Opera browser and codecs

[MJC1954]

Really not sure how to go about this, so I'll start off here. My apologies if it's in totally the wrong location.

I really like the Opera browser, but I have never had much luck getting it working fully on some distros, Debian based distros being one of them. I would consider using a snap package but on MX without systemd that simply isn't going to fly.

On Arch based distros (and Ubuntu based sometimes as well), Opera often has its own codec package that can be downloaded with the browser. Often, installing the Chromium-ffmpegs-extra package is also enough to get Opera fully functional as well (I managed this on an openSUSE drive I've got just a few hours ago).

I did upgrade the ffmpeg package from the stable repo version to the testing repo version today but Opera still doesn't play clips at AFL.com.au - a website I visit all the time.

I guess I was wondering if it would be possible to get the chromium-ffmpegs-extra package as a standard package on MX? I'm sure it would also help with Vivaldi as well, and MX does offer both browsers as part of the MX Package Installer.

inxi -F
System: Host: mx18xfce Kernel: 4.19.0-1-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Cinnamon 4.0.9
Distro: MX-18.2_x64 Continuum Dec 20 2018
Machine: Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: PRIME B360-PLUS v: Rev 1.xx
serial: <root required> UEFI [Legacy]: American Megatrends v: 0904 date: 09/14/2018
CPU: Topology: 6-Core model: Intel Core i5-8600K bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 9216 KiB
Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4300 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800
5: 800 6: 800
Graphics: Device-1: Intel driver: i915 v: kernel
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: intel resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel UHD Graphics 630 (Coffeelake 3x8 GT2)
v: 4.5 Mesa 18.2.6
Audio: Device-1: Intel driver: snd_hda_intel
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-1-amd64
Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: 4c:ed:fb:3d:b1:45
Drives: Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 39.42 GiB (4.2%)
ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Seagate model: ST1000DM010-2EP102 size: 931.51 GiB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 913.89 GiB used: 39.42 GiB (4.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.00 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 30.0 C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Info: Processes: 211 Uptime: 1h 40m Memory: 15.52 GiB used: 3.18 GiB (20.5%) Shell: bash
inxi: 3.0.33

Cheers and thanks in anticipation.
Michael

[colin_b]

Maybe this will be of help:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=46666&p=463752&hil ... 64#p463752

[MJC1954]

Thanks for that, Colin, I'll definitely try that! I was looking at something similar on another website... but it got a bit too complicated for me and I gave up on it. I don't pretend to be much more than a newb when it comes to Linux stuff... especially terminal stuff.

Do I assume that every time Opera updates that this would also need to be repeated?

Would chromium-ffmpegs as an addition to the repo also work? Would it be helpful for beginners, or does it just create other issues for MX?

Cheers
Michael

[kc1di]

The problem I have noticed here with opera it seems they update the browser but don't not always update the codecs with it. And thus about every other time it's updated the video will not work and I have to do some work to get it going. The link that colin_b posted works most of the time. Good luck.

[Jerry3904]

It seems to vary: on my Personal laptop, it worked OOTB and no upgrade ever bothers it.

[kc1di]

it works on some videos but not others. But then when you use a browser that's not in the repo's you get what you get :)

[fehlix]

it works on some videos but not others.

One place to check video-codecs is: https://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html

[kc1di]

thanks fehlix,
Handy site :)

[MJC1954]

Hey all, this is what happened when I pasted that command in my terminal:

sudo -v; curl -L vvld.in/lm64 |tail -c+1079 | sudo tar xJ -C / --wildcards \*libffmpeg\.so --xform 's,.*/,usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/lib_extra/,'
[sudo] password for emjaycee:
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0
0 1078k 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- 0:00:02 --:--:-- 0xz: (stdin): File format not recognized
tar: Child died with signal 13
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now
3 1078k 3 38220 0 0 11900 0

I'm guessing this is not good lol.

With a lot of distros I've tried, I found the the 'chromium-ffmpegs-extra' often helped with playing video on Opera. It worked on openSUSE yesterday when I installed it. But, it doesn't seem to be in MX repos.

I will reboot and check Opea just in case, but I'm not hopeful lol.

Cheers
Michael

[MJC1954]

Nope, sorry Colin, that terminal command didn't work on my system.

Cheers
Michael