VLC portables - 3-series for modern 64-bit Pups, & 2-series for older 32-bit Pups

[mikewalsh]

Evening, gang.

I'm pleased to be able to make these available. Despite that SMPlayer is my personal 'go-to' media player, VLC also sees plenty of use.....and is arguably one of the Linux world's premium media players. A long-standing, do-everything favourite for many people.

As with many of the other 'portables', these, too, are based around an AppImage.....in this case, the newest 3-series packed as an AppImage that's in general circulation ATM - v3.0.11.1 'Vetinari'. Not the absolute newest, bleeding-edge release, but plenty new enough for most of us. Plus, a portable 32-bit build of v2.16 'Rincewind' for older 32-bit Pups.

However; the only Puppy where the 3-series would actually run AS an AppImage was Xenialpup64. In Bionic64 and Fossa64, I was getting the usual complaint about not "seeing" its own Qt5 libs, and not being able to initialize "xcb", despite it being present & correct.

So, I've 'unpacked' it with the "--appimage-extract" switch, so's I could point it at its own stuff with an LD_LIBRARY_PATH clause.....and left it unpacked. (I tried re-packing it, but for some reason this particular one just wasn't having it, in any way, shape or form).

At ~320 MB, it's quite large when unzipped, but you must remember, it would normally be occupying this much space in RAM while unpacked in /tmp for the duration of the session. AJSlye, the packager of this particular AppImage, has included just about everything you can possibly think of, and then some.....including the kitchen sink, I reckon! However, since it works 'as-is', and I don't know what half of these deps do, I've leaving well alone.....

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I've had this a wee while, now, and when I first got it found the same as everybody else did here in Puppyland; it wouldn't run-as-spot, it wouldn't run as root.....and none of the usual 'voodoo' incantations & 'switches' seemed to work. Fast-forward to this evening, and I was re-visting the 'AppImages, Snaps & Flatpaks' section for the first time in a while. Turns out @fredx181 got to the bottom of this about 6 months ago:-

viewtopic.php?p=34551#p34551

AppImages use the 'fuse' library in order to 'mount' themselves into the /tmp filesystem (or something like that). Anyway, the 'fix' revolves around setting the 'sticky bit' for the 'fusermount' executable.....after which, VLC will run-as-spot, & fire up quite happily.

So; all running happily. So I thought - as I do! - was it a candidate for portabilization? Answer? Yup; most definitely...!

I've built it after the same fashion as the Chrome-portable, which will only run-as-spot; it contains its own, mini-'spot' directory within, with all directories created as required inside that. It sets its own permissions as it goes along, along with making sure the 'fusermount' 'sticky bit' is set, too.....and then it's show-time. Runs with remarkably little fuss, if I'm honest.....

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For anybody who might be interested in these, you can find them at my MEGA.nz a/c, as always:-

64-bit - https://mega.nz/folder/qW5iESTa#W6K5pj5qfXz551XP10pwCw
32-bit - https://mega.nz/folder/GOZ3ABaR#dEEUmg1J-ttGnucX4h0Ufw

D'l; unzip; place anywhere you like, preferably outside the 'save'. Click to enter, click on 'LAUNCH' to fire it up. Scripts let you add a MenuEntry from wherever you've situated it. The "MenuReadMe" explains how to use these.

(If you want to, you can add an 'AppRun' symlink to the 'LAUNCH' script, and then it becomes a RoxAPP.....just clicking on the directory will launch it.)

Thanks for the 'fix', Fred. Enjoy, y'all!

Mike.

[fredx181]

Hi Mike, I think there's some confusion.
FYI:
Yes, appimages use fuse, if running run-as-spot ./MyAppImage , then indeed fusermount needs to have the sticky bit.
But how you share it is not as appimage, but as portable folder setup, then just run with 'run-as-spot' should work (no need for fusermount).

[mikewalsh]

@fredx181 :-

Hi Mike, I think there's some confusion.
FYI:
Yes, appimages use fuse, if running run-as-spot ./MyAppImage , then indeed fusermount needs to have the sticky bit.
But how you share it is not as appimage, but as portable folder setup, then just run with 'run-as-spot' should work (no need for fusermount).

Hi, Fred.

You're quite right, of course. Removing that line, it still runs fine.

