was so difficult on a release version...

It's likely that 15.04 will be more useful/usable. Though again the 9 month life is a bit of an issue (to me
While I'm probably incorrect I view 14.10 less as a 'release' & more as a point in time with a little last min. work on the Desktop..

[andrew.46]

While I'm probably incorrect I view 14.10 less as a 'release' & more as a point in time with a little last min. work on the Desktop..

I certainly share this view. It is a shift in thinking for me because in more ancient days each 6 month Ubuntu release was a genuine release.

[andrew.46]

Weekend update: upgraded FFmpeg to 2.5 & updated the website mirror. Latest successful compile:

andrew@corinth:~$ cvlc --version | head -n 3
VLC media player 3.0.0-git Vetinari (revision 67066bf)
VLC version 3.0.0-git Vetinari (67066bf)
Compiled by andrew on corinth (Dec  7 2014 10:42:06)
Compiler: gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1)
andrew@corinth:~$