Compiling VLC from source in Linux

[Katie Boundary]

I'm currently attempting to compile VLC player in LXLE, derived from Ubuntu 18.04

Unzipping the tarball and running ./configure produces an error message about Lua being missing. I installed Lua and tried again, but got the same error. Fine then, be that way. I tried ./configure --disable-lua, and got a similar message but complaining about "Missing libav or FFmpeg". So I build ffmpeg from source and install it, which goes just fine, and try ./configure --disable-lua again... and it's STILL saying that ffmpeg is missing. So I try ./configure --disable-lua --disable-avcodec and it complains about a missing swscale. I download the swscale .deb file and install it with gdebi and try again. It can't see the swscale either, so I try ./configure --disable-lua --disable-avcodec --disable-swscale...

What the hell? This can't be a coincidence. Why is VLC refusing to see that these dependencies are installed?

[nevcairiel]

Unless you really know what you are doing, the best choice is probably to install the development packages of dependencies from Ubuntu, instead of also building dependencies from source.

[wonkey_monkey]

Originally Posted by Katie Boundary

I'm currently attempting to compile VLC player in LXLE, derived from Ubuntu 18.04

Unzipping the tarball and running ./configure produces an error message about Lua being missing. I installed Lua and tried again, but got the same error. Fine then, be that way. I tried ./configure --disable-lua, and got a similar message but complaining about "Missing libav or FFmpeg". So I build ffmpeg from source and install it, which goes just fine, and try ./configure --disable-lua again... and it's STILL saying that ffmpeg is missing. So I try ./configure --disable-lua --disable-avcodec and it complains about a missing swscale. I download the swscale .deb file and install it with gdebi and try again. It can't see the swscale either, so I try ./configure --disable-lua --disable-avcodec --disable-swscale...

What the hell? This can't be a coincidence. Why is VLC refusing to see that these dependencies are installed?

Probably because you don't know what you're doing (this is not to be unexpected when trying to compile things on Linux), and also - as always - because you aren't aware of how to properly explain what you're doing. You say:

I download the swscale .deb file and install it

But what, exactly, did you install? What was the name of the file/package? Did you install libswscale or did you install libswscale-dev? Likewise for Lua and ffmpeg. You probably need to install the -dev packages. These contain the header files that VLC needs to include so it can link itself to the library packages you've probably already installed.

[Katie Boundary]

Originally Posted by nevcairiel

Unless you really know what you are doing, the best choice is probably to install the development packages of dependencies from Ubuntu, instead of also building dependencies from source.

I agree, which is why I tried installing things normally whenever possible, and only building ffmpeg from source because there was no other way to install it.

Originally Posted by wonkey_monkey

This message is hidden because wonkey_monkey is on your ignore list.

Insightful commentary as always.

[wonkey_monkey]

Originally Posted by Katie Boundary

Insightful commentary as always.

Serves me right for trying to be helpful. The answer probably is that you need to install the -dev versions of packages, not the library versions. But since you'll never read this message, you'll never find out.

Warning to anyone else tempted to reply to this thread: this is the kind of treatment you can expect simply for trying to be helpful, if you don't happen to tell this user what she wants to hear.

[Katie Boundary]

NVM. After switching to a different linux distro for unrelated reasons, everything installed correctly... except Checkinstall, which does not seem to be available from any of this distribution's repositories. But I don't strictly need Checkinstall.