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.
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.