[vlc] Notes on compiling vlc 0.5.2 from source

[Paul Allen]

I successfully built VLC 0.5.2 from source last night on my
RedHat 7.3 system.  I downloaded all of the source packages and
then just went through them in alphabetical sequence.  It turned
out it took two passes over the list.  Here are my notes:

liba52

	Used by ffmpeg, but no apparent dependencies.
	Configure, make, make install.

ffmpeg
	Depends on liba52 and libvorbis.  A slightly old version of
	libvorbis came with my system and I just installed liba52.
	Configure --enable-vorbis, make, make install.

flac
	Can use ogg.
	Wait for second pass, then configure, make, make install.
	(Configure complained that id3v2 support would not be built.)

gettext
	I have an older version installed.  Went ahead and installed
	this one in /usr/local/lib by configure, make, make install.

libdv
	Wants glib >= 1.2.4 (I have 1.2.4)
	Wants gtk-1.2  (I have 1.2.4)
	Configure, make, make install.

libdvbpsi
	Configure, make, make install.

libdvdcss
	Configure, make, make install

libdvdplay
	Depends on libdvdread.
	After libdvdread has been built, configure, make, make install.

libdvdread
	Configure, make, make install.

libogg
	Configure, make, make install.

libvorbis
	Configure, make.
	The make bombs with a shell script syntax error in libtool.
	(Since I have an older version already installed, ignore this
	problem.)

libmad
	Configure, make, make install.

openslp
	Configure, make, make install

theora
	This is apparently used with ogg.  I skipped building this and
	my notes don't say why.  (It's been over 12 hours.  You expect
	me to actually *remember* what happened?  :-))

vlc
	Depends on all of the above.
	After the rest is built, configure, make, make install.

The total process took a couple hours on a dual Celeron at 550MHz.
The result of all this is a working copy of vlc in /usr/local/bin.
Other than some changes in the GUI, I don't see any new features.
When the player gets to the end of a movie, 0.5.2 freezes on the last
frame rather than simply closing the window the way 0.4.1 did.  This
is surprising.  I remember hearing something about DVD menus in this
version.  I guess I don't know what that meant, 'cause I don't see
any of the hokey menus my Toshiba DVD player shows when I play a
movie.

The old 0.4.1 version I've been using was installed mostly from RPM
packages.  That process was cumbersome because of the large number
of packages to coordinate and there was one package that I had to
compile from source.  This time, an attempt to install 0.5.0 from
pre-built packages put me in dependency hell.  So I downloaded all
of the sources related to 0.5.2 and built it the old-fashioned way.
It sure will be nice when this all becomes stable enough for the big
distributors to take over the packaging!  (But I imagine libdvdcss is
a problem for them, huh?)

Nice job, folks!

Paul Allen


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