Self-compiled FFmpeg, checkinstall and APT dependencies

Question

I've compiled FFmpeg and installed it with checkinstall. Now, I'm trying to install OpenCV development files, but it wants to install libavcodec-dev libavcodec54 libavformat54 libavutil-dev libavutil52 from Ubuntu's repositories, which breaks FFmpeg. I tried using these checkinstall flags

--provides='libavcodec54, libavdevice53, libavfilter3, libavformat54, libavresample1, libavutil52, libswscale2, libpostproc52, libavcodec-dev, libavdevice-dev, libavfilter-dev, libavformat-dev, libavresample-dev, libavutil-dev, libswscale-dev, libpostproc-dev' --replaces='libavcodec54, libavdevice53, libavfilter3, libavformat54, libavresample1, libavutil52, libswscale2, libpostproc52, libavcodec-dev, libavdevice-dev, libavfilter-dev, libavformat-dev, libavresample-dev, libavutil-dev, libswscale-dev, libpostproc-dev'

but it doesn't help. How can I install applications using apt-get that depend on libav/FFmpeg libraries? Is it possible without recompiling FFmpeg as static binary?

Answer 1

I'm not familiar with checkinstall, not sure why --provides didn't work.

Here another option using equivs to create dummy packages for those packages:

1. Install equivs:

   sudo apt-get install equivs
   

2. Generate control file from template:

   equivs-control libavcodec54
   

3. Open libavcodec54 file for edit. Change name and version if needed:

   ...
   Package: libavcodec54
   Version: 6:9.18-1dummy0
   ...
   

4. Build then install it:

   equivs-build libavcodec54
   sudo dpkg -i libavcodec54*.deb
   

Much work to do same for all required packages, but it can solve it.

Answer 2

It may be easier to recompile FFmpeg and use the local installation shown in this wiki:

Compile FFmpeg on Ubuntu, Debian, or Mint

https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/CompilationGuide/Ubuntu

This will mean no more entanglements with the Ubuntu package management system...