There are VLC binaries available for the many OSes, but not for
all supported OSes. If there are no binaries for your OS or if you want
to change the default settings, you can compile VLC from sources.
Under Windows
VLC works under Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP.
Download the Zipip file from the VLC Windows
download page. Unzip the file in a directory to install
VLC.
Under BeOS
Download the Zip file from the VLC BeOS download
page. Unzip the file in a directory to install VLC.
Under Mac OS X
Download the Mac OS X package from the VLC
MacOS X download page . Double-click on the icon of the
package : an icon will appear on your Desktop, right beside your
drive(s). Open it and drag the VLC application from the resulting
window to the place where you want to install it (it should be
/Applications).
Under Linux Debian
Edit as root /etc/apt/sources.list and add
the following lines :
deb http://www.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian $(ARCH)/
deb-src http://www.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian sources/
Then install the packages :
# apt-get update
# apt-get install gnome-vlc vlc-plugin-a52 vlc-plugin-mad vlc-plugin-ogg libdvdcss2
Under Linux Redhat, Mandrake and SuSE
For these distributions, use the RPM packages.
First, install the packages liba52 and
libmad0 that should be packaged in your
distribution. If they are not, try to find the RPMs on RPMfind.net or search
the Internet.
Download the RPM packages of libdvdcss2,
libdvdpsi1, vlc
gnome-vlc, vlc-plugin-mad, vlc-plugin-ogg, vlc-plugin-a52 from the
VLC Linux
download page.
Then install the RPM packages you have downloaded:
# rpm -Uhv vlc-version.i586.rpm gnome-vlc-version.i586.rpm vlc-plugin-mad-version.i586.rpm
vlc-plugin-ogg-version.i586.rpm vlc-plugin-a52-version.i586.rpm libdvdcss2-version.i586.rpm libdvdpsi1-version.i586.rpm
Compile the sources by yourself (for every other OS)
The method below is for any Unix system supported by VLC, for
which there is no packages available. It explains how to compile and
install VLC and the needed librairies from their source code.
You can also compile the VLC under Linux this way if you want to
modify the default supported modules
Install the libraries
Many libraries are needed for particular uses :
libdvdcss if you want to be able to
read encrypted DVDs,
libdvdplay if you want to have DVD
menu navigation,
libdvbpsi if you want to be able to
read from the network,
a52dec if you want to be
able to decode the AC3 (i.e. A52) sound format often used in
DVDs,
ffmpeg, libmad
and faad2 if you want to read MPEG 4 / DivX
files,
libogg and
libvorbis if you want to read Ogg Vorbis
files.
Download the libraries from VLC sources
download page.
For each library :
uncompress :
% tar xvzf library.tar.gz
or
% tar xvjf library.tar.bz2
configure :
% cd library
% ./configure --enable-shared
compile and install :
% make
# make install
Check that the configuration file /etc/ld.so.conf
contains the following line :
/usr/local/lib
If the line is not present, add-it and then run (as root):
# ldconfig
Install VLC
Download the sources of the lastest release : get the
file vlc-version.tar.gz from the VLC sources
download page. Uncompress-it :
% tar xvzf vlc-version.tar.gz
% cd vlc-version
To get the list of configuration options, do :
% ./configure --help
Please note that all the modules are described in
the Modules section of the VLC User
Guide.
Examples of very simple configurations:
if you want a basic VLC, do :
% ./configure
if you want the Gnome interface instead of the GTK
interface (you will need the developement packages of Gnome) :
% ./configure --enable-gnome
Then, compile and install :
% make
% su
Password: [Root Password]
# make install
Please note that the installation (make install
command) is not mandatory. You can execute VLC from where you compiled
it.