OBS Studio arrives on Steam but no Linux build for now so stick to Flatpak

weird that there's no Linux version under Steam o.O ...seems like an obvious inclusion

also re: downloading:
you can also, ya know.. just get it from the Ubuntu repository for those that run it

you can also, ya know.. just get it from the Ubuntu repository for those that run it

Maybe that's why they don't hurry with the Linux version. Possibly they're just trying to make it available easier to combat that streamlabs thing, which is only for windows anyway.

you can also, ya know.. just get it from the Ubuntu repository for those that run it

You mean the outdated, potentially broken version (just like most packages in universe/multiverse)?


Last edited by AsciiWolf on 22 Mar 2022 at 1:38 pm UTC

weird that there's no Linux version under Steam o.O ...seems like an obvious inclusion

also re: downloading:
you can also, ya know.. just get it from the Ubuntu repository for those that run it

Shipping Linux versions of an app on Steam isn't super easy since it has to be "portable", meaning that it has to include (most of) its dependencies and be compiled against an older glibc to run on a wide variety of systems.
In OBS' case this is just a lot of work since it has a fuckton of dependencies that need to be compiled essentially from scratch to work in the Steam Linux Runtime or at least on an older LTS distro.

All in all we just didn't have the time yet. There were many other things in the works that should make this easier though.

you can also, ya know.. just get it from the Ubuntu repository for those that run it

You mean the outdated, potentially broken version (just like most packages in universe/multiverse)?

I guess? I mean, it's worked fine for me... just letting people know it exists (besides flatpak)

you can also, ya know.. just get it from the Ubuntu repository for those that run it

You mean the outdated, potentially broken version (just like most packages in universe/multiverse)?

There is also the official PPA with the newest version.

Why should (Arch) Linux users stick to Flatpak from Flathub? What are the advantages by using it and not the distribution provided package, if any?
If I am not failing in seeing only disadvantages in this case, could we please stop unconditionally promoting Flathub packages?

The advantage is that it's first-party, fully supported, and contains all the features including service integrations, browser sources, etc. that are often missing from third-party packages. Flathub also makes it possible to install various popular plugins that may or may not be available as system packages.

In this specific case that Flatpak also allows us to patch the dependencies to work around bugs that haven't been fixed in upstream yet, or enable features that aren't available in the specific release it's using.

I list the Flatpak as it's the only official cross-distro solution used by the developer. Simple as that. I shall continue to link to Flathub / Flatpak whenever it's available because it works across any distribution AND Steam Deck too. You can argue about preferred packaging all you want, stick to whatever you like, this is the easiest for users so we don't have to list a million ways of installing things across many different distributions.

I shouldn't need to explain the same thing over and over and over again to give in to pedantic attitudes over packaging.

Also, and absolutely not rhetoric, but really, REALLY out of curiosity:
Why someone on earth could have an interest in opening the whole steam to start obs!?

Presumably the people likely to do this would be people who are opening Steam anyway to play games?

Also, and absolutely not rhetoric, but really, REALLY out of curiosity:
Why someone on earth could have an interest in opening the whole steam to start obs!?

Presumably the people likely to do this would be people who are opening Steam anyway to play games?

If it were true, then i'd expect fro those people to add every program they use as a non steam application to their steam library.

So you mean, like, they'd add things they do while not playing games to their game-library software because that's exactly the same as adding things they do while playing games to their game-library software?

OpenSUSE also has OBS Studio in its community repos, so from my point of view it's not a major issue that there isn't a native Linux binary on Steam.

weird that there's no Linux version under Steam o.O ...seems like an obvious inclusion

also re: downloading:
you can also, ya know.. just get it from the Ubuntu repository for those that run it

Shipping Linux versions of an app on Steam isn't super easy since it has to be "portable", meaning that it has to include (most of) its dependencies and be compiled against an older glibc to run on a wide variety of systems.
In OBS' case this is just a lot of work since it has a fuckton of dependencies that need to be compiled essentially from scratch to work in the Steam Linux Runtime or at least on an older LTS distro.

All in all we just didn't have the time yet. There were many other things in the works that should make this easier though.