Quite a number of AppImages refuse to run for me under Bionicpup64, invariably because they either don't "see" their own QT libs, or they "can't" initialize 'xcb', even though it's staring them in the face. I don't know if it's just this machine, or something inherent in Bionic64; I've re-installed 3 or 4 times, run with pfix=ram, tried all sorts.....the result is always the same. To a lesser extent, the problem sometimes affects Fossapup64 too.

And that's why some of my portables are built with a complete file structure; 9 times out of 10, it's where I've had to unpack them to make them "see" their own libs. Sometimes, they'll re-pack again.....sometimes, they won't.

(*shrug*)

Mike.

[Sofiya]

[ArtEze]

Would it be possible to upload it to Mediafire or some other server?

[mikewalsh]

@ArtEze :-

Would it be possible to upload it to Mediafire or some other server?

I take it you're also having issues with MEGA, yes? Leave it with me; I'll see what I can do.....I have a MediaFire a/c anyway.

(*later...*)

Right, fella; I've uploaded a copy to MediaFire:-

'Portable' tarball - https://www.mediafire.com/file/2ckw3qgd ... ar.gz/file
MD5 checksum - https://www.mediafire.com/file/cfjxgyd0 ... z.md5/file

Enjoy.

Mike.

[amethyst]

I've found VLC 3 to be very hard on the OS. Probably okay when you have a newer fast machine. On my old laptop it pushes the CPU in the red.

[ArtEze]

Thank you very much Mike, I already did the download.

I'll try it at another time because right now I stopped working the file extractor.

[Feek]

I've found VLC 3 to be very hard on the OS. Probably okay when you have a newer fast machine. On my old laptop it pushes the CPU in the red.

That's weird.
I use VLC fairly long as the default player.
I never had the impression that this application would be burdensome for the system, rather the opposite.

I'm using a built-in version 3.0.16 in Fatdog:
CPU usage about 2% (running only htop);
CPU usage approx. 15% (playing full screen video in VLC + HTOP on desktop2).
All this on 10 years old laptop (cpu has 2 cores).

[amethyst]

I've found VLC 3 to be very hard on the OS. Probably okay when you have a newer fast machine. On my old laptop it pushes the CPU in the red.

That's weird.
I use VLC fairly long as the default player.
I never had the impression that this application would be burdensome for the system, rather the opposite.

I'm using a built-in version 3.0.16 in Fatdog:
CPU usage about 2% (running only htop);
CPU usage approx. 15% (playing full screen video in VLC + HTOP on desktop2).
All this on 10 years old laptop (cpu has 2 cores).

I use the 2-series instead (when I do use VLC), much lighter on resources. Could be the particular version that I tried with Bionic 32, ie. 3.0.1. Anyways, got rid of it as soon as I could. These days I rather use either mpv or gnome-player which are also lighter on resources than VLC when playing video. VLC has nice features, like a very powerful equalizer but I've found that pEqualizer which is normally builtin to Puppy is good too so I use it with mpv and gnome-mplayer. My laptop is 15 years old.

[OscarTalks]

Hello Mike,

I downloaded the zip from Mega with no problems and went through the extraction steps using UExtract.
Tested in dimkr's Vanilla Dpup which is quite barebones in terms of programs (applications) and does not have a media player included.
This Pup does not have fusermount, but your VLC starts and runs OK in my initial tests. A little bit of chatter in terminal, but certainly nothing fatal. So it offers a very useful option. Thanks!

[mikewalsh]

@OscarTalks :-

Well, you're very welcome, mate. I must say, this makes a change from me thanking you for your VLC builds a few years back.....

I apologise for the size of the thing. With this new rig, and having RAM/storage, etc, coming out of my ears, I'm perhaps somewhat losing sight of the issues encountered by those of you still running more modest hardware.....despite that many of us are now running far more capable machines than we were just a few years ago.

This was simply a re-packaging job, as are so many of my portables. Not having very good compiling skills, I tend to modify/re-pack pre-built stuff from elsewhere; my intentions are to keep everything self-contained, and if possible to enable its 'sharing' between multiple Pups...

Mike.

[ArtEze]

I had the problem of running vlc as root.

Code: Select all

vlc
VLC is not supposed to be run as root. Sorry.
If you need to use real-time priorities and/or privileged TCP ports
you can use vlc-wrapper (make sure it is Set-UID root and
cannot be run by non-trusted users first).

It also happens with vlc-wrapper.

Code: Select all

vlc-wrapper
Cannot determine unprivileged user for VLC!

