Install Streamlink, music streaming service for Linux Ubuntu. Streamlink is a command-line utility that pipes video streams from various services into a video player, such as VLC. The main purpose of Streamlink is to allow the user to avoid buggy and CPU heavy flash plugins but still be able to enjoy various streamed content. Streamlink is made up of two parts, a Command-Line Interface and a library API available for developers who want access to the video stream data.
Install Streamlink
Run the following commands in terminal to install Streamlink on Ubuntu Systems:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install streamlink
Using Streamlink
The way Streamlink works is that it’s only a means to extract and transport the streams, and the playback is done by an external video player. Streamlink works best with VLC or mpv, which are also cross-platform, but other players may be compatible too, see the Players page for a complete overview.
Now to get into actually using Streamlink, let’s say you want to watch the stream located on http://twitch.tv/day9tv, you start off by telling Streamlink where to attempt to extract streams from. This is done by giving the URL to the command streamlink as the first argument:
$ streamlink twitch.tv/day9tv
[cli][info] Found matching plugin twitch for URL twitch.tv/day9tv Available streams: audio, high, low, medium, mobile (worst), source (best)
You don’t need to include the protocol when dealing with HTTP URLs, e.g. just twitch.tv/day9tv is enough and quicker to type.
This command will tell Streamlink to attempt to extract streams from the URL specified, and if it’s successful, print out a list of available streams to choose from.
In some cases (Supported streaming protocols) local files are supported using the file:// protocol, for example a local HLS playlist can be played. Relative file paths and absolute paths are supported. All path separators are /, even on Windows.
$ streamlink hlsvariant://file://C:/hls/playlist.m3u8
[cli][info] Found matching plugin stream for URL hlsvariant://file://C:/hls/playlist.m3u8
Available streams: 180p (worst), 272p, 408p, 554p, 818p, 1744p (best)