Using the very latest Libraries

Using the most current libraries can be a challenge for some of the Operating System distros that use stable compilers, assemblers, and their own libraries. Because they are stable, they frequently do not keep up with the very latest of thirdparty libraries. Consequently, some program constructs may not yet be implemented. CINELERRA-GG tries to maintain stability since it is better to have less features and no crashes. The goal is to make CINELERRA-GG widely available on many platforms rather than dependent on advanced tools that are not supported on some distros.

CINELERRA-GG attempts to upgrade to the latest releases of many thirdparty libraries about every 3-4 months. But it is often difficult to keep some of these thirdparty libraries up to date as their developers switch from tried and true standard tools to newer, less standard tools. As a result in order to build CINELERRA-GG on 2-3 versions of any distro rather than only the most current version, some thirdparty libraries can not be kept up to date and may even be to the point of no further updates. In a lot of cases, the updated releases provide little new capabilities but rather are bug fixes that may not even be relevant to CINELERRA-GG's use.

So as a computer savvy user or a developer, if you would like to build CINELERRA-GG with the latest thirdparty releases for some of the packages here are a few suggestions based on other developer's feedback and experimentation.

dav1d

Status - currently CINELERRA-GG is staying at 0.5.1. This is disappointing because there may be speed gains in later versions that would be beneficial. However, it is usable for decoding whereas libaom is a lot slower. Unfortunately, it has no effective encoder.

Problem - 0.6 dav1d requires NASM 2.14 (and later versions of dav1d use even later versions of NASM) and uses instructions like vgf2p8affineqb, not exactly an "add" instruction. It also uses meson which is not widely available on all distros. The more recent NASM requirement apparently provides for using AVX-512 instructions (like vgf2p8affineqb, which is more like a whole routine than a simple instruction).

Workaround already in use by CINELERRA-GG - a Makefile was generated to replace Meson usage but has to be continuously updated for new releases. Dav1d 0.5.1 requires NASM 2.13 so at this level the newer distros will work. The availability of meson and nasm are a significant problem on many systems which are still in wide use.

Your workaround - Because a request to dav1d developers to consider changes to ensure their library is more widely usable does not appear to be in their future, since it works for them, you can upgrade NASM to 2.14 to stay up to date. Even then, you will have to build using meson and incorporate it into CINELERRA-GG.

OpenExr

Status - stable at 2.4.1 from February 2020.

Problem - the OpenExr tarball is not a single package but is 2 packages instead.

Workaround already in use by CINELERRA-GG - reworked the packages so that it looks like one package with 2 stubs.

Your workaround - perhaps use the same workaround.

OpenCV

Status - 2 different versions specific for O/S but none for Ubuntu 14, 32 or 64 bit.

Problem - There are really 2 problems here. The first is OpenCV is not really "Open" in that Surf is patented/non-free and there is no actual source available for certain capabilities. The second is that cmake 3.5.1 is required for OpenCV 4.2.

Workaround already in use by CINELERRA-GG - using 3.4.1 for older distros and 4.2 for newer.

Your workaround - upgrade cmake to 3.5.1 for upgrade to 4.2; add non-free to the compile; and use binaries that you do not know what they contain since no source code to compile. Look into opencv4/opencv2/core/types.hpp:711;27.

libaom

Status - currently at version 3.6.0 for older O/S and 3.8.0 for newer O/S.

Problem - requires cmake 3.5 at v3.6.0 and 3.7.2 for v3.8.0.

Workaround already in use by CINELERRA-GG - modify configure.ac to switch from 3.8.0 to 3.6.0 for Ubuntu 16 and delete thirdparty/src/libaom-v3.8.0*.*.

Your workaround - upgrade on some systems to cmake 3.7.2, switch to using 3.6.0 as in last sentence, or add –libaom-enable=no to configure line when building.

x10tv

Status - this is the x10 TV remote control.

Problem - INPUT_PROP_POINTING_STICK not defined error on older distros.

Workaround already in use by CINELERRA-GG - leaving out of Ubuntu14, Ubuntu, Centos7.

Your workaround - look into /usr/include/linux/input-event-codes.h.

lv2 plugins, consisting of 6 routines

Status - currently at version 1.18.0 for lv2 and different for other 5.

Problem - the current versions use cmake but the updated versions now all use meson and CINELERRA-GG is not set up to handle that.

Workaround already in use by CINELERRA-GG - not upgrading at this time.

Your workaround - if you are familiar with meson, you can independently upgrade the 6 routines.