How to install the LosslessCut video editor on Linux
Need a tool to quickly cut and trim lossless video or audio files on Linux? Check out LosslessCut. It’s an electron-based video/audio trimming tool that can handle as much lossless video footage or audio files as you can throw at it. Here’s how to install LosslessCut on Linux.
Note: LosslessCut also runs on Mac and Windows. For more information on those versions of the application, click on this link here.
Install LosslessCut stable
LosslessCut is not a traditional program, and the developer has released no DEB or RPM packages, or even an AppImage for users to use. Since there are no Linux packages to download, we need to work with the generic binary file on the project’s GitHub page to run the app.
To get your hands on the latest Linux binary release for LosslessCut, open up a terminal window by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. Then, use the wget download command to grab the release archive directly from the internet.
Note: LosslessCut does not support 32-bit. If you require 32-bit, consider trying to build the program from source instead.
cd ~/Downloads && wget https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut/releases/download/v2.4.0/LosslessCut-linux-x64.zip
After the wget command finishes the process of downloading the LosslessCut Linux binary archive, you’ll need to install the unzip tool to your computer so that you can extract the contents of the file. To install unzip, follow the command-line instructions below that correspond with the operating system you use.
Ubuntu
On Ubuntu, Unzip can quickly be installed with the Apt command.
sudo apt install unzip
Debian
Those on Debian Linux can easily set up Unzip with the Apt-get command.
sudo apt-get install unzip
Arch Linux
Arch Linux users can get their hands on the Unzip tool with the Pacman command.
sudo pacman -S unzip
Fedora
Using Fedora Linux? Install the Unzip application with the Dnf command.
sudo dnf install unzip
OpenSUSE
On OpenSUSE Linux, the Unzip app is installable with the Zypper command.
sudo zypper install unzip
With the Unzip application set up on your Linux PC, the LosslessCut archive file can be fully extracted with the commands below.
First, move into the “Downloads” directory using the CD command.
cd ~/Downloads/
Extract the Zip archive with unzip.
unzip LosslessCut-linux-x64.zip
Set up the LosslessCut binary
LosslessCut can run directly from the folder extracted with the Unzip tool. That said, running the program in this way is incredibly inconvenient, and the last thing anyone would want to do before editing some video clips. So, in this section, we will go over how to set up LosslessCut on your Linux PC, complete with a desktop shortcut.
To start, the LosslessCut folder in “Downloads” must be put in the “opt” directory. To do this, start by moving your terminal session to the root user using sudo -s.
Note: do not use su! The sudo -s command will keep you in “Downloads,” and is better suited for this operation.
sudo -s
Now that the terminal window has access to root, use the mv command and place the “LosslessCut” directory in “opt.”
mv LosslessCut-linux-x64/ /opt/LosslessCut/
With the file in place, use the touch command to create a new shortcut file for LosslessCut in “/usr/share/applications/.”
touch /usr/share/applications/losslesscut.desktop
Using the wget downloading tool, grab the following PNG file to use as the icon for your desktop shortcut.
wget https://www.pngrepo.com/download/51032/video-editing.png -O icon.png
Place the newly downloaded “icon.png” file into the “/opt/resources/” directory using the mv command.
mv icon.png /opt/LosslessCut/resources/
Open up the “losslesscut.desktop” file in the Nano text editor with the command below.
nano -w /usr/share/applications/losslesscut.desktop
Paste the following code into the Nano text editor. To paste, press Ctrl + Shift + V.
[Desktop Entry]
Name=LosslessCut
GenericName=Video Editor
Comment=LosslessCut video editor.
Type=Application
Exec=/opt/LosslessCut/LosslessCut
Icon=/opt/LosslessCut/resources/icon.png
Categories=AudioVideo;AudioVideoEditing;
After pasting the code into the Nano text editor, save the changes by pressing the Ctrl + O keyboard combination. Then, close the Nano text editor by pressing Ctrl + X. Once out of Nano, use the chmod command to set the permissions of the new desktop shortcut file.
chmod +x /usr/share/applications/losslesscut.desktop
Now that the new LosslessCut desktop shortcut file’s permissions have been updated and it is executable, you’ll be able to run the app by clicking on it in the “Multimedia” section.
Source code
The source code for LosslessCut is available on GitHub if you’d prefer to download it and build the app yourself, rather than using the Linux generic binary covered in this article. For more information on how to build LosslessCut from source on Linux, click here.
Thanks for directions to Flathub …( https://flathub.org/apps/details/no.mifi.losslesscut )
All good.
Have previously tried multiple editors. All failed to edit and give me what I wanted, in the format I wanted.
