Is the future looking bright for Linux VLC users?

[main2]

I've been trying to compile/ install VLC for about 14 full hours now (not only this whole day, some hours yesterday as well), without success.

It seems that both packages available for Dapper are broken, that is:
the 0.8.4 from the official repository
and 0.8.5 from the nightlies svn (this package is broken since june)

With both package we are not able to play h264 content, what happens is described in this topic, viewtopic.php?t=26082
the given 'option'.. is not fixing the problem.

Because of this, i had only one option left - and that is - compiling from source. So i grabbed the source using SVN (svn co svn://svn.videolan.org/vlc/trunk vlc-trunk) - then ran './bootstrap' but it returned:

Code: Select all

Copying file autotools/mkinstalldirs + aclocal-1.9 -I m4 + autoconf configure.ac:1: error: possibly undefined macro: dnl If this token and others are legitimate, please use m4_pattern_allow. See the Autoconf documentation. configure.ac:26: error: possibly undefined macro: AS_IF configure.ac:77: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_ERROR configure.ac:80: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_MSG_WARN configure.ac:273: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_DISABLE_STATIC configure.ac:274: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_LIBTOOL_DLOPEN configure.ac:276: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_PROG_LIBTOOL configure.ac:304: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_DEFINE configure.ac:338: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_CHECK_LIB configure.ac:426: error: possibly undefined macro: AC_CHECK_HEADERS

Im using Kubuntu - Dapper 2.6.15-27-386, with the following lib/program versions:
gcc (GCC) 4.0.3 (Ubuntu 4.0.3-1ubuntu5)
(make GNU Make 3.81beta4)
automake (GNU automake) 1.9.6 (tried it with 1.8 as well)
autoconf (GNU Autoconf) 2.60 (tried it with 2.59 as well)
m4 - GNU M4 1.4.6
gettext (GNU gettext-runtime) 0.15 (tried it with 0.14 as well)
(im using the latest ffmpeg from SVN)

A lot of people are dealing with the same problem:
viewtopic.php?t=21059 (2pages.., no solution)
viewtopic.php?t=23649&highlight=bootstrap
http://www.nanocrew.net/2005/09/01/compiling-vlc/ (in the comments)
similar problem:
viewtopic.php?t=18431&highlight=bootstrap

I understand that the nightlies repository for dapper does not contain a 'perfectly working' release of 0.8.5.. nightly builds are seldom perfect.
But i do hope that you (the VLC developers) take this serious, and might even have a solution for this problem, so a lot more people can enjoy both the power of VLC and h264.

(Ive also tried to use the release-source of 0.8.5, and i where able to compile it - but it didnt play the video's i tried to play (divx/mov h264), the video window opened up after 5seconds to stay empty forever.. - the following message echo'ed (-vvv) [00000271] ffmpeg decoder error: more than 5 seconds of late video -> dropping frame (computer too slow ?), im not sure if this happens because it cannot get arround with the latest ffmpeg version.. despite this, i prefer to keep the focus in this topic on the SVN version and the problems 'we' encountered trying to compile it. So hopefully everyone can enjoy the power of VLC in the end..)

(The specs of the machine im trying to compile it on: 2.0Ghz AMD semprom, 1GB ram - Nvidia 6800)

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Well, I compile my VLC for months now under debian (should not be very different from Kubuntu), so it does work correctly for the trunk.

The nightlies are not compiled for ubuntu. Maybe it could be done.
Strangely, ubuntu guys are able to do it for edgy :
as you can see here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/edgy/graphics/vlc

I just suggest you take a look at apt-get build-dep vlc and here
http://patches.ubuntu.com/v/vlc/vlc_0.8 ... ntu1.patch

[main2]

Due to the large ammount of (unsolved) dependencies, i was not able to get the Debian SID release installed. I would have to up /downgrade a lot of packages by hand, because i couldnt use apt to get it installed.

But there is good news, if everything goes well - a new VLC 0.8.6 package should show up in dapper repository really soon:

Daniel T Chen: There is a backport of the newer edgy package, and earlier this morning I uploaded an even newer edgy source package.

(from https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+s ... +bug/62217 )