Use pre-built Ubuntu packages for a lot of the dependent libraries when building ffmpeg.

ubuntu-build-ffmpeg.md

How to Build FFmpeg on Ubuntu

There is an official guide out there, but it ignores the fact that it's possible to use pre-build packages for a lot of the dependent libraries (rather than compiling them). This set of instructions aims to fix that.

Procedure

# ensure "non-free" packages are available
$ sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list  # uncomment "multiverse" URLs
$ sudo apt-get update
# install build / compilation tools
$ sudo apt-get install make
$ sudo apt-get install yasm
# install fpm packaging tool
$ sudo apt-get install ruby-dev
$ sudo gem install fpm
# install codecs / libraries
$ sudo apt-get install libx264-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libfdk-aac-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libfaac-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libspeex-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libfreetype6-dev
# download and build ffmpeg source
$ cd $HOME
$ mkdir $HOME/ffmpeg_build
$ wget http://ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2
$ tar xjvf ffmpeg-snapshot.tar.bz2
$ cd $HOME/ffmpeg
$ ./configure \
  --prefix="$HOME/ffmpeg_build" \
  --enable-gpl \
  --enable-libfdk-aac \
  --enable-libfaac \
  --enable-libfreetype \
  --enable-libspeex \
  --enable-libx264 \
  --enable-nonfree
$ make && make install
# make it into a .deb package
$ fpm -s dir -t deb -n ffmpeg -v 2.3-git \
  -d x264 \
  -d libfdk-aac0 \
  -d libfaac0 \
  -d libspeex1 \
  -d libfreetype6 \
  $HOME/ffmpeg_build/=/usr