Installing VLC Media Player on the Eee

As much as I don’t like to install stuff on the Eee to make sure I don’t use up the already limited memory on it, the limitations with the software bundled with the Eee leave me no choice sometimes. Case in point: SMPlayer, the built in video player on the Eee, after some time, does not play audio. The Eee plays mp3s and other sound files alright; it doesn’t seem to be a soundcard issue. One day I just got pissed off with SMPlayer mysteriously refusing to play audio after an hour or two. I decided to just install VLC on my Eee. Besides, VLC is my default media player on my XP desktop, why shouldn’t I not install this open-source beauty on my Eee? And guess what: it works beautifully.

So how do we install the VLC Media Player on the Eee’s default Xandros Linux OS? Since Xandros is derived from Debian, it shouldn’t be hard to install the Debian version of VLC onto the Eee. I actually did the installation via a terminal window, and these are the steps I took:

  • Open up a terminal window (Ctrl + Alt + T in simple mode)
  • Type in sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list to open up the list of available repositories.
  • Add these repositories to the list:

     deb http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian sarge main

     deb-src http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian sarge main

Update: the above source no longer seems to have VLC. Put in the below source instead. Thanks to Eighty80 for the info.

deb ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
  • Then do Ctrl + X to exit the repositories list, and Y to save the list
  • You should be taken back to the main terminal screen. Now type in sudo apt-get update to refresh and download the latest software packages from your repositories. This might take a while.
  • After the software packages have been downloaded, you should now enter sudo apt-get install vlc libdvdcss2

And that would be it. After the necessary software has been downloaded and installed, you should be able to see the VLC icon under Applications > Multimedia. Enjoy!

January 2, 2008 · Filed by Ade under Hacks, Software

Comments

40 Responses to “Installing VLC Media Player on the Eee”

  1. jangelo on January 2nd, 2008 6:59 pm

    After installing, be sure to remove those repositories from /etc/apt/sources.list

    and then run again sudo apt-get update to make sure you don’t mess up your Xandros installation with incompatible updates.

  2. EEE PC Users unite...and share info :) - HEXUS.community discussion forums on January 4th, 2008 8:35 pm

    [...] How to enable advanced mode: Enabling Advanced Desktop Mode [EeeUser Wiki Home] Installing VLC My Asus Eee PC

  3. Wilson Co on January 6th, 2008 4:54 am

    if you didn’t intend to add an external dvd drive, the libdvdcss2 shouldn’t be necessary, isn’t it?

    vlc is also available in debian repositories, though libdvdcss2 might not (not sure).

  4. mobile guy on January 6th, 2008 12:16 pm

    I tried this and well to say the least this didn’t work at all… followed this step by step… any suggestions????

    mobile guy
    black asus eee pc 701 4g surf

  5. Martin on January 8th, 2008 4:04 am

    This doesn’t seem to be working for me, I get to the last stage and the EEE reports,
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree… Done
    E: Couldn’t find package vlc

    Any ideas?

  6. Karl on January 8th, 2008 10:03 am

    I am also getting the same error as the previous fellow. Anyone know what’s up?

  7. Ben Combee on January 8th, 2008 12:56 pm

    The current videolan.org site doesn’t have binaries for “sarge”, just “sid”, the unstable testing version of Debian. Not sure why sarge went away.

  8. Installing VLC on an Asus Eee PC on January 8th, 2008 5:55 pm

    [...] free to read the rest of his walkthrough at My Asus Eee PC. On a side note, the VLC player has proven capable of playing nearly any media file out there, and [...]

  9. Eighty80 on January 8th, 2008 8:23 pm

    I still had trouble getting VLC to work but followed the advice at the above website and all is good.

    sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
    added: deb ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
    saved file
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install vlc

  10. eccles on January 9th, 2008 9:38 pm

    Cheers for the guide.
    Worth noting that multicast isn’t enabled in the kernel so multicast joins aren’t sent, but performance is fine if you force traffic to it.

  11. toroco on January 18th, 2008 5:45 am

    Eighty80 thanks for the additional information. Your insight worked in my case :)

  12. joe on January 26th, 2008 11:24 pm

    Yeah dose this version of VLC play MKV’s

  13. Linuxnoob on January 31st, 2008 11:37 pm

    I’m sure this is a noob question, but I’m at the get update step, and it doesn’t seem to be able to completely download the packages. For example I get lines that say:

    Get: 3 ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org stable Release [58.2kb]
    Ign ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org stable Release
    Err ftp://ftp.debian.org stable Release.gpg
    Could not connect data socket, connection timed out

    I’m assuming the packets that show the file size are downloaded, and those that show ‘err’ aren’t? So do I just try and try again to update? Is it purely an internet connection timeout?

  14. roughrider on February 1st, 2008 9:48 pm

    The site ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org doesn’t work anymore. Update would be great.

  15. Noob on February 2nd, 2008 5:31 pm

    I used http://http.us.debian.org yesterday and now have VLC up and running :)

  16. EEEMAN on February 8th, 2008 12:45 am

    can someone pls give me a updatet link/code for the list file ? apt-get update doesn`t work with these

  17. bes on February 16th, 2008 12:02 am

    still doesn’t work. anyone

  18. Skippy on February 20th, 2008 10:15 pm

    It appears that I successfully installed VLC using NOOB’s: http://http.us.debian.org but being a noob myself I don’t know where to find vlc to launch it. Where is application > multimedia???

