Which VLC Version for FP1(U)?

One simple question I have had for quite a while now: Which VLC version is the right one for a FP1U:
x86 or armeabi-v7a or armeabi?

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It’s the SoC architecture … so not x86. v7a and armeabi should both work (ARM). v7a should be the fastest (if it works). Else: Just let F-droid decide :smile:

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Thanks. So far I still don’t want to install F-Droid itself, so I’m picking (and updating) select few apps from their directory only. Will try next time I have to reboot the FP :slight_smile:

Okay, no problem. Some people here had issues with F-Droid, I remember. Just try the armeabi-v7a. I’m not sure about the “a” but the MT6589M (=FP1 SoC) supports ARMv7. Remember that you will not get updates if you install it like this and that media frameworks are often buggy :wink:

The issue is I rarely have Wi-Fi access.

Good, that sounds “safe” :slight_smile: If you want to read about the “A”. I think it means that the chip is also a Cortex-A chip that can do some number crunching in hardware a bit faster. But on smartphones a lot of the “magic” is also in the GPU. So it always depends how well those to work together, I think.

I’m finally giving VLC a proper chance to replace “Music” on my FP1U now running Fairphone OS 1.9.9 Macadamia (the unfinished Android 4.4.2). VLC is no longer available through F-Droid, so I had to install it directly from www.videolan.org What is offered to me are the following options:

I downloaded and installed the very first option VLC-Android-3.0.13-ARMv7.apk right away. VLC now works and looks good to me, although it took it more than 3 1/2 hours to complete the scan all of my 160+ GB of music on the SD card and I still need to familiarize myself with it.

Now would anyone recommend any of the other install options in the screenshot? Of course I’m glad the first try at least worked, but would I benefit from replacing it by any of the others? Which of those could be expected to be compatible with my FP1U running 1.9.9 at all (concluding from fp1_wo_sw_updates’ earlier replies and resources: the very first only?)? What are the small files (".sha245" endings) for? What are the “Android-sources” for?

VLC appears to occasionally have build issues on F-Droid. This then means that it gets moved to the F-Droid archive repo when the latest successful build gets old. This then gets fixed (eventually) and the app gets moved to the main repo (even more eventually). The last update to 3.0.13 in archive landed about a week ago, so enabling the archive repo may be an option (though at some point VLC is likely to end up back in main anyway). On my FP1 F-Droid shows armeabi-v7a versions.

Probably not (if I understand your question correctly). The processor in the FP1 is an ARMv7 chip. An app compiled to make optimal use of the ARMv8 architecture will likely not run at all (or provide no additional benefit due to missing features on the chip). The x86 architectures won’t work either.

They contain the checksum for the file without the ‘.sha256’ bit at the end. For example, on linux you can download both files, and then do: sha256sum -c file.sha256. This will then tell you whether the large file contents produces the same checksum as the one that is stored (and therefore whether the file is likely to have been transferred intact).

Presumably these archives contain the source code for the VLC Android app, in case you want to compile your own version.

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