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Howto build python bindings for Ubuntu

Gutsy Gibbon?

Run the following as root. Be sure that you have source URIs in your sources.list, otherwise copy them from  http://www.ubuntu-nl.org/source-o-matic/

apt-get build-dep vlc
apt-get source vlc

cd vlc-0.8.6.release.c
./configure --prefix=/usr/ --enable-wxwindows --disable-mad
make install

cd bindings/mediacontrol-python
python setup.py install

Hardy Heron

To build the python bindings on Ubuntu, use the following procedure:

1. apt-get build-dep vlc
2. apt-get source vlc
3. Edit topsourcedir/debian/rules and add

       --enable-mediacontrol-python-bindings
   

   to the vlc_confflags variable
4. cd topsourcedir/debian
5. debuild
6. The build will fail. Then

   cd topsourcedir
   vi Makefile
   # remove "bindings" from SUBDIRS variable
   make
   

7. Once VLC has been built

   cd topsourcedir/bindings/mediacontrol-python
   make
   

8. This command will fail, as it cannot find some libs. Apparently debuild does a shared-lib build and the "python setup.py build" command expects a static-lib build. Copy the gcc command and change the library paths to the correct ones. In general, this means adding .libs/ before the library name and changing .a to _builtin.a.
9. You'll find the Python module vlc.so in lib.linux-<arch>-2.5/vlc.so

Note: a ready package is available from:

deb http://ubuntu.p2p-next.org hardy main

Intrepid Ibex

1. Run the following commands

   sudo apt-get install libvlc-dev git-core python-dev
   cd /tmp
   git clone git://git.videolan.org/vlc.git
   cd vlc/bindings/python/
   python setup.py build  
   sudo python setup.py install  
   

You may need to set the LD_LOAD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to prevent the created vlc.so from using the official /usr/lib VLC libraries instead of the ones you just built.

Alternatively, for 32-bit Ubuntu 8.10 binary packages are available at:

wget http://liris.cnrs.fr/advene/download/linux/python-vlc_0.9.0-1_i386.deb
wget http://liris.cnrs.fr/advene/download/linux/vlc-pluginsvg_0.9.0-1_i386.deb

We don't official support these packages, sorry.