Install FFmpeg on a Linux Box

ffmpeg_install.md

Install FFmpeg via CLI on Linux box

These steps walk through installing a static binary of any ffmpeg version on to your linux machine. If you want to compile from source, there are several ways to do so. Here's the official guide. Tested and works on an AWS EC2 Ubuntu instance, but should work on any Linux machine.

http://ffmpeg.org

• SSH into your instance and become root

  $ sudo su -

• cd to the the /usr/local/bin directory

  $ cd /usr/local/bin

• Inside the /usr/local/bin directory, create an /ffmpeg directory

  $ mkdir ffmpeg

• cd into the new directory

  $ cd ffmpeg

• Check the static build directory at:

  • http://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/
  • http://ffmpeg.gusari.org/static/64bit/
  • select a version of ffmpeg or use the latest version alias, and wget it. Other FFmpeg static builds available here.

  $ wget http://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/releases/ffmpeg-release-64bit-static.tar.xz

• The file should now be in /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg. Untar it...

  $ tar xf ffmpeg-release-64bit-static.tar.xz

• Run it and check what the latest version is

  $ ./ffmpeg -version

The output should look something like this

ffmpeg version N-60675-g8fe1076
built on Feb 16 2014 05:45:47 with gcc 4.6 (Debian 4.6.3-1)
configuration: --prefix=/root/ffmpeg-static/64bit --extra-cflags='-I/root/ffmpeg-
static/64bit/include -static' --extra-ldflags='-L/root/ffmpeg-static/64bit/lib -static' --
extra-libs='-lxml2 -lexpat -lfreetype' --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-ffserver --
disable-doc --enable-bzlib --enable-zlib --enable-postproc --enable-runtime-cpudetect --
enable-libx264 --enable-gpl --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libmp3lame --
enable-gray --enable-libass --enable-libfreetype --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libspeex --
enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-version3 --enable-libvpx
libavutil 52. 64.100 / 52. 64.100
libavcodec 55. 52.102 / 55. 52.102
libavformat 55. 32.101 / 55. 32.101
libavdevice 55. 9.101 / 55. 9.101
libavfilter 4. 1.102 / 4. 1.102
libswscale 2. 5.101 / 2. 5.101
libswresample 0. 17.104 / 0. 17.104
libpostproc 52. 3.100 / 52. 3.100

• Move the contents of your static untarred folder into the parent /ffmpeg dir

  $ mv * ../

• If you want to be able to execute $ ffmpeg from any directory, you'll need to create a symlink inside /usr/bin:

  $ ln -s /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg/ffmpeg /usr/bin/ffmpeg
  $ ln -s /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg/ffprobe /usr/bin/ffprobe #for ffprobe

done. You are now able to run the $ ffmpeg command from anywhere.

credit: this AWS forum thread

Saved me a ton of time, thank you.

Thank you. it worked for me.

Thank you so much, it worked.!

all worked !!!
thanks a lot .
i have one question !!!
can you compile ffmpeg with Nvenc and cuda ?
most users and me now use gpu transcoding with ffmpeg , this yours working with gpu but not with mpeg4_cuvid

thanks agen for great work

good

Thanks, its working good

Vansickle took his builds down and has a Patreon page sitting where the packages used to be. This won't work any more as of May 16, 2018.

2018-05-17 03:42:35 ERROR 404: Not Found.

Thanks!

Thanks, its working perfect.

Newbie here I followed the instruction
Not sure why it won't untar when using instruction
tar xf ffmpeg-release-64bit-static.tar.xz

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 25878148 (25M) [application/x-xz]
Saving to: “ffmpeg-release-64bit-static.tar.xz.1”

100%[======================================>] 25,878,148 3.11M/s in 7.1s

2018-08-04 14:12:26 (3.47 MB/s) - “ffmpeg-release-64bit-static.tar.xz.1” saved [25878148/25878148]

Attempting to unzip/untar using instruction nothing happens.

Thanks so much!

simply awesome. the content of this page must be present on johnvansickle's page which has links to the releases.

Thanks a lot, worked, congrats.

Thanks.

Dude! Thanks a ton for having this amazing tutorial.
It has worked for me and even on this date, this tutorial was hard to find. Once again, Thanks!

simply awesome. the content of this page must be present on johnvansickle's page which has links to the releases.

Yes, that would be super helpful.

I got an error -bash: ./ffmpeg: cannot execute binary file when install in Centos . What wrong? help me pls

I would suggest use https://github.com/ivoglent/ffmpeg-composer-bin and check for CHMOD 0777

@elnurxf thank you. I resolved my issue. I download amd architecture version instead of arm for centos OS

Who is this and why are these messages in my inbox?

…

On Thu, Feb 29, 2024, 3:37 AM Hồ Quang Khải ***@***.***> wrote: ***@***.**** commented on this gist. ------------------------------ @elnurxf <https://github.com/elnurxf> thank you. I resolved my issue. I download amd architecture version instead of arm for centos OS — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://gist.github.com/jmsaavedra/62bbcd20d40bcddf27ac#gistcomment-4951887> or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AEL6ZSWPTUGKATHN2AELIATYV3UDXBFKMF2HI4TJMJ2XIZLTSKBKK5TBNR2WLJDUOJ2WLJDOMFWWLO3UNBZGKYLEL5YGC4TUNFRWS4DBNZ2F6YLDORUXM2LUPGBKK5TBNR2WLJDHNFZXJJDOMFWWLK3UNBZGKYLEL52HS4DFVRZXKYTKMVRXIX3UPFYGLK2HNFZXIQ3PNVWWK3TUUZ2G64DJMNZZDAVEOR4XAZNEM5UXG5FFOZQWY5LFVAYTQMBVGE3DKMNHORZGSZ3HMVZKMY3SMVQXIZI> . You are receiving this email because you commented on the thread. Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub> .