Slackware

Installing VLC on Slackware

Download the up-to-date Slackware packages for VLC from Aliens SlackBuilds repository.

External dependencies for VLC

VLC 3.x and newer use Qt5 for the graphical user interface (GUI). Slackware versions before 15.0 do not include Qt5.

First install Qt5 and its dependencies to run VLC(and to compile it if you want) on any release of Slackware before 15.0.

Slackware 14.2 and -current (pre-15.0) are supported through pre-built dependency packages in Alien’s repository . These are libxkbcommon , qt5 and qtwebkit .

Only for Slackware 14.2, you need libinput and libwacom packages.

One optional dependency : If you want to play encrypted DVD’s ,this requires the DeCSS library. The Slackware package can be found in Aliens restricted repository .

Building VLC from source

  1. Download the build directory and then run the SlackBuild script ,

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

The SlackBuild script will automatically download all the missing source-code archives and build a new package.

  1. Install the package in the /tmp directory using command.

installpkg

  1. If you already have a vlc package installed , please use the command to upgrade that package with new one.

upgradepkg

  1. 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

Mirror sites

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

  • slackwareorguk (thanks to Tadgy for the mirror!)

  • slackwareorgukres (version of the package with all codecs as well as the DeCSS library already built-in)

–Alien