FS#28641 - VLC Doesn't Need To Have So Many Deps Installed - These Should Be Built Against

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Das (DasFox) - Saturday, 25 February 2012, 06:50 GMT
Last edited by Allan McRae (Allan) - Monday, 27 February 2012, 05:24 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Packages: Extra
Status Closed
Assigned To No-one
Architecture All
Severity Low
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description: VLC does not need to have so many extra dependencies installed, these can be compiled against at build time, meaning, whoever the Arch developer is for VLC should of had all these packages compiled into VLC for support.

I run Slackware besides Arch and the maintainer of the Slackware package does this, please look at this link;

http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien/restricted_slackbuilds/vlc/build/

If the Arch maintainer is familiar with Slackware, then you'll notice the vlc.SlackBuild build script, where all these packages are compiled against, not a single one needs to be installed on the end-users box...

The end result in Slackware is, that all you need is just one package, VLC and nothing else to download and install, with everything built into it...

http://slackware.org.uk/people/alien/restricted_slackbuilds/vlc/pkg/13.37/

This is the way in which this should also be done on Arch and I hope it will, please there is no need to burden the end user with all these extra dependencies, please build the support into VLC when you compile and pacakge it.

Also please look at the difference in packages, I'm not sure of all the differences, Arch is also including the smbclient and this isn't needed. I've personally never heard of anyone in 12 years of using VLC that needed this...

I hope the Arch community will soon see VLC as just one pkg to download and install next time... :)


THANKS
This task depends upon

Closed by  Allan McRae (Allan)
Monday, 27 February 2012, 05:24 GMT
Reason for closing:  Won't implement
Additional comments about closing:  Static linking is crap.
Comment by Das (DasFox) - Saturday, 25 February 2012, 06:51 GMT
I forgot to mention it, but these happen to also be Official packages listed on VLC;

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-slackware.html


THANKS
Comment by Karol Błażewicz (karol) - Saturday, 25 February 2012, 07:33 GMT
pacman handles dependencies, so I don't know what burden to the end user are you talking about.
smbclient is a dependency for mplayer too, seems many people need that extra functionality. If you mind downloading many additional packages, you can use AUR / ABS.
Comment by Ionut Biru (wonder) - Saturday, 25 February 2012, 09:09 GMT
I don't understand what you want from us. Maybe by adding a diff patch to PKGBUILD you can enlight me.
Comment by Das (DasFox) - Monday, 27 February 2012, 05:23 GMT
  • Field changed: Percent Complete (100% → 0%)
It would of been great if you would of allowed me to make another comment before you closed this. I'm not new at all to Linux, been into this very heavy for 12 years and in that time VLC with Eric maintaing this Slackware package has never had any issues, especially security related. There is nothing wrong, when you can statically link, therefore making it easier on the end-user not to have to install so many packages they may never other wise need or use. I hope you will please have an open mind about this and even contact Eric if you would be so kind to and dicuss with him about all this. Just because Arch is one distro and Slackware another, it is after all Linux and hopefully you'll come to see something that you never really gave thought to.

I hope you will be reconsider this, it's a much better way to implement, just one package and even if you had to recompile this because you think you might run into an issue, this only takes around 30-40mins, it's not that invloved to do, I've compiled it before.

One other thing, I personally do not know how to really go about this for Arch, or even on Slackware, when I built it, I just used the slackbuild script that Eric provides, so maybe in the near future when you have time, you could make a PKGBUILD for this, to statically link all these packages to at build time and then others like myself can just get the PKGBUILD and do this then ourself, I hope you will at least please consider this...

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

CHEERS

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