  19. Martin Schedlbauer on March 3rd, 2008 11:08 am

    The site for the second line is always down. I used this second line in sources.list instead and got VLC installed:

    deb ftp://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

  20. squidsy on March 13th, 2008 8:31 am

    total newbie. i put in the ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org etc. etc. and I am running the sudo apt-get update. It has done some, failed to do some, and now it’s been stuck for a good few minutes on “Get:9 ftp://ftp.uk.devia.org stable/contrib Packages [71.6 kb] 3% [9 Packages 0/71.6kb 0%]”

    It’s just stuck, trying over and over, connection timing out. How do I make this STOP without crashing something? Do I just close the Ctrl + Alt + T window? Do I just wait it out?

    Thanks in advance. I hope I provided all the necessary info.

  21. Trolle on March 20th, 2008 6:11 am

    Thanks this last one ftp://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian worked fine for me!

  22. manborn on April 4th, 2008 1:31 pm

    the nl site works and i installed vlc w/o the css since i was always getting this:

    package libdvdcss2 is not avilable, but is referred to by another package.
    this may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted or is only available from another source
    e: package libdvdcssss2 has no installation candidate

    otherwise, vlc was installed. not sure where app > multi is but i just open with on a video file. all good -thanks

  23. And the best OS for the Eee PC is … « Alt-Click on April 5th, 2008 5:25 am

    [...] but as long as you follow the instructions carefully, you should have no problems. Follow these instructions for installing VLC, and if it doesn’t install, then it’s likely that the address in [...]

  24. Stig on April 9th, 2008 6:47 pm

    I have an ASUS EEE 4G (701). I had to use
    “ftp://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian” to make this work. Installed without “libdvdcss2″, and that worked fine. Under “PLAY” the Video Manager icon opens VLC.
    BUT: I do not get sound from my 3GP-files!! The EEE plays sound on other files (like the EEE-comercial present on the machine).
    Any ideas?

  25. dumbass on April 16th, 2008 12:37 am

    I just bought an eee, and I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just want to install vlc. Can anyone help me? thx

  26. Jason on April 23rd, 2008 2:26 am

    Can anyone help me?
    Just bought Eee PC 900 and wanted to instal vlc player…
    But now, none of the four command links work. Which means:

    deb http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian sarge main

    deb-src http://download.videolan.org/pub/videolan/debian sarge main

    ftp://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian

    and ftp://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian

    does not work at all…
    any more links anyone can provide me?
    I want to install vlc player so much

  27. Christophe Gevrey on May 25th, 2008 1:58 am

    I had to use a mirror to get it work.

    deb ftp://ftp.fr.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

  28. PB on May 27th, 2008 1:45 am

    I have got this working as a complete newbie but with the US address
    deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

    Maybe obvious to others, but I was having trouble making the change to the sources list stick until found out you have to press return after Y for Yes to save it.
    I can’t find the app on my eee but VLC is now the default player for WMV files.

  29. andrew on June 20th, 2008 6:03 am

    At first vlc would not install on my eee pc 900 using
    sudo apt-get install vlc
    I was getting lots of depends.
    I had to do:
    sudo apt-get -f install
    then: Y
    then:
    sudo apt-get install vlc

    now it works

  30. smith on July 2nd, 2008 12:03 am

    For some reason, the sources.lst file is named sources.list in xandros.

    .. the only thing xandros has going for it is the short boot time.

  31. Vishal Pipraiya on July 15th, 2008 1:06 pm

    After a lot of trials and tribulations I finally managed to get it installed. Changes from the original article:

    1) enter the following repository in sources.list

    “deb ftp://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free”

    (without the double quotes)

    2) type “sudo apt-get install vlc” (without the double quotes)

    without the libdvdcss2 as mentioned in the original article.

    3) VLC successfully installed in Applications->Multimedia in full desktop mode.

    4) After installation, remove the respository from sources.list

  32. Marc on July 20th, 2008 2:28 am

    Here’s something on full desktop mode for those looking for it…

    http://eeesite.net/2007/11/eee-pc-enabling-full-desktop-mode.html

  33. MAB on July 24th, 2008 4:48 am

    You need to do a “sudo bash” to give you permission to run and access commands, after reading all the posts I realisized this

  34. SHADOW on July 28th, 2008 12:05 am

    y is it laggy and there’s no sound? pls reply to rasengan910@hotmail.com

  35. absolutenooobie_RB on August 6th, 2008 9:03 am

    Worked like charm. Thanks a lot. At last a Linux download that worked straight out of the box!

  36. herbert on August 10th, 2008 1:32 am

    I followed http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=4934&p=1. Worked like a charm.

  37. lovey on August 14th, 2008 12:26 am

    hjtdujhtdh

  38. Furyo on August 22nd, 2008 3:55 pm

    Isn’t it possible to download from a concrete site the binaries for installing VLC directly on my eee pc 701 with xandros, without getting crazy with all these lines… I’m totally a newbie to Linux and honestly I don’t think you guys explained yourself that much clear! You’re kind of taking for granted that everybody knows how to use Linux. No offense, of course :)

  39. Jai on August 23rd, 2008 11:33 pm

    sudo apt-get install vlc works.

    instead of the install command provided above.

    Thanks Eighty80!!!!

  40. Paul on August 31st, 2008 6:09 pm

    I have been able to download and install vlc and it runs fine.

    However, when I play a DVD it is jerky and pixellated. The DVD runs fine on my Windows machine under vlc.

    Any ideas?

    Thanks

    Paul

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