Now I saw the file LAUNCH... I see that it is solved with the command run-as-spot.

Code: Select all

run-as-spot "$HERE/vlc/usr/bin/vlc" "$@"

Is there any difference with the original VLC, beyond being portable?

[mikewalsh]

@ArtEze :-

TBH, the only "difference" is that since the 3-series came online, the VLC team have decided - in their wisdom! - that everyone MUST be just a "user". Admins, or anyone with root privileges, are NOT allowed.

Hence, the need to run as the restricted user 'spot'. (And before you ask, no, I don't understand the logic behind that decision either!)

(*shrug*)

Of course, the ability for any 'user' to become root by simply entering 'sudo' in the terminal kinda makes a mockery of that particular security angle!

My guess would be that, since VLC - like many media players - can go online to access streaming media, the thinking is that this minimizes another possible attack vector...

Go figure.

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

Morning, gang.

This is one I packed up as an AppImage about 3 years ago, making use of Fred's extremely useful scripts that he published. As such, it's an ideal candidate for the 'portable' treatment; after all, why should only users of modern 64-bit Pups get all the advantages?

It's built from a 32-bit package of VLC 2.16 'Rincewind' that OscarTalks originally put together for DPup 'Wheezy' (thanks, Oscar!), quite a while ago. And just to make it as easy-to-use as possible, I've specifically packed this as a ROX-App. Unzip it, move it where you like, just click on the directory and it'll fire straight up.....the older 2-series was a LOT less 'fussy' than the later 3-series has become.

This is better for older 32-bit Puppies, i.e, 5-series and early 6-series.

-----------------------------------------------------

Anyone who may be interested in it, you can find it at the link in post #1.

As always:-

• Download

• Unzip

• Move the ROX-App anywhere you like, though outside the save is best

• Since it's a ROX-App, just click on it to launch it!

Hope this may be of use to some of you; it runs great for me in my custom Slacko 560.

Enjoy.

Mike.

[yolhurt]

Dear @mikewalsh, I have two small issues with your 64-bit VLC portable, which otherwise works great on S15Pup64:

1. "Cannot save Configuration: Preferences file could not be saved" error message after making changes in Preferences.

2. "Privacy and Network Access Policy" pop-up window on startup (can't find the Preferences setting to turn this off).

[mikewalsh]

@yolhurt :-

Um.....right. O-kay. Sounds like these two things are related, y'know?

The "Privacy & Network Access" pop-up should only appear on the first run, yes? That being the case, your point no 1. rather sounds as though the config file isn't even getting created, so VLC is acting as though EVERY run is a 'first run'. Hmm....

If you look inside the VLC-portable directory (VLC3, I take it?), and go into /PROFILE/spot/config/vlc, what've you got there? You should have two files:-

vlc-qt-interface.conf, and
vlcrc (this is the actual 'general' config file for VLC)

Are those present and correct?

Mike.

[yolhurt]

Thanks for the reply.

@yolhurt :-
The "Privacy & Network Access" pop-up should only appear on the first run, yes? That being the case, your point no 1. rather sounds as though the config file isn't even getting created, so VLC is acting as though EVERY run is a 'first run'. Hmm....

Yes, that's what I was thinking.

If you look inside the VLC-portable directory (VLC3, I take it? [yes]), and go into /PROFILE/spot/config/vlc, what've you got there? You should have two files:-

vlc-qt-interface.conf, and
vlcrc (this is the actual 'general' config file for VLC)

Are those present and correct?

No, there are no files in that folder.

I've since installed a pet found elsewhere in the forum (vlc-3.0.18-x86_64-s15p.pet) and it works fine without this issue occurring.

[mikewalsh]

@yolhurt :-

Hm. Odd. It's always worked for me; despite that I normally share the one portable app between multiple OSs, I have used it individually on odd occasions. Those config files always get created.

Never mind. If you've obtained a working version from elsewhere, which behaves itself, and does what it should.......then all's well that ends well.

Sorted!

Mike.

[yolhurt]

Agreed!

[keniv]

@mikewalsh

TBH, the only "difference" is that since the 3-series came online, the VLC team have decided - in their wisdom! - that everyone MUST be just a "user". Admins, or anyone with root privileges, are NOT allowed.

