How to install FFmpeg on Fedora Linux 28, 29 using dnf

When I type ffmpeg -i input output.mp4 on Fedora Linux, I get an error: “bash: ffmpeg: command not found…”. How do I install ffmpeg on Fedora Linux 28 or 29 workstations?

Introduction – FFmpeg is an open source and free software for managing video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams on Linux and Unix-like systems. One can use ffmpeg command for transcoding, video editing, scaling, and much more. This page shows how to install ffmpeg on Fedora Linux using dnf command-line options.

Install FFmpeg on Fedora Linux 28/29

The procedure to enable and install FFmeg on Fedora is as follows:

1. Enable and configure RPM Fusion repo using the dnf
2. Install FFmpeg in Fedora Linux, run: sudo dnf install ffmpeg
3. To upgrade FFmpeg on Fedora, run: sudo dnf upgrade ffmpeg
4. Test ffmpeg command on Fedora

Let us see all commands and examples in details.

How to configure RPM Fusion repo on Fedora Linux

RPM Fusion is a software repository that gives additional packages for the Fedora, RHEL and CentOS Linux. Open the terminal application. Type the following dnf command to enable RPM Fusion repo:
$ sudo 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

Just run:
$ sudo dnf update
Now we have a repo configured and working. Verify that ffmpeg available for installation on Fedora:
$ dnf search ffmpeg
And:
$ dnf info ffmpeg

Fedora Linux install FFmpeg

Install ffmpeg using dnf command as follows:
$ sudo dnf install ffmpeg

Verify FFmpeg installation

Simply run the following command:
ffmpeg
ffmpeg -h
ffmpeg -version
Sample outputs:

ffmpeg version 4.0.3 Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 8 (GCC)
configuration: --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share/ffmpeg --docdir=/usr/share/doc/ffmpeg --incdir=/usr/include/ffmpeg --libdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --arch=x86_64 --optflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Werror=format-security -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -Wp,-D_GLIBCXX_ASSERTIONS -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong -grecord-gcc-switches -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-cc1 -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-annobin-cc1 -m64 -mtune=generic -fasynchronous-unwind-tables -fstack-clash-protection -fcf-protection' --extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now -specs=/usr/lib/rpm/redhat/redhat-hardened-ld ' --extra-cflags=' ' --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-version3 --enable-bzlib --disable-crystalhd --enable-fontconfig --enable-frei0r --enable-gcrypt --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libaom --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libcdio --enable-libdrm --enable-indev=jack --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-nvenc --enable-openal --enable-opencl --enable-opengl --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-librsvg --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libv4l2 --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzvbi --enable-avfilter --enable-avresample --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-libmfx --enable-runtime-cpudetect
libavutil      56. 14.100 / 56. 14.100
libavcodec     58. 18.100 / 58. 18.100
libavformat    58. 12.100 / 58. 12.100
libavdevice    58.  3.100 / 58.  3.100
libavfilter     7. 16.100 /  7. 16.100
libavresample   4.  0.  0 /  4.  0.  0
libswscale      5.  1.100 /  5.  1.100
libswresample   3.  1.100 /  3.  1.100
libpostproc    55.  1.100 / 55.  1.100

How do I use ffmpeg command on Fedora Linux

The basic syntax is:
ffmpeg -i input.file output.file
ffmpeg [input_options] -i input.file output.file
ffmpeg [input_options] -i input.file [output_options] output.file
Say you have a PNG file and want it converted into a JPG file, run:
ffmpeg -i input.png output.png
ls -l input.png output.png
xdg-open output.png
In this example, convert an MP3 file and into an OGG file:
ffmpeg -i music.mp3 music.ogg
Next, convert an MP4 video to a GIF or WEBM format:
ffmpeg -i clip.mp4 video.gif
OR
ffmpeg -i clip.mp4 video.webm

Conclusion

That was a quick introduction on how to install and use ffmpeg on Fedora Linux. The ffmpeg has many more options, see -h option to get full help or, even better, run the following man command:
$ man ffmpeg
$ ffmpeg -h