Objective
Install MakeMKV on Fedora Linux
Distributions
This is tested with Fedora 25 but may work with earlier or later versions of Fedora.
Requirements
An working install of Fedora with root privileges.
Difficulty
Easy
Conventions
- # – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of
sudocommand - $ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user
Introduction
MakeMKV is a powerful tool for working with DVDs and Blu-Ray. In fact, it is probably the most reliable way to work with and play Blu-Ray on Linux.
MakeMKV is partially open source and partially proprietary. It isn’t distributed in Fedora’s repositories. The source and binary blobs are available from the developer’s website. MakeMKV is in a state of perpetual beta testing for Linux, so it’s free of charge but also not officially supported.
Dependencies
Before you can build MakeMKV, you’re going to need to install some development tools and libraries on Fedora.
Start off by enabling the RPM Fusion repository. It’s needed for FFMPEG, which MakeMKV relies on.
# dnf install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
Now, install all of the dependencies.
# dnf install "C Development Tools and Libraries" # dnf install "Development Tools" # dnf install zlib-devel openssl-devel expat-devel ffmpeg ffmpeg-devel qt5-qtbase-devel
Downloading The Tarballs
The MakeMKV developers ship it in two tarballs. One contains the open source components, and the other contains the binary ones. You can get them from this https://goo.gl/z4uGZ4 forum post, or you can pull them directly with wget, provided the version listed here is still the latest.
It’s a good idea to make a build directory to download the tarballs into and compile them. Start by doing that, and pull the tarballs.
$ cd ~/Downloads $ mkdir makemkv $ cd makemkv $ wget http://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv-bin-1.10.5.tar.gz $ wget http://www.makemkv.com/download/makemkv-oss-1.10.5.tar.gz
Extract The Tarballs
When you’re done downloading the tarballs, you can extract them both.
$ tar xpf makemkv-bin-1.10.5.tar.gz $ tar xpf makemkv-oss-1.10.5.tar.gz
Compile and Install
You need to build MakeMKV’s components separately. Begin with the open source part, and switch to the binary part. Ultimately, Fedora will see them as one application, anyway.
OSS
cd into the open source directory that you extracted. In the directory, you can configure, compile, and install the source.
$ cd makemkv-oss-1.10.5 $ ./configure $ make # make install
Bin
You also have to set up and install the binary portion. cd into the binary directory and run make before installing it.
$ cd ../makemkv-bin-1.10.5 $ make # make install
Run MakeMKV
MakeMKV is a graphical application built with Qt. You can search for it in GNOME, and launch it like you would any program that you installed regularly from Fedora’s repositories.
Closing Thoughts
MakeMKV may not be entirely open source, but it is a great option for dealing with DRM’d video from DVDs and Blu-Ray on Linux.
MakeMKV enables you to play your videos, and of course, make .mkv file backups when needed.