I only use mpv for video playback under Plasma 6, which is why I never installed the vlc player on my computer in the first place (constant performance problems with vlc). With the update to Plasma 6, however, vlc was installed as part of the dependency of phonon-qt6-vlc without being asked, as the Arch developers probably don’t want to go to the trouble of making phonon-qt6 available as a standalone. Under arch I was therefore able to dispose of vlc after the following workaround:
Uninstall VLC under Plasma 6 (dependency phonon-qt6-vlc):
=> Install phonon-qt6-mpv-git first
=> Then uninstall phonon-qt6-vlc
=> After you have uninstalled phonon-qt6-vlc, then uninstall vlc
Source: some post from the EndeavourOS forum, I no longer have the link.
Question: can this method also be used under Manjaro (KDE) without breaking anything?
While it may in theory be possible, i would consider twice before replacing a system library with something from aur, let alone git. And on the stable branch it is asking for trouble. With every next update you will cross fingers and pray for it to compile or you will not be able to update anything. It is not worth it for a couple of MB space.
p.s. yes i forgot: you will officially have an unsupported system
phonon-qt6-mpv-git is an AUR package, you should be aware of the possible issues that might arise if you make your system dependent on an AUR package, especially if you’re on Manjaro stable branch (which is not the same as Arch or EOS).
It may or may not work, but it is definitely not supported on Manjaro.
I realize that, I was more concerned with the problems that Manjaro has with the AUR.
Thanks @MrLavender , I had feared something like that. For me, the question was less about saving disk space and more about getting rid of something that I’ll never use again and consider to be an old burden. But well, let it stay …
Also the vlc is the only supported backend for Plasma.
The gstreamer backend has not been updated in years (even if someone ported it to qt6) and is rightly considered deprecated.
Yes, given the dependencies this means you need to have vlc installed on KDE.
Yes, it would be good if phonon-qt6-mpv could appear as an alternative in the repos at some point. After all, the popularity of mpv is also increasing.
but, as I see it:
it is not about the plugin - or the purpose of it
It is about the functionality to the plasma environment.
Which is “proven” with vlc.
It’s easy to divert - to mpv.
Whatever may be holding back from it is their decision.
Personally: I can’t understand the fear of AUR.
People just don’t know what it is and how it works - and dont’ bother to learn about it.
What’s stopping me … Well, it worked well under EndeavourOS (Arch), but they don’t have the same problems with the accessibility of the AUR as Manjaro does.
It’s too important for the whole system and as I wrote in another post about vorta: The availability of the packages might not be so reliable in the long run.
Being creative you could create a dummy package providing phonon-qt6-backend - but the consequences should be researched and carefully considered.
Due to the gap between Manjaro stable branch and Arch proper - a gap that lastet 2 months when Plasma 6 was released - it is recommended to not use AUR.
However using testing or unstable branch you would have the same issues or lack thereof as any Arch user.
It is important to remember that certain dependencies will have different naming - and you have to be able to choose the correct packages - e.g. linux-headers which is a dependency of dkms - can only be resolved correct on Manjaro by pointing to the relevant linuxXY-headers package.
As for vorta - it has been moved from AUR to the repo and is currently in unstable branch
I suspected that much so as it is AUR and @anon77480351 on stable branch - it is possible to remove vlc by building a custom package - just as it was referenced being done on EOS and Arch Linux.
so as it is AUR and