Re: VLC for PowerPC: make a separate port or modify existing?

[Ken Cunningham]

 vlc is built against a cocoa interface, not qt, on macos. It has many HAVE_OSX defines scattered thoroughout the code, that all assume macos technologies for the pathways. It is currently written to support a floor sdk of 10.11. Changing all that code to support old systems again is… unrealistic, shall we say. So you’re not getting any current version to build, but as I said, you might get some old version to build. I have an old version that works now on older systems, of course :) It just can’t play much. But Mplayer is much more functional, which was my point. And older systems are lucky to have that, as vlc and mpv have left them all behind, given their full GUIs needing more current SDK features. A recent update to the mplayer-devel code broke <10.7 , but that looks like an easy fix to me. On Aug 4, 2023, at 23:03, Sergey Fedorov <vital....@gmail.com> wrote:  > even if you find some old version that still builds on the ancient systems ... pointlessly out of date. 2.2.8 builds, I think the latest should (either with restored Qt4 or without Qt). The question is which works. So far it seems that X11 video output works but has broken colors due to never fixed upstream bugs in OpenGL or alike. For example, this was reported in 2016 and apparently still broken: https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-56975 P. S. It is useful to have several players. From experience even on modern Intel, none is perfectly reliable and some will be preferred to another conditionally. On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 8:50 AM Ken Cunningham <ken.cunningham.web...@gmail.com> wrote: even if you find some old version that still builds on the ancient systems ... pointlessly out of date. yet MPlayer is right up to the minute, and worked very well even on Tiger PPC last I tried it. Anyway, play with VLC as you wish, of course. On Aug 4, 2023, at 5:26 PM, Sergey Fedorov <vital....@gmail.com> wrote: Don’t worry, I will not submit a PR for VLC unless it actually works with video. There is no point otherwise. If it does not, I just leave it. But for now it still makes sense to have an idea what to do with the port IF it works. On Sat, Aug 5, 2023 at 7:02 AM Ken Cunningham <ken.cunningham.web...@gmail.com> wrote: For playing videos on older systems, I think MPlayer is the way to go. Give that a try if you haven't. Ken On 2023-08-04, at 3:57 PM, Sergey Fedorov wrote: I need an advice. We got VLC2 port (which is totally broken for all systems) and VLC port, which installs pre-built binary. Neither supports PPC, obviously, and even i386. Leaving the main VLC aside, VLC2 is already a mess and in the present state is unusable for practical purposes. Rewriting the logic is doable (I have done it locally, kind of), however I have few concerns here: 1. Given the complexity of the port, it may not be obvious for anyone who might wish to update it in the future or fix something for Intel systems, what has to be left untouched for PPC (assuming that testing for PPC cannot be done due to lack of hardware). It is very easy to break the build, I just now tried to enable a feature which looked harmless, and that broke the build immediately. And we cannot really write passages of explanations for every change or choice. 2. On the other hand, even though the port is currently broken for Intel, my fixes might introduce some undesirable effects for it, unless of course literally everything is put inside the guarding condition. But then we have x2 more code in the port, which is already barely readable. For these reasons, it seems easier and safer to have a separate VLC-ppc port: then I can work on it without bothering to match versions or to break anything for someone, and at the same time be reasonably sure no one accidentally breaks PPC build. However, we seldom make arch-specific ports, so I assume, it may not be considered desirable. Which way should I go here? Ultimately I am fine with either option, but it will save time to decide first rather than having to rewrite later something completely. P. S. Re status of the thing itself: Given that FreeBSD seems to build the current VLC 3.x for 32-bit archs, including PPC (may be untested, but still), chances are it can be fixed. However, support for Qt4 has to be restored or otherwise Qt should be foregone completely. Building of VLC2 I have fixed for PPC tonight. It works in some aspects (GUI is acceptably okay, audio output seems perfect), but video either does not or works partly (I cannot tests all output modes right now for technical reasons). So it is not a matter of tomorrow’s PR yet, but if it works, it may work rather soon.