what version of sdftool and sdf.bin should be used with makemkv 1.17.7?

[librelibre]

When I check sdftool --version it says it's 2.6 which I think belongs to 1.8,3, which sounds like won't work? because you're supposed to use 1.17.7 Or do they both use the same version of sdftool? For some reason I thought they used different version.

Also sdf.bin has it changed? What happens if I have a more recent one with 1.17.7 ? Downloaded here: https://makemkv.com/sdf.bin

[tomty89]

which I think belongs to 1.8,3

According to your other thread, you didn't exactly have the "whole" makemkv in your system downgraded "properly", but instead you just downloaded the older "bin" part and run it "directly". In other words, sdftool and makemkvcon installed to one of your PATH (e.g. /usr/bin) aren't replaced with the older version.

With that said, sdftool is really just a symlink to makemkvcon, i.e., it's just the same executable that responds differently when run with different name. While I'm not 100% sure, my *guess* is that when you flash with makemkvcon, it doesn't rely on the symlink to "trigger" / "launch" the respectively "flashing / sdftool part" of itself anyway, so probably you would be fine.

Nevertheless, you may create a symlink under the same directory and *prepend* `.` or its absolute path to the PATH env var of the shell instance you use to run the older makemkvcon (and terminate the instance once you are done). (Or do something like `PATH=.:"$PATH" makemkvcon ...` which modifies only the PATH for that command.)

I have no idea whether the newer oss part / shared libraries installed to the system would cause you problem though. A couple days ago when I flash my drive, I build also the older version of the oss part and did a proper package downgrade instead. (I replaced the libffabi source in the older version with that of the latest version so that it can be built against the newer ffmpeg in my system.)

Code: Select all

What happens if I have a more recent one with 1.17.7 ? Downloaded here: https://makemkv.com/sdf.bin

No problem with that when I was flashing my ASUS BC-12D2HT (with the respective MK firmware).

[librelibre]

I gave up and tried installing makemkv 1.17.7 to another directory and running that. It seems to have the same issue. Unclear on what I'm supposed to symlink to?

[tomty89]

With that said, sdftool is really just a symlink to makemkvcon

It's not really a matter of whether you are "installing to another directory". When you run `sdftool` in a shell, the shell will look for one from the paths in its PATH environment variable. For example, if `printenv PATH` returns `/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin`, then it will search for one in /usr/local/bin and /usr/bin in that order and run the first one it finds.

So unless the "another directory" is something that has a higher precedence in the PATH list (than where the existing installation installed to), and that the new installation process makes the sdftool symlink in that directory as well (to the older makemkvcon installed to the same directory), you'll keep getting the newer / existing sdftool / makemkvcon run.

(Note that running `some_executable` and running `./some_executable` are very different instructions. The latter runs the some_executable in the *current directory*. *Yet* it does NOT mean that if that some_executable in turn execute e.g. some another_executable it would always be one under the same directory -- what/which will be executed entirely depends on how the code of some_executable is written.)

But again, while which sdftool get executed by your shell depends on PATH, it does NOT necessarily mean that it is also the case of makemkvcon when you are running the older makemkvcon successfully (because as mentioned, they are really just one same executable blob) -- it could really be "executing sdftool" through the means of calling a function / subroutine in itself.

[librelibre]

Ok I saw the sdftool link that seems to point back at makemkvcon of the same directory, So in usr/bin (v 1.18.3) sdftool points to makemkvcon in usr/bin. In the makemkv 1.17.7/bin it points to the makemkvcon in that 1.17.7 install directory.

So I went into the makemkv 1.17.7 bin folder and since it seems the sdftool symlink there points to makemkvcon in that same folder (1.17.7). Ran from there `./sdftool --version` and it reports the same version. Not sure if that makes a difference or not...

[tomty89]

As I said, you can do something like `PATH=.:"$PATH" makemkvcon ...` (given that . aka the current directory is where the older makemkvcon is) if you want to "play safe", but apparently neither that or the sdftool symlink is necessary anyway.