Arch: Control VLC through terminal commands? (lemmy.world)

submitted 22 hours ago by AstroLightz@lemmy.world to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I'm making a Python script to play music through VLC and I wanted to add a way to control audio playback of VLC, like pause/play, next/previous, etc.

I know I can change shuffle mode before launching VLC with the --random and --no-random arguments. However, is there a way to change playback settings through the Linux terminal while VLC is running?

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[-] Maxy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 22 hours ago

VLC appears to support MPRIS, so commands like

$ playerctl play-pause
$ playerctl next
$ playerctl previous

Should be able to control it. See the Relevant arch wiki page for more info.

VLC also appears to have a TUI interface. Check out the VLC wiki

[-] AstroLightz@lemmy.world 2 points 20 hours ago

Thank you so much! One more thing: would there be a way to check if the user has playerctl installed on their system? Or is there a Python package like it?

[-] WronglyCommute@programming.dev 1 points 6 hours ago

You could always run whereis playerctl and parse the output with awk or sed

[-] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

whereis is not a Bash built-in so it may itself not be installed, plus it exits 0 and returns output even on no match requiring additional logic/processing. which or command are more robust choices for this usecase

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this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026

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