Build Instructions For Linux

Note: as of May 1, 2019, Facebook live now mandates the use of RTMPS. That functionality requires your distro's mbed TLS package, which obs-studio/cmake/Modules/FindMbedTLS.cmake script searches for at compile time.

Note: Do not use the GitHub source .tar as it does not include all the required source files. Always use the appropriate Git tag with the associated submodules.

Note: OBS will not run by default from within the build directory, throwing an error similar to "error while loading shared libraries: libobs-frontend-api.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory". Use the portable mode options for running the binaries without doing a system install.

Debian-based build directions

The build procedure described here allows full customization of the desired build configuration but also require manual setup and preparation.
Available CMake configuration variables can be found in the CMake build system documentation.

Prerequisites

Debian Bullseye / Bookworm
CMake 3.16 or newer (3.25+ on Bookworm)
Git
Ninja
Optional: Ccache to improve compilation speeds on consecutive builds
For browser source and browser panel support, the pre-built CEF framework is needed:
- Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) x86_64
Several additional dependencies (see step 2 below)

Build procedure

1. Get the source code

Open a Terminal window, create and switch to a directory you want to have OBS checked out
Clone the repository including submodules: git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git

(If you do not know what submodules are, or you are not using Git from the command line, PLEASE make sure to fetch the submodules too.)

2. Get the dependencies

To download and set up the preconditions mentioned above install the following packages using apt:

Build system dependencies

sudo apt install cmake ninja-build pkg-config clang clang-format build-essential curl ccache git zsh

OBS dependencies (core):

sudo apt install libavcodec-dev libavdevice-dev libavfilter-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev libswresample-dev libswscale-dev libx264-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev libmbedtls-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libjansson-dev libluajit-5.1-dev python3-dev libx11-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev libxcb-xinerama0-dev libxcb-composite0-dev libxcomposite-dev libxinerama-dev libxcb1-dev libx11-xcb-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev swig libcmocka-dev libxss-dev libglvnd-dev libgles2-mesa-dev libwayland-dev librist-dev libsrt-openssl-dev libpci-dev libpipewire-0.3-dev libqrcodegencpp-dev uthash-dev

OBS Qt6 dependencies (UI):

sudo apt install \
       qt6-base-dev \
       qt6-base-private-dev \
       qt6-svg-dev \
       qt6-wayland \
       qt6-image-formats-plugins

Plugin dependencies:

sudo apt install \
       libasound2-dev \
       libfdk-aac-dev \
       libfontconfig-dev \
       libfreetype6-dev \
       libjack-jackd2-dev \
       libpulse-dev libsndio-dev \
       libspeexdsp-dev \
       libudev-dev \
       libv4l-dev \
       libva-dev \
       libvlc-dev \
       libvpl-dev \
       libdrm-dev \
       nlohmann-json3-dev \
       libwebsocketpp-dev \
       libasio-dev

3. Set up the build project

Run CMake to generate a build environment

cmake -S . -B YOUR_BUILD_DIRECTORY -G Ninja \
	-DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../obs-build-dependencies/cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64" \
	-DENABLE_PIPEWIRE=OFF \
	-DENABLE_AJA=0 \
        -DENABLE_WEBRTC=0

Optional Settings:

To enable PipeWire support change -DENABLE_PIPEWIRE to ON
To disable browser source support (e.g. for 32-bit builds) set -DENABLE_BROWSER to OFF
To change the build type, pass either Debug, Release, RelWithDebInfo, or MinSizeRel as -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE

NOTE: When building OBS with ENABLE_RELOCATABLE disabled, OBS expects GNU-based install paths (e.g. /usr/local/[bin,lib,share]) and is built for a single architecture only. To create separate builds for 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, always enable portable builds.

NOTE: On Ubuntu 22.04, librist-dev is not provided. Add -DENABLE_NEW_MPEGTS_OUTPUT=OFF to disable the feature that relies on it.

4. Build the project

Run cmake --build YOUR_BUILD_DIRECTORY to build the entire OBS project
Run cmake --build YOUR_BUILD_DIRECTORY -t libobs to build only libobs or any other valid target
Run cmake --build YOUR_BUILD_DIRECTORY -t clean to clean your current build directory

5. Create a Debian package

Run cmake --build YOUR_BUILD_DIRECTORY --target package. CMake will handle all operations necessary to create a .deb package archive, including necessary dependencies.

