The VideoLAN Forums

I'm new to Linux and to tell the truth a lot of it is above my skill level. My son is a programing genius and he writes scripts for a lot of things. All I have to do is click shortcuts he makes. I am using Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS. I took Windows 8 offline because they are blocking security patches for 7th generation processors & there is no way I will install that 10 spyware. It will be a while before I can check this out with my son so I will ask you first. When I clicked the updates available I clicked to install all 24. A box popped up that said:
Install
libllvm4.0
libinput-bin

Remove
libgles1-mesa
vlc

Since I have no intention of uninstalling VLC I made a clone and booted off of that. Sure enough, VLC was gone. I went to the Ubuntu software center and when I tried to install VLC I got this error message:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:

vlc: Depends: vlc-nox (= 2.2.2+git20170721+r59033+56~ubuntu16.04.1) but 2.2.2+git20170721+r59033+56~ubuntu16.04.1 is to be installed
Depends: libavcodec-ffmpeg-extra56 (>= 7:2.4) but 7:2.8.11-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 is to be installed
Depends: libavutil-ffmpeg54 (>= 7:2.4) but 7:2.8.11-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 is to be installed
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.16) but 2.23-0ubuntu9 is to be installed
Depends: libegl1-x11 but it is a virtual package
Depends: libgcc1 (>= 1:3.0) but 1:6.0.1-0ubuntu1 is to be installed
Depends: libgles1 but it is a virtual package
Depends: libgles2 but it is a virtual package
Depends: libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.12.0) but 2.48.2-0ubuntu1 is to be installed
Depends: libqt5core5a (>= 5.5.1) but 5.5.1+dfsg-16ubuntu7.5 is to be installed
Depends: libqt5gui5-gles (>= 5.0.2) but 5.5.1+dfsg-16ubuntu6 is to be installed
Depends: libqt5widgets5 (>= 5.2.0) but 5.5.1+dfsg-16ubuntu7.5 is to be installed
Depends: libqt5x11extras5 (>= 5.1.0) but 5.5.1-3build1 is to be installed
Depends: librsvg2-2 (>= 2.14.4) but 2.40.13-3 is to be installed
Depends: libstdc++6 (>= 5.2) but 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.4 is to be installed
Depends: libxi6 (>= 2:1.2.99.4) but 2:1.7.6-1 is to be installed
Depends: zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4) but 1:1.2.8.dfsg-2ubuntu4.1 is to be installed

When I tried the download from your site I got this error:
Can not install 'vlc' (E:Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.)

Have you stopped supporting VLC for Ubuntu? Is there some way to just hide updates that would remove VLC or I have to uncheck certain ones every time to keep it?

We never supported VLC for Ubuntu; this is under Canonical control. The package is made by the Debian/Ubuntu multimedia team, and we have no access to it.

I'm fairly new to Ubuntu but my son set it up. I have been using VLC and have had absolutely no problems with it. In fact it seems to have a smoother picture than in Windows. It plays every type of video file, even HEVC. I have seen updates for it before when I clicked system updates. I'm still waiting for my son to check it out. I haven't installed any updates on my system disk. I've got 3 clones of it in case something screws up my VLC on this one. I'll wait for him to tell me which ones to hide. At least Ubuntu warned me that it was going to remove VLC. I can still use it on my offline Windows but I would also like to keep it on Linux too.

EDIT:
My son fixed the problem and installed all 24 available updates. It replaced one process unrelated to VLC. The player works fine and I still have all my configuration settings. I asked him to summarize what he did because those long lines of code he types at lightning speed are Chinese to me. Nice to have my own personal tech support so I don’t have to talk to some guy in India who I can’t understand and is not nearly as smart as him! Also nice that he makes Linux user friendly for me and Microsoft can’t force me toward their spyware “upgrade”. I still have a few important programs I need Windows for and some things are just easier to do on it.

Here is his summery of what he did:

Remove videolan PPA (rename /etc/apt/sources.list.d/videolan-ubuntu-stable-daily-xenial.list to videolan-ubuntu-stable-daily-xenial.list.no)

sudo apt update
sudo apt remove vlc vlc-nox
sudo apt install vlc

The Videolan stable ppa failed to remove the dependency on GLESv1 (not needed, not available in HWE packages..