Possibility to use system ffmpeg

[vladtcvs]

Hello! Many linux users already have ffmpeg in system, so it would be good idea to allow use it instead of compile it again

[eldergabriel]

I agree totally. I can think of at least one other download assist firefox extension that provides a preferences setting for specifying the full system path for ffmpeg. In fact, after installing, I renamed the ffmpeg binary installed locally by the coapp and created a symbolic link to the ffmpeg system binary in its place for it to use instead. A rather kludgy workaround, I know, but it seems to be working ok so far.

[sebma]

@eldergabriel

I agree totally. I can think of at least one other download assist firefox extension that provides a preferences setting for specifying the full system path for ffmpeg. In fact, after installing, I renamed the ffmpeg binary installed locally by the coapp and created a symbolic link to the ffmpeg system binary in its place for it to use instead. A rather kludgy workaround, I know, but it seems to be working ok so far.

Nice little workaround, I'm gonna do that rightaway :) !

[sebma]

Done :) :

$ cd /opt/net.downloadhelper.coapp/converter/build/linux/64/
$ sudo mkdir -v BACKUP
mkdir: created directory ‘BACKUP’
$ sudo mv ff* lib* BACKUP/
$ sudo ln -vs $(which ffmpeg)
‘./ffmpeg’ -> ‘/usr/bin/ffmpeg’
$ sudo ln -vs $(which ffprobe)
‘./ffprobe’ -> ‘/usr/bin/ffprobe’
$ sudo ln -vs $(which ffplay)
‘./ffplay’ -> ‘/usr/bin/ffplay’
$ ls -l
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1178 mars  29 16:52 BACKUP
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   15 mars  29 16:52 ffmpeg -> /usr/bin/ffmpeg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   15 mars  29 16:53 ffplay -> /usr/bin/ffplay
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   16 mars  29 16:52 ffprobe -> /usr/bin/ffprobe
$ 

[eldergabriel]

0) Depending on where your net.downloadhelper.coapp gets installed, and the permissions of that folder/tree branch, you may or may not need sudo or root permissions to do this. I see you installed it system-wide in /opt on your setup; I installed it in a somewhat arbitrary sub-folder location in my home directory, hence the permissions consideration.

1) While you're there, you may want to do the same for ffplay and ffprobe. That's apparently what I did on my system. Ok, as I looked now, I see your edits there, updated to include that.

2) 'ln -sv' = 'ln -s -v'

[sebma]

@eldergabriel

1. Depending on where your net.downloadhelper.coapp gets installed, and the permissions of that folder/tree branch, you may or may not need sudo or root permissions to do this. I see you installed it system-wide in /opt on your setup; I installed it in a somewhat arbitrary sub-folder location in my home directory, hence the permissions consideration. ...

The answer to "1." : I installed this package for Ubuntu/Debian :

$ dpkg-deb -c net.downloadhelper.coapp-1.4.0-1_amd64.deb | grep ffmpeg$
-rwxr-xr-x 0/0          264320 2019-06-19 15:52 opt/net.downloadhelper.coapp/converter/build/linux/64/ffmpeg

[bill-mcgonigle]

Bundling a version of ffmpeg was understandable under Debian's old multimedia policy. All current Debian and Ubuntu have ffmpeg in main/ now. The bundled version of ffmpeg may be vulnerable to more than a hundred security problems that have been fixed in ffmpeg since it was compiled: https://ffmpeg.org/security.html Setting a depends: and removing the bundled version would prevent VDH from being a ready vector for malware. Thanks for your support of the linux community.

[paulrouget]

I agree. We could do that.

If anyone is willing in contributing, i'd be happy to assist. Look up build.sh, all the magic is there.

Two things to do:

• fix build.sh to package without the ffmpeg binaries
• fix conerter.js to find the binaries in the system