Unstripped build of FFmpeg for Ubuntu

If you want to enable various codecs in FFmpeg that are not supported by the official Ubuntu package (e.g. H.264) then this short howto will help you to build your own package quickly. I’m using the official package sources to make it as easy as possible and to ensure to do not break something. Make sure you have the Multiverse and Universe repositories enabled.

Create a new directory

mkdir ffmpeg-unstripped
cd ffmpeg-unstripped

Install some additional packages, especially the codecs you want to add to the FFmpeg package

sudo apt-get install build-essential libxvidcore-dev libx264-dev libfaac-dev libmp3lame-dev

Have a look into the debian/confflags file to find out additional packages that can be added also.

Next the packages required by the offical FFmpeg package are downloaded, also the source package itself.

sudo apt-get build-dep ffmpeg
apt-get source ffmpeg

Now its time to build the package

cd ffmpeg-*
fakeroot debian/rules binary

Finally we can install and validate the result. Before it is necessary to remove a previously installed FFmpeg package.

sudo apt-get remove ffmpeg
sudo dpkg -i ../*.deb
ffmpeg -format