VLC builds for Linux

[flurospar]

At present, we have VLC builds for Windows and OS X, and we rely on external developers for Linux builds. Can we have Linux builds too?

We needn't make packages for every distro. Just as Mozilla does with Firefox, can't we just compile VLC + dependencies and put the whole thing in a tarball containing all the dependencies and the executables of VLC for the people to tar -xvf and run?

(I do not know whether this should be actually in the Feature Requests section, but this section seemed most appropriate to me.)

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

At present, we have VLC builds for Windows and Linux, and we rely on external developers for Linux builds. Can we have Linux builds too?

We needn't make packages for every distro. Just as Mozilla does with Firefox, can't we just compile VLC + dependencies and put the whole thing in a tarball containing all the dependencies and the executables of VLC for the people to tar -xvf and run?

(I do not know whether this should be actually in the Feature Requests section, but this section seemed most appropriate to me.)

Compiling VLC statically is way more difficult than Firefox. And we have no time to support that. Patches are welcome...

[flurospar]

I am a complete n00b, so please correct me if I am wrong.

Compiling VLC statically is way more difficult than Firefox. And we have no time to support that. Patches are welcome...

Why compile statically? No need for static build.

• Make a list of the files that exist in the folders such as /usr, /bin, /var , /etc and so on.
• Compile/install whatever is required (FFmpeg libs, Qt libs, other depends, VLC itself) normally.
• Make a list of the new files that have been made.
• Copy these new files to somewhere like ~/vlc-linux
• chmod the files in ~/vlc-linux so that others can open, otherwise tar may preserve ownership rights and prevent users from running VLC.
• tar -cf the ~/vlc-linux directory.

Since the vlc executable would search the libs relatively, there shouldn't be any problems.

EDIT: Nope, it doesn't. If vlc is built normally, it will search for everything in /usr and the like.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

Since the vlc executable would search the libs relatively, there shouldn't be any problems.

Riiight... And the dependencies, like libc and gcrypt?

[flurospar]

Riiight... And the dependencies, like libc and gcrypt?

Ok, so we simply put an install-vlc script, so that the users can simply run that which just copies everything in /usr and the like.

EDIT:Nope, it doesn't. If vlc is built normally, it will search for everything in /usr and the like.

So I guess we need to take the install-vlc pathway anyway.