42.3 multimedia codecs

English Multimedia
1

Sir,

While installing the multimedia repos in 42.3, the instruction post indicated a “package switcher”. I don’t understand what the package switcher is. Will you offer some explanations?

Thanks,

Thom

2

In YaST - Softwaremanager, select the Repository View. Select the Packman repo, next click on the “Switch packages …” option on the top right,

3

Thank you very much. I’m certain this will help.

4

just adding the packman repo where multimedia packages come from is not enough, you need to switch already installed packages to the ones from the packman repo
the shortest example to getting multimedia working on 42.3 is

zypper ar -f ftp://packman.inode.at/suse/openSUSE_Leap_42.3/ packman
zypper dup --from packman
zypper in vlc-codecs libxine2-codecs

the first line adds the multimedia repo
the second line (zypper dup --from packman) does the “package switch”
the third line (zypper in vlc-codecs libxine2-codecs) is needed because those two packages don’t exist in OBS and need to be manually installed

5

There is a one-click installer as well:

http://opensuse-community.org/

6

I should say I have had issues with the one click NVIDIA driver installs on that page.

Also, the guide on the forums:

https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/526222-Multimedia-Guide-for-openSUSE-Leap-42-3

7

Yes, I have had trouble with the one-click, as well. Thanks for the response.

8

Sir, I thought the vlc-codecs were not authorized. Have there been some changes?

9

You have to define authorized. see if this is what you are asking:

https://en.opensuse.org/Restricted_formats

10

According to the instruction post p.2, videoLan repo was not to be used. Lends one to think the vlc codec is not to be used.

11

vlc-codecs is available on Packman as well.

But actually it is not really necessary any more, as vlc should use ffmpeg’s codecs otherwise anyway.

12

different countries different copyright laws
vlc-codecs is a package that includes several shared objects that are needed for restricted (patented) formats support that package exists in packman but does not exist in the opensuse OSS repo
trt searching for it

zypper se vlc-codecs

for comparison searching for vlc you’ll find both the packman build and the OSS build (assuming you have the packman repo)

zypper se vlc

According to the instruction post p.2, videoLan repo was not to be used. Lends one to think the vlc codec is not to be used.
well no you can use the vlc repo if you want but it contains multimedia packages other then vlc that are conflicting to the ones from the packman repo, and seeing how both vlc from the vlc and the packman repo are build with the same source and the same compiler they are more or less identical, the use of the vlc repo might interfere with other applications for example both Firefox and Chromium use the system ffmpeg for multimedia support and the vlc repo has an ffmpeg package that might interfere with their work (it might work as I’ve not tested it)

ps as wolfi323 said vlc use to use *.so’s from the vlc-codecs package to access ffmpeg but newer builds should use ffmpeg directly I’m not sure this is true for 42.3 as it still comes with the older vlc 2.2 unlike TW and LEAP 15 that come with vlc 3.0

13

ffmpeg support is in the standard packages for Leap 42.3 as well.

vlc-codecs only contains support for other codec libraries only available on Packman (like libx264 and libfaad), but all of that should actually be supported by ffmpeg as well (if you install Packman’s ffmpeg).

vlc-codecs also contains vlc’s VDPAU support though.