Additionally, you have to build against Ubuntu 12.04 for SteamOS. Meanwhile OBS 27.2 supports 18.04 LTS at minimum (mainly so that the modern browser component works), which'll likely change to 20.04 LTS minimum in the next major version.

Also, and absolutely not rhetoric, but really, REALLY out of curiosity:
Why someone on earth could have an interest in opening the whole steam to start obs!?

Presumably the people likely to do this would be people who are opening Steam anyway to play games?

If it were true, then i'd expect fro those people to add every program they use as a non steam application to their steam library.

So you mean, like, they'd add things they do while not playing games to their game-library software because that's exactly the same as adding things they do while playing games to their game-library software?

Ah, understood.
So the use case is that since obs may be used even while they are playing steam games, then it makes sense to take the burden to package and release it as a steam application, because people will prefer to start it from their library.
This honestly I haven't thought to.
Well then, but this still does not help my progress in understanding the motivations, because i don't think they are installing a browser as a steam specific app or any other app one may think of one can use while they are playing.
Ofc I may be wrong, but I really don't believe the number of users starting obs from steam justifies the release in their store.
Probably is just a matter of having more visibility or I just don't know.

Take Display Fusion for windows as example. It's a standalone app that can run without steam turned on after it's installed through steam. Steam does not enforce drm. If I could I would rather have all the apps (or even free) I bought under one umbrella to install/remove instead of remembering going to 10 places to install apps. While steam is primarily for gaming, seeing it as an appstore works perfectly fine.

Also, and absolutely not rhetoric, but really, REALLY out of curiosity:
Why someone on earth could have an interest in opening the whole steam to start obs!?

Presumably the people likely to do this would be people who are opening Steam anyway to play games?

If it were true, then i'd expect fro those people to add every program they use as a non steam application to their steam library.

So you mean, like, they'd add things they do while not playing games to their game-library software because that's exactly the same as adding things they do while playing games to their game-library software?

Ah, understood.
So the use case is that since obs may be used even while they are playing steam games, then it makes sense to take the burden to package and release it as a steam application, because people will prefer to start it from their library.
This honestly I haven't thought to.
Well then, but this still does not help my progress in understanding the motivations, because i don't think they are installing a browser as a steam specific app or any other app one may think of one can use while they are playing.
Ofc I may be wrong, but I really don't believe the number of users starting obs from steam justifies the release in their store.
Probably is just a matter of having more visibility or I just don't know.

I think it's not just that OBS may be used "even while they are playing games," but rather, a major use case for OBS is specifically to record gameplay. It makes sense to make it available via the major game store because it is used by gaming content creators together with games.

"For Linux users though, you should just stick to Flatpak from Flathub."

obs-studio 27.2.3-1
Build Date: 2022-03-14 20:45 UTC

Why should (Arch) "Linux users" "just stick to Flatpak from Flathub" ?
What are the advantages by using it and not the distribution provided package, if any?

As an Arch Linux user, today an update to Evolution/libphonenumber broke Microsoft Exchange compatibility. I tried downgrading the effected packages to no avail, and also tried building the -git packages from the AUR, but was met with a different issue.

In the end, I had to use the Flatpak for Evolution, which worked fine and is just as up-to-date. I'm not sure if I'm going to go back to using the distribution-prepared package, especially because it seems that GNOME-related packages are currently understaffed so take a while to get updates and fixes. However, the maintainers acted quickly on this one but closed it prematurely.

One advantage of Flatpaks is less breakage, and I don't have to chase dependencies around and still not get the software back to working order. This is not a typical situation for me on Arch Linux, but with the recent glibc update that broke Anki for me and now this (I'm definitely not using pip to install Anki, though), it's nice to have another option.

Of course, I have no idea whether the Evolution Flatpak is official—though it appears to be maintained by a Red Hat engineer—because the instructions on gnome.org for Evolution's Flatpak package tell me something completely different. It'd be nice if they got trust sorted out at some point, since it seems that anyone can just package and distribute a Flatpak.

The advantage is that it's first-party, fully supported, and contains all the features including service integrations, browser sources, etc. that are often missing from third-party packages. Flathub also makes it possible to install various popular plugins that may or may not be available as system packages.

The background-removal plugin is still not available. I use the snap version for now but would switch instantly to flatpak if it gained that feature.