Ubuntu – How to install the latest development libraries of FFmpeg in the ubuntu

ffmpeglibraries

I am about to install FFmpeg 2.0.1 (the latest version) in my Ubuntu. I already have the older dev libraries installed in my system. In the previous installation, I didn't build them from source. I used "Synaptic Package Manager".
Can anyone help me with the following problems:

Why does the Synaptic Package Manager not show the latest versions, so that I can easily update to them? Can I do something to fix it?
How can I find the version of the libraries that are already installed on my system? (I know for sure that it is an older version, but I want to know the version number).
I am trying to delete the older version ENTIRELY and again install the new libraries from source. Can anyone help me with this?

Best Answer

Why does the Synaptic Package Manager not show the latest versions?

From Ubuntu Wiki – Stable Release Updates:

Once an Ubuntu release has been completed and published, updates for it are only released under certain circumstances, and must follow a special procedure called a "stable release update" or SRU.

This means that packages are often not kept up-to-date with active upstream sources.

Can I do something to fix it?

You can compile and install your own recent version of ffmpeg and its libraries by following a step-by-step guide: Compile FFmpeg on Ubuntu, Debian, or Mint. This guide performs a local installation, so it will not interfere with repository packages or system files, but if you are compiling something that depends on the new libraries you may have to tell it where your new ffmpeg libraries are located.

If you are compiling many programs, or need several more recent packages than what is provided, then Ubuntu may not be the most efficient distro for you in the long run.

How can I find the version of the libraries that are already installed on my system?

The major version is present in the package name, such as libavcodec53.

I am trying to delete the older version ENTIRELY and again install the new libraries from source.

If you want to perform a system installation that replaces the ffmpeg or libav-tools package and/or libraries then you can simply remove the existing packages, then compile ffmpeg, then install to system with checkinstall or some other method. See this old version of the previously mentioned guide that does all of that, but be aware that it is outdated and at the very least you may have to add --extra-libs=-ldl to your ffmpeg configure line.

If you want to perform a local installation then follow the current version of the compile guide.

Misleading package names

You should be aware that the so-called "ffmpeg" from the repository is not actually from FFmpeg, but from a fork called libav. See Who can tell me the difference and relation between ffmpeg, libav, and avconv?

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to determine which version of FFMPEG comes by default

Yours is a PPA version, which is most probably similar to the official version. See below, from Precise (Ubuntu 12.04):

$ dpkg --list ffmpeg
ii  ffmpeg                                 4:0.8.1-0ubuntu1                        
Multimedia player, server, encoder and transcoder (transitional package)

$ apt-cache policy ffmpeg
ffmpeg:
  Installed: 4:0.8.1-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 4:0.8.1-0ubuntu1

$ ffmpeg

ffmpeg version 0.8.1-4:0.8.1-0ubuntu1, Copyright (c) 2000-2011 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 22 2012 05:09:06 with gcc 4.6.3

.....

To reinstall the official version over the PPA version, you can either use the ppa-purge script (install that first!), or if you have already deleted the PPA, use

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg=4:0.8.1-0ubuntu1

You may have to throw a --reinstall switch in there if it fails.

Ubuntu – Install latest ffmpeg for all users in Debina/Ubuntu

You can perform a system installation. This was the previous method used by the Compile FFmpeg on Ubuntu Guide that you refered to, but it was changed to perform a "local" install so it does not interfere with packages from the repository that depend on the old, so-called "ffmpeg" package from the repository (for more on that see Who can tell me the difference and relation between ffmpeg, libav, and avconv?).

You can still perform a system install if you prefer. You can follow the guide as is, but you will have to make some modifications.

0. Remove the conflicting packages

Before you start, and because you want to install to the system, you have the additional step of removing any packages that will conflict with your new ffmpeg.

sudo apt-get remove ffmpeg libav-tools

1. Follow the guide until...

When you get to the ffmpeg configure step you will need to make a few changes:

Omit --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build"
Omit --bindir="$HOME/bin"

Resulting in:

PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib/pkgconfig" ./configure \
--extra-cflags="-I$HOME/ffmpeg_build/include" --extra-ldflags="-L$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib" \
--extra-libs="-ldl" --enable-gpl --enable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac \
--enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis \
--enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-x11grab

Now run make as shown in the guide.

2. `checkinstall`

Instead of issuing make install for ffmpeg to install locally, you will use checkinstall to install to the system. checkinstall will keep track of the installed files so you can easily remove them later with your package management system.

sudo checkinstall --pkgname=ffmpeg --pkgversion="10:$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M)-git" --backup=no \
--deldoc=yes --fstrans=no --default
hash -r

3. Done

Now you can use your system-wide ffmpeg. Note that it now says FFmpeg developers. If it mentions libav then something went wrong and you're using the version from the repository.

$ ffmpeg
ffmpeg version N-54152-g730e07f Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers

4. Undo

If you want to uninstall simply run:

sudo apt-get remove ffmpeg

Using `$PATH`

Alternatively you could install ffmpeg anywhere you want (including being lazy and using an already compiled ffmpeg binary) and modify the $PATH for any or all users, but that's beyond this answer. See How to add a directory to my path? for more info.