My video is now trimmed, with audio.
Simple.
Cheers
Sent comment recently. No reply.
Followed all instructions twice.
Got to pasting text into Nano. After Ctrl + O whole terminal freezes.
Can’t Ctrl + X. Nothing happens. Can’t continue installation.
Since writing this article, Lossless cut has been added to the Flathub app store. Consider installing this version instead to get the app working.
https://flathub.org/apps/details/no.mifi.losslesscut
Mx Linux, using Chrome.
Really informative.
Get as far as Nano text insertion, but get a warning that paste text could be dangerous ..”do you want to continue?
Accepting this with Ctrl + O, terminal freezes.
Can’t Ctrl + X. Nothing.
AppImage truly is just there to confuse. It is not user friendly that one has to chmod it via command line (or GUI, same difference, too many additional steps) for permissions! No two ways about it. Snaps and flatpaks have always worked at least for me.
sudo chmod a+x LosslessCut-linux.AppImage
[sudo] password for tux:
~/Downloads ❯❯❯ ./LosslessCut-linux.AppImage
[21803:0328/115134.586394:FATAL:setuid_sandbox_host.cc(157)] The SUID sandbox helper binary was found, but is not configured correctly. Rather than run without sandboxing I’m aborting now. You need to make sure that /tmp/.mount_Lossle8FT943/chrome-sandbox is owned by root and has mode 4755.
[1] 21803 trace trap ./LosslessCut-linux.AppImage
-and i can’t use the snap package on this system. What to do?
Thanks.
Hopelessly complex! This is way easier, 1 command to always download the LATEST version of LosslessCut + unpack the file. 1 command to move it to the right directory, 1 command to create the shortcut file and 1 command to make it executable. Downloading some 3rd party icon is unnessary as every system has proper video icons:
wget -qO- https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut/releases/latest/download/LosslessCut-linux.tar.bz2 | tar xvf –
sudo mv LosslessCut-linux/ /opt/LosslessCut/
sudo tee -a /usr/share/applications/losslesscut.desktop << EOF
[Desktop Entry]
Name=LosslessCut
GenericName=Video Editor
Comment=LosslessCut video editor.
Type=Application
Exec=/opt/LosslessCut/losslesscut
Icon=video-player
Categories=AudioVideo;Video;AudioVideoEditing
EOF
chmod +x /usr/share/applications/LosslessCut.desktop
I can’t understand ine thing: you wrote to put the file in /opt… but the new Debian (Buster) has the /opt in /var (/var/opt). I tried to oink everything but program doesn’t load… why? Is it possible fix it for Debian Buster? How?
Hi.Thanks for the article.
I did not notice any errors but I don’t get a Menu entry. Any ideas?
Below is my Terminal text.
Thanks!
Cheers,
Kris
user@dell-laptop:~$ sudo -s
[sudo] password for user:
root@dell-laptop:~# dir
Desktop Documents Downloads Music Pictures Public Templates Videos
root@dell-laptop:~# cd downloads
bash: cd: downloads: No such file or directory
root@dell-laptop:~# cd Dpwnloads
bash: cd: Dpwnloads: No such file or directory
root@dell-laptop:~# dir
Desktop Documents Downloads Music Pictures Public Templates Videos
root@dell-laptop:~#
root@dell-laptop:~#
root@dell-laptop:~# cd Downloads
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads#
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads#
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads# dir
LosslessCut-linux LosslessCut-linux.tar.bz2
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads# mv LosslessCut-linux /opt/LosslessCut/
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads#
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads# touch /usr/share/applications/losslesscut.desktoproot@dell-laptop:~/Downloads# wget https://www.pngrepo.com/download/51032/video-editing.png -O icon.png
–2020-05-31 18:16:16– https://www.pngrepo.com/download/51032/video-editing.png
Resolving www.pngrepo.com (www.pngrepo.com)… 2606:4700:3036::6812:3f46, 2606:4700:3030::ac43:cf44, 2606:4700:3031::6812:3e46, …
Connecting to www.pngrepo.com (www.pngrepo.com)|2606:4700:3036::6812:3f46|:443… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: unspecified [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘icon.png’
icon.png [ ] 16.95K –.-KB/s in 0.001s
2020-05-31 18:16:17 (16.0 MB/s) – ‘icon.png’ saved [17361]
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads# mv icon.png /opt/LosslessCut/resources/
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads# nano -w /usr/share/applications/losslesscut.desktop
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads#
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads#
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads# chmod +x /usr/share/applications/losslesscut.desktop
root@dell-laptop:~/Downloads#