Are you still waiting for the arrival of the Adobe suite on Linux? Have you repeatedly tried using Premiere through Wine? Are you still wondering why Apple doesn’t release Final Cut Pro in Linux native version?
If you answered yes to one or all of these questions, then you’ve come to the right place. We also know that Final Cut is the mantra for elegant Apple users, we also know that Premiere is the top non-plus-ultra for new generation content creators, but we also know that we are talking about medium-high-quality products. Yes, because the professionals, those at the top of the cinema and video productions, use something else.
Ever heard of LightWorks or Davinci Resolve? And have you ever known that they are both available for Linux?
DaVinci Resolve 16 from BlackMagic. The professional video editing
DaVinci Resolve is the world’s only solution that combines professional 8K editing, color correction, visual effects, and audio post-production all in one software tool. You can instantly move between editing, color, effects, and audio with a single click.
Resolve Studio (the more PRO and paid version) is also the only solution designed for multi-user collaboration so editors, assistants, colorists, VFX artists, and sound designers can all work live on the same project at the same time! Whether you’re an individual artist, or part of a large collaborative team, it’s easy to see why DaVinci Resolve is the standard for high-end post-production and finishing on more Hollywood feature films, television shows and commercials than any other software.
DaVinci Resolve includes everything professional editors need to cut blockbuster films, television shows, and commercials. It’s perfect for both offline and online editing. The high-performance playback engine makes editing and trimming incredibly fast, even for processor intensive formats such as H.264 and RAW. To learn more about the power of Resolve, check this page.
AMD, Linux, and DaVinci Resolve. The perfect combo for free and professional video editing
DaVinci suggests using Nvidia graphics cards due to some issues encountered in the past between AMD graphics cards and the Resolve program. But we know very well what it means to use Nvidia with Linux, right?
So here’s very interesting news: DaVinci Resolve works very well with AMD graphics cards on the Linux platform. There are some small issues in general, but only due to Resolve’s youth under Linux. We will, however, see these later.
Last, but not least, Resolve on openSUSE Linux is super stable, also on Tumbleweed, but we clearly suggest you to use Leap if you want to do ‘professional’ video editing to minimize the sources of present and future problems.
So, let’s see how to create the perfect combo (AMD + openSUSE + DaVinci Resolve) for video editing under Linux.
How to install AMD drivers and DaVinci Resolve on openSUSE Linux systems
When you install openSUSE Linux on a system with AMD graphics cards, you get the opensource AMDGPU driver. It works so nice and flawless, but it’s not working with OpenCL computational tasks such as mining or professional video editing. We are still waiting for that day, but sadly it is not today.
So, to have DaVinci Resolve working on openSUSE, we need to install the AMDGPU-PRO driver, the closed source one.
The first step is to download the driver from the appropriate source (link below). At this time, the latest one is the Radeon Revision Number 20.10 and the appropriate version for SUSE/openSUSE systems is the Radeon Software for Linux driver for SLED/SLES 15 SP1. You can directly download it from this link: Radeon Software for Linux driver for SLED/SLES 15 SP1 Download.
Extract the TAR.XZ archive anywhere in your computer (e. g. in /tmp directory) and extract it. Enter the directory where you have extracted the driver and open a terminal:
$ ./amdgpu-pro-install --opencl=legacy,pal #headless install of the driver
Follow the instruction and complete the installation. If you have encountered issues, you can use Yast or Zypper (openSUSE AMDGPU-PRO YaST procedure) to install it with its repository. Up to you.
Download DaVinci Resolve from here and remember that Resolve for Linux is a free download and does not require a license dongle or an activation. Then, unzip the archive and make executable the installer:
$ unzip ~/Downloads/DaVinci_Resolve_16.2_Linux.zip
$ chmod +x ~/Downloads/DaVinci_Resolve_16.2_Linux/DaVinci_Resolve_16.2_Linux.run
Then install DaVinci Resolve from the terminal:
$ sudo ~/Downloads/DaVinci_Resolve_16.2_Linux/DaVinci_Resolve_16.2_Linux.run -i
Now, you can find Resolve icon on your desktop and on your Applications Launcher. Double click (or single-click, depends on your desktop environment) on Resolve to launch it and …surprise! It doesn’t work. 😥😥😥
We need some additional steps to make it working. So, on a terminal:
$ sudo zypper in libopenssl1_0_0
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libssl.so.1.1 /opt/resolve/bin/libssl.so.10 #check your version under /usr/lib
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libcrypto.so.1.1 /opt/resolve/bin/libcrypto.so.1 #check your version under /usr/lib
Restart your system and you’re done. Just launch DaVinci Resolve from the Applications Button or Launcher, or by double-clicking (or single-clicking on KDE or Elementary) the desktop shortcut.
If you need to uninstall all:
$ ./amdgpu-pro-install --uninstall #this command uninstall the AMDGPU-PRO driver
$ sudo zypper remove libopenssl1_0_0
$ sudo rm -f -r /opt/resolve #remove the Resolve folder
$ sudo rm /usr/share/applications/Resolve.desktop #delete the desktop shortcut
Alternatively, to uninstall DaVinci Resolve 16, you can use the useful application shortcut Uninstall DaVinci Resolve under the Applications Button or Launcher.
DaVinci Resolve on Linux. Issues while importing video and audio formats
Unfortunately, DaVinci Resolve is very powerful but on Linux, it presents some annoying problems in the free version, the solution is, therefore, to switch to the PRO version, which is DaVinci Resolve Studio or alternatively to use some workarounds.
DaVinci Resolve Studio 16 includes everything in the free version plus DaVinci Neural Engine features, multi-user collaboration, stereoscopic 3D tools, dozens of ResolveFX and FairlightFX plugins, HDR grading, film grain, blur and mist effects, and more. For more info on the Studio version, click this link.
The workarounds are simple and use the swiss-knife FFmpeg. So, first install it:
$ sudo zypper in ffmpeg
You can use DNF or APT to install package on Fedora or Ubuntu.
Now, to convert audio and video from a file to DNxHD, a format that Resolve like more, do this:
$ ffmpeg -i INPUT-VIDEO-FILE.mp4 -c:v dnxhd -profile:v dnxhr_hq -pix_fmt yuv422p -c:a pcm_s16le OUTPUT-VIDEO-FILE.mov
INPUT-VIDEO-FILE could be MP4 but also AVI, MOV or another format. You can use FFmpeg to convert everything to something that Resolve like and do all the workarounds you need. It is an additional step, it is annoying, but it is fully working and it permits you to use the full power of DaVinci Resolve on Linux. So…
And, now, you can easily import the new file into the DaVinci Resolve workbench.
References and resources
- Adobe Premiere Pro | Professional Video Editor – https://www.adobe.com/products/premiere.html
- Apple Final Cut Pro | Video post‑production – https://www.apple.com/final-cut-pro/
- LightWorks | The complete video creation package – https://www.lwks.com
- DaVinci Resolve | The professional 8K editing solution – https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/
- AMD Radeon cards | Linux driver and support – https://www.amd.com/en/support
- Nvidia graphics cards | Linux driver and support – https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/
- openSUSE | The makers’ choice for sysadmins, developers and desktop users – https://www.opensuse.org/
- OpenCL | Open Computing Language – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCL
- openSUSE AMDGPU | The opensource driver – https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:AMDGPU
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