VLC installation on Ubuntu 18.04

Question

I downloaded the .tar file for VLC media player from its website. The downloaded version supports Ubuntu 18.04. I followed instructions, but I didn't succeed in installing it. After entering ./configure in the terminal I got this error message:

configure: error: Could not find lua. 
Lua is needed for some interfaces (rc, telnet, http) as well as many other custom scripts. 
Use --disable-lua to ignore this error.

Why don't you use the repositories? sudo apt install vlc will do. — schrodingerscatcuriosity, Jun 19 '19 at 18:03
Welcome to Ask Ubuntu and for your interest in this site. It might help others to tell you how to install the tar file if you edited your question and provided the actual error message that you received. — CentaurusA, Jun 19 '19 at 19:55
@guillermochamorro I want to learn installing software using terminal , because I need it. — Majid Vatan Parast, Jun 20 '19 at 06:51
@MajidVatanParast I guess what you mean is build the packages from source. The command I passed is executed from terminal. In this case what you have to show, editing the post, not in the comments, is what error came up. — schrodingerscatcuriosity, Jun 20 '19 at 14:15
I edited post and mentioned error I encountered . @CentaurusA — Majid Vatan Parast, Jun 21 '19 at 05:58
As per @guillermochamorro can you clarify if you want to build the application yourself or do you want vlc to be installed from the repository? — AmeyaVS, Jun 21 '19 at 05:59
@MajidVatanParast, It is not a trivial task, you need to either build/install dependency packages to enable most of the features. Here is a reference to building from sources. But just have a look at all the dependencies. — AmeyaVS, Jun 21 '19 at 06:12
I am confused. Too many instructions and can not understand them.@AmeyaVS — Majid Vatan Parast, Jun 21 '19 at 06:37

karel · Answer 1 · 2019-06-21T06:17:45.540

The error message in your question says to add the --disable-lua option to the ./configure command to ignore the error message like this:

./configure --disable-lua

./configure --help will show you all options for that particular configure script.

Alternatively you can install the lua5.2 package and run ./configure without any options. This package contains the Lua command line interpreter and bytecode compiler. Install it if you are developing or using Lua scripts.

sudo apt install lua5.2

If you would accept an Ubuntu Software alternative to compiling VLC that you downloaded from its website, you have a choice between the vlc 3.0 apt package (sudo apt install vlc) or the vlc 4.0 edge channel snap package (sudo snap install vlc --channel edge).

If the apt package does not appear in Software Center, then enable the Universe repository and try again. — user535733, Jun 19 '19 at 18:20

VLC installation on Ubuntu 18.04

1 Answers1