I need recommendations for a stable release distro for OBS Studio livestreaming and light video editing. This machine will be shared between several users who are techies, although not necessarily Linux (they’re coming from Windows). I don’t want to worry about things breaking because of an update, or to start a shoot only to find problems once we’re live.
Nvidia and nonfree codecs should be treated as first-class citizens. H.264 w/ AAC will be everywhere with this workflow.
Some thoughts:
Linux Mint Debian Edition: Currently my top choice. It just works?
Fedora Bazzite: My second choice, maybe with auto-update disabled. Seems a bit risky though in the case of security updates to packages.
OpenSUSE: I run Slowroll on my laptop and work desktop, however recent package management errors relating to codecs and the packman repo have spooked me away.
Debian: Release cadance seems too slow for my preference.
I recommend you Aurora. It is basically Bazzite, which you already suggested, but without gaming stuff.
Why do I recommend you that?
- The auto updates are amazing. Don’t disable them. It isn’t like on Windows, where it just randomly says “Updating, please don’t shut down your PC” midst working. They get just staged, so they are only applied passively on the next boot. You don’t notice them.
- Rollbacks: If an update introduced breaking bugs or whatever, you can just keep holding the space bar while booting, and you can select the image from yesterday. Everything is left how it was yesterday. You probably never have to use that feature anyway, the system is super reliable.
- The release schedule. This one is the most important aspect for your case. uBlue (Bazzite, Aurora, Bluefin, etc.) started offering different variants/ tags if the same image.
There’s now a
GTSvariant around, which uses the last big release of Fedora, which is still kept up to date maintenance wise. So, you are always half a year behind in terms of new features, but it has been tested for half a year more than regular Fedora or the other images. When you choose the more conservative GTS variant, you’ll get way fewer surprises.
After installation, you can hop into the terminal and use the
ujust rebase-helper, where you can select which image variant you want to havelatest: synchronous with Fedorastable(default): features are two weeks behindgts: already said, last release, but still secure and more polished.
I think it is the perfect balance for you between “Debian is too stale” and “Fedora and many other distros change too often”.
This sounds great.
I use Debian for anything that matters. The release cadence means that stuff just works and keeps working. You cannot beat the documentation and I’ve been using it for 25 years.
I’m not touching anything Redhat / Fedora with a barge pole.
Not sure what the attraction to Mint is.
Never used OpenSUSE.
Since you’re a Linux old-timer, what’s your beef with Fedora, if you don’t mind sharing?
That’s a big question, but I don’t trust Red Hat after the stunts they’ve pulled over the years. Here’s a taste.
Ah, I see. It doesn’t particularly bother me, but I can appreciate why it might bother somebody else with different values.
Thanks!
It goes well beyond bother.
In my opinion, the biggest issue is that software with a GPL licence is not permitted to be distributed without making the source code available, which Red Hat restricted to only paying customers, and in doing so added a licence restriction which is not permitted by the GPL.
They are now profiting off the work of every developer who ever contributed to the software they’re selling and none of those people are getting paid.
I see that, now that you explain it that way. That does seem ethically questionable.
I’ll have to take some time to learn more about the details, so I can make my own informed decision.
I can vouch for Linux Mint / LMDE; their pre-installed software and defaults seem very sensible and I need far less set-up, fixing and fiddling (esp. with NVidea hardware; the open-source driver refused to make anything run on GPU with my Asus ROG Strix GTX 970) then on bare-bones Debian or Ubuntu LTS.
All four mentioned here have very stable and safe release schedules.Bazzite’s defaults help a lot with gaming (and that stupid NVidea driver) and the initial welcome-screen helps you install the Steam, Lutris, OBS, etc. you want and leave out anything you don’t. It’s actually helpful, really!
I do want to add Bazzite’s team seems to have only one person who can sign releases, and they did misplace a key at least once leading to nobody receiving updates until they replaced the key in their installation.
Their team management does not seem the best; assuming this was a one-off thing Bazzite can still be a great, stable choice.I do want to add Bazzite’s team seems to have only one person who can sign releases, and they did misplace a key at least once leading to nobody receiving updates until they replaced the key in their installation.
Not to be “that guy,” but I would like some sources on this. As far as I understand it, the signing happens automatically in GitHub via the private keys during the automated build process.
Additionally, they didn’t misplace a key; they didn’t yet have a process in place for pushing a new key to end-users (they had/have a plan to rotate their signing keys from time to time). Details about what happened can be found here. In my year of using Bazzite, I haven’t seen this issue reoccur, so I am writing under the assumption that they’ve indeed fixed the internal process that caused the problem.
is support a factor in your decision? if so i would go with opensuse since it has options to let get enterprise support should you end up needing it. (anecdotally: redhat & canonical’s support are better; ESPECIALLY landscape since you mentioned nvidia & proprietary codecs, but it is very pricey)
Does LMDE do wayland? If not, I wouldn’t bother.
Bazzite or some other Fedora variant. Nobara has some tweaks for nVidia, full codec support, and specifically supports programs like daVinci Resolve, KDenlive and OBS Studio in the Welcome screen. Not an immutable distro like Bazzite though, which depending on how you like to install stuff, might not be a bad thing.
MX (Debian + Nvidia + tools to make use easier).
Debian: Release cadance seems too slow for my preference.
Install OBS and other software from flatpak
Flatpak solves some of these. It would allow newer software on Debian. They’re packaged with codecs, so you don’t need to bother with Packman on Tumbleweed.
I like Debian. To save you the misery, though, you should probably just use the OBS Flatpak with it. I used to be a “native” pedant, but these days, I at minimum consider Flatpak a VERY necessary evil, if an evil at all.
I’m still a “native” pendant and use Docker to bridge the gap.
NixOS or Fedora.
stable release
NixOSYeah, nah. Let them have Debian/LMDE, or (Atomic) Fedora, instead.
NixOS is set up and forget.
And that setting up, and updating it, takes much technical knowledge, a lot of time, and the packages and their updates come from whoever on the internet much like the AUR.
For stability, I would not recommend NixOS, at all.Agreed. I would recommend it for reproducibility, and it’s mostly stable, but it’s like Arch Linux for people who think Arch is too easy. Plus, the documentation still sucks. The basic packaging tutorial for something new that’s not in the repos is essentially, “Here’s how to make a ‘Hello World’ package… And now that those five steps are complete, you are a NixOS master who can package anything.”
I hope it comes into its own, sincerely, but it’s definitely not for the average user just yet.
