Install DaVinci Resolve on Linux

DaVinci Resolve is a professional-grade video editor and colour grading suite from Blackmagic Design. The Linux version is a first-class release, but getting it running cleanly requires the right GPU drivers, a handful of libraries Blackmagic does not bundle, and some awareness of audio and codec limitations. This guide walks through the full installation on the three major distro families, covering both the free and Studio editions.

Supported Distros and Reality Check

Blackmagic officially supports RHEL/CentOS 8 and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. That said, Resolve runs well on Fedora 39+, Rocky Linux 9, and Arch Linux with a little extra work. Debian and Linux Mint users can follow the Ubuntu path. Wayland is not supported by Resolve's installer or runtime as of version 19; you must launch a Wayland session's XWayland fallback or switch to an X11 session entirely. If your login manager offers an "Ubuntu on Xorg" or "GNOME on Xorg" option, use it.

GPU Driver Requirements

Resolve requires OpenCL 1.2+ or CUDA 11+. Pick the right path for your hardware before touching the installer.

NVIDIA

Use the proprietary driver, version 525 or newer. The open-source Nouveau driver will not work.

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo ubuntu-drivers install nvidia:550

# Fedora
sudo dnf install akmod-nvidia xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda

# Arch
sudo pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils

After installing, reboot and confirm the driver is loaded:

nvidia-smi

AMD

The open-source Mesa/AMDGPU stack works for OpenCL via ROCm. On Ubuntu 22.04, install the ROCm stack from AMD's repository. The minimum supported AMD GPU is Vega 10 (RX Vega 56/64, Radeon VII, or RX 5000 series and newer).

# Ubuntu 22.04 — add AMD's repo first
wget https://repo.radeon.com/amdgpu-install/6.1.3/ubuntu/jammy/amdgpu-install_6.1.60103-1_all.deb
sudo apt install ./amdgpu-install_6.1.60103-1_all.deb
sudo amdgpu-install --usecase=graphics,rocm

# Add your user to the render and video groups
sudo usermod -aG render,video $USER

Log out and back in, then verify:

rocminfo | grep "Agent Type"

Intel Arc / Integrated

Intel GPUs use OpenCL via the intel-opencl-icd package. Performance is acceptable for lightweight work but Resolve's noise reduction and Fusion are GPU-heavy; expect limitations.

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install intel-opencl-icd

Required Dependencies

Resolve links against system libraries that many minimal installs lack. Install these before running the Blackmagic installer.

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install libssl3 libglib2.0-0 libxcb-cursor0 libxcb-icccm4 \
  libxcb-image0 libxcb-keysyms1 libxcb-randr0 libxcb-render-util0 \
  libxcb-xinerama0 libxcb-xkb1 libxkbcommon-x11-0 libfuse2 \
  libapr1 libaprutil1 libgomp1 ocl-icd-libopencl1

Fedora / RHEL 9 / Rocky 9

sudo dnf install libxcb xcb-util-wm xcb-util-image xcb-util-keysyms \
  xcb-util-renderutil libxkbcommon-x11 mesa-libOpenCL apr apr-util \
  openssl fuse-libs

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S libxcb xcb-util-wm xcb-util-image xcb-util-keysyms \
  xcb-util-renderutil libxkbcommon apr apr-util fuse2 ocl-icd

Arch users can also install davinci-resolve or davinci-resolve-studio directly from the AUR, which handles dependencies automatically:

paru -S davinci-resolve

Download and Install

Download the .zip installer from Blackmagic's website. A free account is required. The free edition is the DaVinci Resolve download; Studio requires a licence dongle or activation key.

# Unzip — the version number will differ
unzip DaVinci_Resolve_19.1_Linux.zip

# Make the run script executable and install
chmod +x DaVinci_Resolve_19.1_Linux.run
sudo ./DaVinci_Resolve_19.1_Linux.run -i

The installer places the application under /opt/resolve/. A .desktop launcher is written to /usr/share/applications/, so Resolve should appear in your application menu immediately.

Codec Workarounds

The free edition of Resolve cannot decode H.264 or H.265 on Linux due to licensing restrictions. This is the single most common complaint from new users. You have two options.

Option 1: Upgrade to Studio

The Studio licence removes the codec restriction and enables hardware-accelerated decode. If you edit H.264/H.265 footage professionally, Studio pays for itself quickly.

Option 2: Transcode to a Supported Format

Transcode source footage to DNxHR or ProRes-compatible MKV/MOV using FFmpeg before importing. This is the standard free-edition workflow.

# Transcode H.264 to DNxHR HQ in an MXF container
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v dnxhd -profile:v dnxhr_hq -pix_fmt yuv422p \
  -c:a pcm_s16le output.mxf

# Or to lossless FFV1 in MKV for maximum quality
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v ffv1 -level 3 -c:a pcm_s24le output.mkv

Audio Configuration

Resolve on Linux uses ALSA directly or PipeWire/PulseAudio via an ALSA compatibility layer. If you hear no audio or Resolve reports no audio device, try the following.

PipeWire / PulseAudio

Ensure the ALSA plugin for your audio server is installed:

# Ubuntu / Debian (PipeWire-based systems)
sudo apt install pipewire-alsa

# Or for PulseAudio
sudo apt install pulseaudio-utils libasound2-plugins

Resolve must not be running when the audio daemon restarts. If Resolve grabs the ALSA device exclusively, other applications will lose audio. A workaround is to launch Resolve with RESOLVE_OPENCL_FORCE_SINGLE_THREADED=1 prepended, or set the audio output inside Resolve (Fairlight > Audio I/O) to the correct PulseAudio/PipeWire ALSA sink rather than the raw hardware device.

JACK

Professional users running JACK can route Resolve through it with the alsa_out or zita-ajbridge bridge. This is out of scope here but is well-documented in the JACK wiki.

Verify the Installation

Launch Resolve from the terminal to see startup diagnostics:

/opt/resolve/bin/resolve &

On first launch, Resolve generates a GPU compatibility report. Open DaVinci Resolve > Preferences > Memory and GPU and confirm your GPU appears under GPU Processing Mode as CUDA or OpenCL. If the list is empty, the GPU driver or OpenCL ICD is missing.

Check the log if Resolve crashes on startup:

cat ~/.local/share/DaVinciResolve/logs/davinci_resolve.log | tail -50

Troubleshooting

Resolve Fails to Start: "Could not load libcuda.so"

The NVIDIA runtime library path is missing from the linker cache. Run sudo ldconfig after driver installation, or add /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/nvidia/current to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/.

Black Screen or Crash on Wayland

Log out, choose an X11/Xorg session at the login screen, and log back in. Alternatively, force XWayland by setting WAYLAND_DISPLAY= (empty) in the environment before launching Resolve.

Audio Works System-Wide but Not in Resolve

Resolve may be starting before PipeWire/PulseAudio is fully initialised, or it has exclusive access to the device. Kill Resolve, run pulseaudio --check or systemctl --user status pipewire, restart the daemon if needed, then relaunch Resolve.

Resolve Installed but Not in App Menu

The installer writes to /usr/share/applications/. If your desktop does not pick it up, force a desktop database refresh:

sudo update-desktop-database /usr/share/applications/