6. Install the project

6.1. Holding back the PPA obs-studio Package

The current Debian Bullseye and Bookworm PPA versions of obs-studio are built against Qt5 along with them being legacy builds of OBS it can break the functionality of plugins built for OBS 28+ as plugins for 28+ are built against Qt6, this Qt version mismatch has been shown to lead to OBS failing to start when plugins built for 28+ are installed in a system that has the Qt5 legacy OBS installed due to the way that Qt handles Qt version mismatch errors.

To avoid apt installing the PPA version over the local build version a package hold needs to be placed onto the obs-studio PPA package to block apt from installing the PPA version over the locally built version when running system updates, the effect of the package hold will preserve the locally built version of OBS through system updates.

To hold back the PPA package follow these instructions:

Run sudo apt-mark hold obs-studio to mark the PPA version of obs-studio as a held-back package.

If you need to undo the PPA package hold in the future run sudo apt-mark unhold obs-studio, afterwards when you run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade in the normal way apt will install the PPA version of obs-studio and remove the locally built version in the process.

6.2. Installing with the APT package manager

Using apt to manage your locally built package means that installation and updating of the local package is all handled by apt which is the recommended method of package handling on Debian, this leaves your system clean after a package install or removal and makes package upgrades as simple as generating a new build and installing it with the method described in this section.

From your obs-studio folder navigate into your build directory.
Inside the build directory run sudo apt install ./obs-studio-29.1.1-*-Linux.deb
Replacing 29.1.1 in the command above with the version of obs-studio that you have packaged.
apt will then install the locally built obs-studio .deb package into /usr/local/.

7. Custom install location
Installation will use the directory specified via -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX or can be customised with the --prefix switch:

Run cmake --install YOUR_BUILD_DIRECTORY to install OBS to the prefix the project was configured with
Run cmake --install YOUR_BUILD_DIRECTORY --prefix <YOUR_INSTALL_LOCATION> to install OBS to a custom location

Red Hat-based

Get RPM Fusion at http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration/

Get the required packages:

sudo yum install \
       alsa-lib-devel \
       asio-devel \
       cmake \
       ffmpeg-free-devel \
       fontconfig-devel \
       freetype-devel \
       gcc \
       gcc-c++ \
       gcc-objc \
       git \
       glib2-devel \
       json-devel \
       libavcodec-free-devel \
       libavdevice-free-devel \
       libcurl-devel \
       libdrm-devel \
       libglvnd-devel \
       libjansson-devel \
       libuuid-devel \
       libva-devel \
       libv4l-devel \
       libX11-devel \
       libXcomposite-devel \
       libXinerama-devel \
       luajit-devel \
       make \
       mbedtls-devel \
       pciutils-devel \
       pipewire-devel \
       pulseaudio-libs-devel \
       python3-devel \
       qt6-qtbase-devel \
       qt6-qtbase-private-devel \
       qt6-qtsvg-devel \
       qt6-qtwayland-devel \
       speexdsp-devel \
       swig \
       systemd-devel \
       vlc-devel \
       wayland-devel \
       websocketpp-devel \
       x264-devel

If speexdsp-devel is not available, it can be built from source (https://gitlab.xiph.org/xiph/speexdsp)

Building and installing OBS:

If building with browser source:

wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
tar -xf ./cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
cd obs-studio
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DENABLE_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64" -DENABLE_AJA=OFF -DENABLE_NEW_MPEGTS_OUTPUT=OFF -DCMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE=ON ..
make -j4
sudo make install
echo "/usr/local/lib" | sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf -a
sudo ldconfig

If building without browser source:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
cd obs-studio
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DENABLE_BROWSER=OFF -DENABLE_AJA=OFF -DENABLE_NEW_MPEGTS_OUTPUT=OFF -DCMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE=ON ..
make -j4
sudo make install
echo "/usr/local/lib" | sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf -a
sudo ldconfig

By default OBS installs libraries in /usr/local/lib.

