Since VLC 0.9.8a is due with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope when it’s released on April 23, this may be a little late. For those who are wanting to stay with 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, you can get VLC updated from 0.9.4 to 0.9.8a easily by following a few simple, easy steps.

There are deb packages for 8.10 Intrepid found at getdeb. While using Christopher Korn’s Launchpad PPA for getting 0.9.8a installed onto my Hardy machines, I came across the getdeb link on his PPA page. There’s an overwhelming list of files at that location, but you only need to be concerned with the following:

For i386 (32-bit) machines:

For amd64 (64-bit) machines:

The first five packages are required while the others are optional plugins. Depending on your setup or preferences, you may need some or all of them. Most users will want the vlc-plugin-pulse package for Pulseaudio support.

Download each of the required packages and any optional plugins that you need into a temporary folder. I used one titled “VLC” on my desktop. To install the debs, open a terminal window and at the command line issue the following:

sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/VLC/*.deb

Replace “~/Desktop/VLC/” with where you saved your deb packages. You’ll be prompted for your password, then dpkg will go through the deb packages and install them in the right order.

adam@nyx:~$ sudo dpkg -i ~/Desktop/VLC/*.deb
[sudo] password for adam:
(Reading database … 156009 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace libvlc2 0.9.4-1ubuntu3.1 (using libvlc2_0.9.8a-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb) …
Unpacking replacement libvlc2 …
Preparing to replace libvlccore0 0.9.4-1ubuntu3.1 (using libvlccore0_0.9.8a-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb) …
Unpacking replacement libvlccore0 …
Preparing to replace mozilla-plugin-vlc 0.9.4-1ubuntu3.1 (using mozilla-plugin-vlc_0.9.8a-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb) …
Unpacking replacement mozilla-plugin-vlc …
Preparing to replace vlc 0.9.4-1ubuntu3.1 (using vlc_0.9.8a-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb) …
Unpacking replacement vlc …
Preparing to replace vlc-data 0.9.4-1ubuntu3.1 (using vlc-data_0.9.8a-1~getdeb1_all.deb) …
Unpacking replacement vlc-data …
Preparing to replace vlc-nox 0.9.4-1ubuntu3.1 (using vlc-nox_0.9.8a-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb) …
Unpacking replacement vlc-nox …
Preparing to replace vlc-plugin-pulse 0.9.4-1ubuntu3.1 (using vlc-plugin-pulse_0.9.8a-1~getdeb1_amd64.deb) …
Unpacking replacement vlc-plugin-pulse …
Setting up vlc-data (0.9.8a-1~getdeb1) …
Setting up libvlccore0 (0.9.8a-1~getdeb1) …

Setting up libvlc2 (0.9.8a-1~getdeb1) …

Setting up vlc-nox (0.9.8a-1~getdeb1) …
Processing triggers for man-db …
Setting up vlc (0.9.8a-1~getdeb1) …

Setting up vlc-plugin-pulse (0.9.8a-1~getdeb1) …
Setting up mozilla-plugin-vlc (0.9.8a-1~getdeb1) …
Processing triggers for libc6 …
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
adam@nyx:~$

This will either replace or install VLC with version 0.9.8a. The downside to this will be that you won’t receive any updates from Ubuntu unless they push a version greater than 0.9.8a for Intrepid. But with Jaunty coming out, that may never happen. If you’re more concerned with security updates, stay with 0.9.4 from the repositories.

If you decide to remove these packages at a later date, you can find them listed in Synaptic using “vlc” as a search term. If you set vlc-data for removal, or issue sudo apt-get purge vlc-data at a command line, the other vlc packages will also be set for removal.

Share