How to install a new version of VLC

[prisma]

I got VDPAU working, but at the momment can only use it with mplayer2 and only if i define some paramaters in the launch command.

My version of VLC does not suport vdpau... How to I compile a deb package from source so I can install it though the package manager?

[lizbeth]

first edit your sources list

in a terminal

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sudo pluma /etc/apt/sources.list


add this repository

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deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ sid main


save and exit

then

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install fakeroot
sudo apt-get build-dep vlc


then

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mkdir /home/vlc
cd vlc/
apt-get source vlc


after this runs, a subdirectory with the version number of vlc will be created. I don't know what it is off hand.

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cd vlc-version#
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -us -uc


this will create a deb package that you can then install on your system and will display the name on the .deb file on your terminal screen

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cd /home/vlc
dpkg -i <output-name-of-the-file>.deb


whammo! you are done

Does vlc make use of vdpau? Maybe try SMPlayer?

[lizbeth]

of course if you download the source, there is another way to get a .deb file

here's the page for vlc 2.0.4. It contains the tarball and a page with other tarballs for depenecies for vlc

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http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-sources.html


the method for building a .deb from tarball is the same for vlc as for all of its dependencies. Downloand th vlc tarball here:

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http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/2.0.4/vlc-2.0.4.tar.xz


open a terminal

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sudo apt-get install fakeroot dh-make
cd Downloads
tar -zxf vlc-2.0.4.tar.xz
cd vlc-2.0.4
dh_make


dh_make will then ask you if you want to create a: "single binary, multiple binary, library, kernel module or cdbs" and ask you to complete the package maintainer fields.

You might then have to tweak the debian/rules file (e.g. to set configuration options) or set a shell variable. It all depends on the package in question.

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dpkg-buildpackage


again read the terminal for the output file name of the .deb

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dpkg -i <vlc-output-file-name>.deb


Easy enough?

[prisma]

Thank you so much lizbeth, this is fairly simple, yes.

Still baffling that, despite being relatively simple, this sort of info is still sparse. I had no idea I could get the package source running apt-get with the 'source' parameter.

However, I'm still sceptical about creating deb packages by running dh_make against a raw upstream. Not sure it will be go very smoothly, but well, we'll see.

Either way, big thanks. SMPlayer does render video using vdpau but there's still quite a bit of interlacing, errors are kind of frequent, gui is still limited and I still need to manually pass a parameter using a terminal.

[lizbeth]

My vote is for adding the sid source as it gives you access to debian sources for your builds and includes all the extra files that comes with it. Whenever possible, I'd go with this method. Also your system won't update files from the sid source directory and bork your system.