1. What is a static build and how do I install it?
A static build is basically a binary with all the libs included inside the binary itself. There's no installation necessary in order to use a static binary, but you may want to place it in your shell's PATH to easily call it from the command line. Otherwise you can use the binary's absolute path. Here's a quick walkthrough:
Download the latest git build.
$ wget https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/builds/ffmpeg-git-amd64-static.tar.xz
$ wget https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/builds/ffmpeg-git-amd64-static.tar.xz.md5
With the build and the build's md5 hash downloaded you can check its integrity.
$ md5sum -c ffmpeg-git-amd64-static.tar.xz.md5
ffmpeg-git-amd64-static.tar.xz: OK
Unpack the build. Note: If you need to do this on Windows, use 7-Zip to unpack it. You may have to run it twice; once to uncompress and again to untar the directory.
$ tar xvf ffmpeg-git-amd64-static.tar.xz
Now I have the directory "ffmpeg-git-20180203-amd64-static".
$ ls ffmpeg-git-20180203-amd64-static
ffmpeg ffprobe GPLv3.txt manpages model qt-faststart readme.txt
Please read readme.txt! (hit "q" to exit out of "less")
$ less ffmpeg-git-20180203-amd64-static/readme.txt
Without any further steps I can start using ffmpeg with my relative path to the binary.
$ ./ffmpeg-git-20180203-amd64-static/ffmpeg
ffmpeg version N-89948-ge3d946b3f4-static https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/ Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 6.4.0 (Debian 6.4.0-11) 20171206
(snipped output to save space)
Or using the absolute path to the binary.
$ /home/john/ffmpeg-git-20180203-amd64-static/ffmpeg
ffmpeg version N-89948-ge3d946b3f4-static https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/ Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 6.4.0 (Debian 6.4.0-11) 20171206
(snipped output to save space)
To globally install it I need to move the binary into my shell's path. "PATH" is a variable in your environment set to a list of colon seperated directories the shell uses to locate binaries. Here's my system's path.
$ echo $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/home/john/.local/bin:/home/john/binYour output may look different than mine, but it will be a somewhat similar list of directories. When I run the command "ffmpeg", the shell will look in /usr/local/bin first and then the next directory to the right in above list until it's found. If there's not a binary named "ffmpeg" in any of the above directories the shell will return "ffmpeg: command not found".
Before moving the ffmpeg binary into the shell's path, check to see if an older version of ffmpeg is already installed.
$ whereis ffmpeg
ffmpeg: /usr/bin/ffmpegThis lists an older version of ffmpeg in /usr/bin installed via my package manager. I can either uninstall the older version or place the newer static ffmpeg binary in a path that's searched before /usr/bin. According to my shell's path that would be /usr/local/bin.
Move the static binaries ffmpeg and ffprobe into the shell's path.
$ sudo mv ffmpeg-git-20180203-amd64-static/ffmpeg ffmpeg-git-20180203-amd64-static/ffprobe /usr/local/bin/
$ whereis ffmpeg
ffmpeg: /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
$ whereis ffprobe
ffprobe: /usr/local/bin/ffprobe
Now ffmpeg is globally installed and you're done!
$ ffmpeg
ffmpeg version N-89948-ge3d946b3f4-static https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/ Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 6.4.0 (Debian 6.4.0-11) 20171206
(snipped output to save space)
Uninstall.
$ sudo rm /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg /usr/local/bin/ffprobe