Slackware

Installing VLC on Slackware

You can find up-to-date Slackware packages for VLC in Alien's SlackBuilds repository. These packages are built without adding software that has patent issues (like MP3, AAC and AMR encoders) but you can re-build the package to include these encoders - individuals should not be bothered with patent claims.

Building VLC from source

• To rebuild the VLC package and include all non-free codecs, download the build directory and then run the SlackBuild script, like this:

mkdir -p ~/slackbuilds/vlc
cd ~/slackbuilds/vlc
lftp -c "open http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackbuilds/vlc/ ; mirror build"
cd build
sh vlc.SlackBuild

(If you need MP3/AAC support and don't mind "tainting" the program with proprietary codecs, substitute this URL in the lftp command above: http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien/restricted_slackbuilds/vlc/ )

The SlackBuild script will automatically download the missing source-code archives and builld a new VLC package. After the compilation finishes, you will find a package in the /tmp directory which you can install using the

installpkg

command.

• If you do not want the Mozilla plugin to be built you should start the SlackBuild script with an extra variable added in front:

MOZPLUGIN=NO sh vlc.SlackBuild

• If you do not have the alternative yasm assembler installed, you can not compile recent releases of the x264 codec. If you start the SlackBuild script as follows:

REQUIRE_YASM=NO sh vlc.SlackBuild

then the script will fall-back to an older version of x264 which builds successfully with Slackware's old nasm assembler.

Mirror sites

You can find my VLC package on the following mirror sites:

• slackware.org.uk (thanks to Tadgy for the mirror!)
• slackware.org.uk (version of the package with all codecs already built-in)

--Eric Hameleers Fri Aug 15 10:15:08 UTC 2008 (CEST)