How to Install VLC 3.0 RC in Ubuntu 16.04, 17.10

The new major VLC media player 3.0 reached RC2 release. The VideoLAN team made it easy to test VLC 3.0 dev releases via Snap packages in Ubuntu.

Changes in VLC 3.0 include:

• HTTP/2 support.
• Improved UPnP support.
• Adaptive streaming support.
• Early work on Wayland support
• Optional systemd support.
• Support for network browsing with Samba, FTP/SFTP, NFS, and other protocols.
• Support for HDMI passthrough for audio HD codecs.
• Support for output renderers including Google Chromecast.
• Initial support for 360 video/audio.
• Better VA-API support including 10-bit handing, HEVC, and direct rendering support.
• Zero-copy GStreamer video decoding and other zero-copy GPU improvements.
• A variety of new decoders and demuxers.
• Linux/BSD builds now use OpenGL video output by default rather than XVideo.
• VLC also now supports direct rendering with OpenGL using GL 4.4.

How to Install VLC 3.0 rc via snap in Ubuntu:

Open terminal either via Ctrl+Alt+T keyboard shortcuts or by searching for ‘terminal’ from app launcher. When it opens, run command:

snap install vlc

Input your password when it prompts and hit Enter.

Or simply search for and install it from Ubuntu Software:

The snap co-exists with traditional packages. So if you installed a stable VLC release from Ubuntu Software, you’ll have two VLC icons from application launcher.

To ensure you’re running the snapped version while testing, run command below to launch VLC 3.0:

/snap/bin/vlc

Uninstall:

To uninstall the snapped version of VLC media player, you can run command in a terminal window:

sudo snap remove vlc

To report feedback, please go to forum.snapcraft.io