Vivaldi + Web Media on Arch Linux

[squidd]

Vivaldi is amazing. I love the speed dial, notes features, theme features, almost everything. On my Windows install Vivaldi is absolutely flawless. It works pretty well (even though it takes forever to compile) on my ARM based Pinebook Pro. But on my x86 desktop that has Arch installed, I can NOT get Vivaldi + the mpeg codecs extras package to work. It was working at one point in time, but I updated the base Vivaldi PKG from the AUR when it became available, and haven't been able to get it working correctly since. I have been using Chromium and Firefox since then. I am really missing Vivaldi on my desktop though. No matter what I do I am still getting the warning that I am not able to play media on launch, and the videos aren't showing up on the tester links.

EDIT - My only complaint about Vivaldi is the bookmarks ads. I have a lot of devices that I sign in on and use the sync feature. I hate having to go through and delete all of those unwanted bookmarks that are automatically added. Yes, it's a quality of life issue and doesn't affect the functionality, but they should really talk about only adding the bookmarks on first time installs. And if I sync my existing bookmarks from the cloud, if I don't have those ad links bookmarked, they should be removed during the sync.

[A Former User]

I recommend you installing both vivaldi and vivaldi-ffmpeg-codecs (or vivaldi-snapshot and vivaldi-snapshot-ffmpeg-codecs) from the herecura repo; installing from the AUR often causes issues. If the warning still appears, run sudo /opt/vivaldi/update-ffmpeg (or with vivaldi-snapshot).

About the bookmarks: I don’t use sync and this may not work, but why don’t you simply delete the default bookmarks before syncing?

[BoneTone]

@squidd said in Vivaldi + Web Media on Arch Linux:

only adding the bookmarks on first time installs

That's how it currently works. Just delete the bookmarks after install prior to logging into sync and they won't propagate to other devices. Of course, once you delete them, that delete will also propagate to other devices through sync as well. There are only a handful, they exist in only a couple folders, and you can also sort by date to easily delete them if you don't delete them before logging into sync.

[Steffie]

Exactly as per @potmeklecbohdan wrote, using the herecura repo is definitely the way to go, for both vanilla Arch, & also all the Archies [MJ, ArchLabs, ArcoLinux, EOS, Anarchy et al].

Please be aware though that atm the current Snapshot is problematic for some, but not all, Nix users. I'm one for whom it fails to launch in 100% of my distros, Arch & non-Arch alike. However other Nixers in the forum have no hassles with this Snapshot. So, you might need to approach it as a lucky-dip [this is a temporary issue; highly atypical]. You can read about it in
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/49721/usa-today-loading-fix-vivaldi-browser-snapshot-2009-3/

[squidd]

There was an update on the AUR this morning, and it fixed it. I have seen the hercura repo, and if/when the issue happens again i will install from that repo. thanks all.

[BoneTone]

@squidd the benefit of the repo is that Vivaldi gets updated like every other package on your system when you update through pacman. It's managing your system the way Arch is designed to be managed, preventing running in an unsupported state. You no longer have to keep track of Vivaldi updates and install them manually, you won't be able to install a Vivaldi update without picking up any system changes on which the new Vivaldi is dependent. And obviously, it saves time not having to build Vivaldi on your system as well.

Edit: typo correction