How to install older version of ffmpeg on 24.04.1

[Keith]

On 12/15/24 2:54 PM, Bo Berglund wrote:
> I need to test an application that uses ffmpeg with an older version than what
> is installed with apt on Ubuntu 24.04.1.
> 
> Reason:
> 
> After upgrading my 20.04.6 to 24.04.1 (2-step upgrade) I just found that a
> script that uses ffmpeg now runs  about 8 times slower than before...
> 
> So I would like to check if something else has changed that causes this and
> therefore I want to install the ffmpeg version that is current in Ubuntu
> 20.04.6.
> 
> It does not need to be a global install just something that only works if I set
> the path manually to it.
> 
> But how do I get it?
> 
> All google hits I find talks about getting a *later* version than what is
> supported by the distribution. I want an *earlier* version instead, like 4.xxx
> And installed locally with the current user.
> 
> It should also be possible to easily remove it later on.
> 
> 

1. Install it via snap. The ffmpeg snap version is at 4.3.1. The version 
in focal is 4.2.7 so not sure if it'll work as I don't know what all the 
changes occurred between 4.2.7 and 4.3.1.  It's easy to try out though 
since it'll be self-contained. You'll need to use full path to launch 
since "/usr/bin/ffmpeg" will appear before /snap/bin/ffmpeg in $PATH

2. Download and install a ffmpeg static build. Older versions can be 
found here: https://www.johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/old-releases/ The 
version available there is 4.2.2 which is the version that was initially 
released with 20.04 so should be compatible enough to test with.

Create a "bin" directory in your home directory and decompress the older 
ffmpeg archive you downloaded there.
~/bin/ffmpeg-4.2.2-amd64-static

Create a symbolic link "~/bin/ffmpeg-static" to 
"~/bin/ffmpeg-4.2.2-amd64-static/ffmpeg" and use that to execute your 
scripts with the static binary.

Alternatively, you can move the static binary to /usr/local/bin to make 
it accessible to the whole system.

-- 
Keith