When using the package manager you don't need to install anything before installing a package. The manager takes care of all the dependencies.
There are occasions that a user may have broken packages due to installing something that could corrupt their default libraries. When that is the case, appropriate messages will be shown to the user of what to do to fix the problem.
From the content in your question, it suggests you have a new installation. Some libraries and packages are not updated on an initial install. With time the system will automatically update your libraries and dependent packages. This process also happens more automatic when you use the GUI package manager, Ubuntu Software. You can get to it by typing software
after clicking the applications menu (The button at the bottom of the side panel).
When running the terminal package manager, apt, you would have to manually perform the updates with the following commands. The first two commands update your libraries and dependency packages. The third command installs your intended app.
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt install vlc
If your libraries are up-to-date, the next time you don't have to run the first two commands. You may not have to run it for months. But it would never hurt to run them most of the time when you are installing a new application. Many application install instructions include those two commands as part of the install procedure.
There are rarely conflicts and problems when using applications from the default repository. If there are problems as mentioned above, the output will be very specific to what the problem is as well as the command to fix it.
apt
is a later version ofapt-get
. It has consolidated commands from theapt-get
suite. It also has some extended features.dpkg -l | grep ^..r
?