Hence, the need to run as the restricted user 'spot'

Hello Mike,
I have a Lenovo Yoga with only a 32GB MMC drive. I also have a 64GB SD card installed with some music on it which I tried to play using VLC portable only to find it was running as spot and I could not access the Music directory on the SD card. I got round this by making a symbolic link to /spot from the Music directory on the SD card. This works but I'm concerned that this is not a very secure way to do this. I know I can access the Music directory using DeadBeef but I don't find it very intuitive to use and would prefer to use VLC. Is there really no way to run VLC portable as root. I'm trying this in Bookworm64 10.0.8.

Regards,

Ken.

[mikewalsh]

@keniv :-

To the best of MY knowledge, Ken, there isn't any way to run the 3-series VLCs as root.....but hey! what do I know? My knowledge is pretty paltry at best; some of our true Puppy "experts" may well know far better than I if it's possible.

I DO have an older 64-bit 2.28 "Weatherwax" that will run as root - runs great under older Puppies - but it's non-functional under BWP64. According to the terminal, the modules are all corrupt and half the self-contained libs don't exist. My guess is that much of this can be attributed to the "usrmerge" stuff......and the rest to the fact that radky's done his best to make BWP64 as secure as possible. All I did was to fully "portabilize" an existing ROX-app I found on the old forum that somebody else had built. Obviously, the "new" way of doing things doesn't like anything constructed in the "old" manner.....

This is one of the rare occasions when I can't help, Ken.....but if you're able to play your music via the sym-link you've put in, why are you worrying about security? I don't understand.....it's a media player, not an internet browser.

(*shrug...*)

Mike.

[keniv]

@mikewalsh

This is one of the rare occasions when I can't help, Ken

Well you are usually successful so thanks for trying

.....but if you're able to play your music via the sym-link you've put in, why are you worrying about security? I don't understand.....it's a media player, not an internet browser.

Well I thought the reason for running a media player like VLC as spot was that it is being pointed at the internet if it was being used for streaming but as you know I know little about these things. I have no intention of using VLC for streaming. I tend to use MPV for this. I might stick with my sym-link or switch to DeadBeef as I probably should get used to using it. Thanks again for the help.

Regards,

Ken.

[mikewalsh]

@keniv :-

Well I thought the reason for running a media player like VLC as spot was that it is being pointed at the internet if it was being used for streaming but as you know I know little about these things.

Lolol!! You're not the only one, mate....*grin*

Nah, I know that VLC, like MPV/MPlayer/SMPlayer can BE used to "stream" on-line stuff directly, but.....like you, I just don't use a media player in this manner. If I'm going to watch YouTube, I'll watch it on the site. Same with other online media services; I'd sooner watch on their sites, because invariably streaming via a media player often means a fair bit of messing about, and.....I can't be doing with all that. I want my Puppies to make things as simple as possible for me, not harder & more awkward!

Anyways, I've always had plenty in the way of resources to be able to do things the "normal" way. Don't get me wrong; I think it's absolutely great that some of our more knowledgeable members have expended their own precious time & effort to make it so that even Puppians with under-powered hardware can still enjoy the benefits of modern life without needing to cough up an arm & a leg for new equipment.....a great big "thumbs-up" to them for doing that.

Me, I basically use a media player for watching videos.....and very occasionally, for listening to music. For the latter, I normally use DeaDBeeF anyway, which to my way of thinking is one of the best things ever since sliced bread came along. I know which side my bread is "buttered"!! .....*groan* (sorry, couldn't resist that )

Mike.

[keniv]

@mikewalsh

I just don't use a media player in this manner.

I do use VLC to stream from the internet but it tends to be mostly radio and the odd bit of TV news. I do think this limits the usefulness of VLC on pups. It once had the reputation of been able to play anything. Anyway I'm using DeadBeef to play music and audio books so I have a solution.

Regards,

Ken.

[mikewalsh]

@keniv :-

I. too. use DeaDBeeF for streaming music from the web, Ken.

I've had a subscription a/c with RadioTunes.com - these are all 'easy-listening' music channels - for a few years now, and one of the 'perks' of a paid a/c is that you can download your favourite channels in the form of what's called a .pls file. This defines the web addresses of each channel, along with what's called your "listen key", and lets you use any media player of your choice (if it supports this format) to listen to your radio stations.

DeaDBeeF does support the .pls flie format.....so all I do is drag'n'drop it onto the DeaDBeeF GUI. Bob's yr uncle; sorted!

Mike.