Fedora

Add the RPM Fusion repo. This is required for x264-devel.

sudo dnf install \
  https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

Get the required packages:

sudo dnf install \
       alsa-lib-devel \
       asio-devel \
       cmake \
       ffmpeg-free-devel \
       fontconfig-devel \
       freetype-devel \
       gcc \
       gcc-c++ \
       gcc-objc \
       git \
       glib2-devel \
       jansson-devel \
       json-devel \
       libavcodec-free-devel \
       libavdevice-free-devel \
       librist-devel \
       libcurl-devel \
       libdatachannel-devel \
       libdrm-devel \
       libglvnd-devel \
       libqrcodegencpp-devel \
       libuuid-devel \
       libva-devel \
       libv4l-devel \
       libX11-devel \
       libXcomposite-devel \
       libXdamage \
       libXinerama-devel \
       libxkbcommon-devel \
       luajit-devel \
       make \
       mbedtls-devel \
       nv-codec-headers \
       oneVPL-devel \
       pciutils-devel \
       pipewire-devel \
       pulseaudio-libs-devel \
       python3-devel \
       qt6-qtbase-devel \
       qt6-qtbase-private-devel \
       qt6-qtsvg-devel \
       qt6-qtwayland-devel \
       rnnoise-devel \
       speexdsp-devel \
       srt-devel \
       swig \
       systemd-devel \
       uthash-devel \
       vlc-devel \
       wayland-devel \
       websocketpp-devel \
       x264-devel

Building and installing OBS:

If building with browser source:

wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
tar -xf ./cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
cd obs-studio
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DENABLE_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64" -DENABLE_AJA=OFF -DENABLE_NEW_MPEGTS_OUTPUT=OFF -DENABLE_WEBRTC=OFF -DCMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE=ON ..
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install
echo "/usr/local/lib" | sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf -a
sudo ldconfig

If building without browser source:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
cd obs-studio
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DENABLE_BROWSER=OFF -DENABLE_AJA=OFF -DENABLE_NEW_MPEGTS_OUTPUT=OFF -DENABLE_WEBRTC=OFF -DCMAKE_POSITION_INDEPENDENT_CODE=ON ..
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install
echo "/usr/local/lib" | sudo tee /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf -a
sudo ldconfig

openSUSE

See openSUSE install instructions for details on adding Packman repository.

Get the required packages:

sudo zypper in cmake \
             fontconfig-devel \
             freetype2-devel \
             gcc \
             gcc-c++ \
             libcurl-devel \
             ffmpeg2-devel \
             libjansson-devel \
             libpulse-devel \
             libspeexdsp-devel \
             libudev-devel \
             libv4l-devel \
             libXcomposite-devel \
             libXinerama-devel \
             libXrandr-devel \
             luajit-devel \
             mbedtls \
             qt6-qtbase-dev \
             qt6-qtbase-private-dev \
             swig \
             python3-devel \
             libxss-dev

Building and installing OBS:

If building with browser source:

wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
tar -xf ./cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
cd obs-studio
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DENABLE_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64" -DENABLE_AJA=OFF ..
make -j4
sudo make install

If building without browser source:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
cd obs-studio
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DLINUX_PR=1 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DBUILD_BROWSER=OFF -DENABLE_AJA=OFF ..
make -j4
sudo make install

Linux portable mode (all distros)

Please note that you need to install the build dependencies for your distribution before following these steps. See above.

You can build in portable mode on Linux, which installs all the files to an isolated directory.

If building with browser source:

wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
tar -xf ./cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64.tar.xz
git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
cd obs-studio
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DENABLE_RELOCATABLE=ON -DENABLE_PORTABLE_CONFIG=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="${HOME}/obs-studio-portable" -DENABLE_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_6533_linux_x86_64" -DENABLE_AJA=OFF ..
make -j4 && make install

If building without browser source:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
cd obs-studio
mkdir build && cd build
cmake -DENABLE_RELOCATABLE=ON -DENABLE_PORTABLE_CONFIG=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="${HOME}/obs-studio-portable" -DENABLE_BROWSER=OFF -DENABLE_AJA=OFF ..
make -j4 && make install

After that, you should have a portable install in ~/obs-studio-portable. Change to bin/64bit or bin/32bit and then simply run: ./obs

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Build Instructions For Linux

Debian-based build directions

Prerequisites

Build procedure

1. Get the source code

2. Get the dependencies

3. Set up the build project

4. Build the project

5. Create a Debian package

6. Install the project

Red Hat-based

Fedora

openSUSE

Linux portable mode (all distros)

Home

Install instructions

Build instructions

Development & Scripting

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