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. 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. Download the Zip file from the VLC BeOS download page. Unzip the file in a directory to install VLC. 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). 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 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 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 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 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.