FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of many libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the FFmpeg program itself, designed for command-line-based processing of video and audio files.
FFmpeg can do the following.
- decode multimedia files
- encode multimedia files
- transcode multimedia files
- mux multimedia files
- demux multimedia files
- stream multimedia files
- filter multimedia files
- play multimedia files
To Install FFmpeg Multimedia Framework in Linux
As the FFmpeg packages are offered for the most used Linux distributions, the installation is relatively straightforward. Let’s start with the installation of the FFmpeg framework in Ubuntu-based distributions.
Install FFmpeg on Ubuntu and Linux Mint
Install FFmpeg from the default repositories. Open a new terminal and then run the following commands.
Install FFmpeg on Debian
FFmpeg package is included in the official Debian repositories and installs using the package manager as shown.
$ sudo apt update $ sudo apt install ffmpeg $ ffmpeg -version
Install FFmpeg on CentOS and RHEL
I am installing FFmpeg on CentOS and RHEL distributions. You need to enable EPEL and RPM Fusion repository on the system using the following commands.
To install and enable EPEL, use the following command.
# yum install epel-release
To install and enable RPM Fusion, use the following command on your distribution version.
-------------- On CentOS & RHEL 8.x -------------- # yum localinstall --nogpgcheck https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-8.noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-8.noarch.rpm -------------- On CentOS & RHEL 7.x -------------- # yum localinstall --nogpgcheck https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-7.noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-7.noarch.rpm -------------- On CentOS & RHEL 6.x -------------- # yum localinstall --nogpgcheck https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/el/rpmfusion-free-release-6.noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/el/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-6.noarch.rpm
After enabling repositories, run the following command to install FFmpeg:
# yum install ffmpeg ffmpeg-devel # ffmpeg -version
Install FFmpeg on Fedora
On Fedora, you need to install and enable RPM Fusion to install FFmpeg as shown.
$ sudo dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm $ sudo dnf install ffmpeg ffmpeg-devel $ ffmpeg -version
Install FFmpeg on Arch Linux
$ sudo pacman -S ffmpeg $ yay -S ffmpeg-git $ yay -S ffmpeg-full-git $ ffmpeg -version
Install FFmpeg on openSUSE
-------------- On openSUSE Tumbleweed -------------- $ sudo zypper addrepo -cfp 90 'https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/' packman $ sudo zypper refresh $ sudo zypper install --from packman ffmpeg $ ffmpeg -version -------------- On openSUSE Leap -------------- $ sudo zypper addrepo -cfp 90 'https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Leap_$releasever/' packman $ sudo zypper refresh $ sudo zypper install --from packman ffmpeg $ ffmpeg -version
First, tell the system to pull down the latest packages.
$ sudo apt-get update
Install the dependencies with the following command.
-------------- On Debian & Ubuntu -------------- $ sudo apt-get -y install autoconf automake build-essential libass-dev libfreetype6-dev libgpac-dev \ libsdl1.2-dev libtheora-dev libtool libva-dev libvdpau-dev libvorbis-dev libx11-dev \ libxext-dev libxfixes-dev pkg-config texi2html zlib1g-dev
-------------- On CentOS and RHEL -------------- # yum install glibc gcc gcc-c++ autoconf automake libtool git make nasm pkgconfig SDL-devel \ a52dec a52dec-devel alsa-lib-devel faac faac-devel faad2 faad2-devel freetype-devel giflib gsm gsm-devel \ imlib2 imlib2-devel lame lame-devel libICE-devel libSM-devel libX11-devel libXau-devel libXdmcp-devel \ libXext-devel libXrandr-devel libXrender-devel libXt-devel libogg libvorbis vorbis-tools mesa-libGL-devel \ mesa-libGLU-devel xorg-x11-proto-devel zlib-devel libtheora theora-tools ncurses-devel libdc1394 libdc1394-devel \ amrnb-devel amrwb-devel opencore-amr-devel
Then use the following command to create a new directory for the FFmpeg sources. This is the directory where the source files will be downloaded.
$ mkdir ~/ffmpeg_sources
Now compile and install yasm assembler used by FFmpeg by running the following commands.
$ cd ~/ffmpeg_sources $ wget http://www.tortall.net/projects/yasm/releases/yasm-1.3.0.tar.gz $ tar xzvf yasm-1.3.0.tar.gz $ cd yasm-1.3.0 $ ./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --bindir="$HOME/bin" $ make $ make install $ make distclean $ export "PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin"
After you have successfully installed the yasm assembler it is time to install some various encoders that will be used with the specific FFmpeg tools. Use the following commands to install the H.264 video encoder.
$ cd ~/ffmpeg_sources $ wget http://download.videolan.org/pub/x264/snapshots/last_x264.tar.bz2 $ tar xjvf last_x264.tar.bz2 $ cd x264-snapshot* $ ./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --bindir="$HOME/bin" --enable-static $ make $ make install $ make distclean
Another nice useful encoder is the libfdk-aac AAC audio encoder.
$ cd ~/ffmpeg_sources $ wget -O fdk-aac.zip https://github.com/mstorsjo/fdk-aac/zipball/master $ unzip fdk-aac.zip $ cd mstorsjo-fdk-aac* $ autoreconf -fiv $./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-shared $ make $ make install $ make distclean
Install libopus audio decoder and encoder.
$ cd ~/ffmpeg_sources $ wget http://downloads.xiph.org/releases/opus/opus-1.1.tar.gz $ tar xzvf opus-1.1.tar.gz $ cd opus-1.1 $ ./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --disable-shared $ make $ make install $ make distclean
Now, it’s time to install ffmpeg from the source.
$ cd ~/ffmpeg_sources $ wget http://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2 $ tar xjvf ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2 $ cd ffmpeg $ PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib/pkgconfig" $ export PKG_CONFIG_PATH $ ./configure --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" --extra-cflags="-I$HOME/ffmpeg_build/include" \ --extra-ldflags="-L$HOME/ffmpeg_build/lib" --bindir="$HOME/bin" --extra-libs="-ldl" --enable-gpl \ --enable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus \ --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-nonfree --enable-x11grab $ make $ make install $ make distclean $ hash -r
According to the FFmpeg multimedia framework, we have added all the latest news and included the steps to install it on Linux machines.
