After spending a lot of time, I managed to install ffmpeg on mediatemple’s grid server.

While searching, I came across this: http://www.sherin.co.in/ffmpeg/
That guy wrote a script to install ffmpeg and a lot of other programs. Script automatically downloads the libraries and compiles them. Later, it installs the executables to :
/home/[hostnumber]/users/.home/bin
and libraries to :
/home/[hostnumber]/users/.home/bin

In order to make this work you have to be logged in with your serveradmin username/password.

After a long installation process some programs like mencoder work smoothly but ffmpeg doesn’t run from ssh. In the forums some person said that he managed to get it work with this php code:

exec("export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/home/[username]/lib; $my_command_with_parameters”, $output)

so this translates to gridserver accounts as:

exec("export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/home/[yournumber]/users/.home/lib; $my_command_with_parameters”, $output)

Nice! ffmpeg is working now.

I also need python for the project but the default python installation located in /usr/bin/python doesn’t have imaging module and system doesn’t allow me to add new ones. So I tried to install my own copy of python in my home directory.

Installing python with ./configure –prefix … ended up just great and now I am able to manage python modules.

I am working on the coding of the project. Php, python and Arduino is used in order to realize it. Right now, I am having trouble finding a good hosting option. I might host part of the project at home, myself. In the mean time, I gathered most of the electronics; Arduino, RGB Leds, Ethernet module.

From now on, I will be posting more stuff about the building process.