Packman is terminal, RIP. Flatpak isn’t viable here as they are unreliable due to sandbox-related bugs and they are exceedingly large. I’m trying to avoid being forced to another distro. I’m very familiar with packaging on opensuse. I’m trying to make a place where we can discuss actual viable alternatives without copium, fatpak evangelism, or other trolling.
Things I need working:
AptX bluetooth headsets
Streaming via OBS and discord and twitch
Windows Games via wine and steam. Including old 32bit/DOS games.
gstreamer pipelines for video processing
Making and sharing music
Playing video files sent to me by friends on windows
Playing video on streaming sites (ESPN, Amazon, etc)
Not ever having to say “I can’t open that file”/“I can’t create that format”/“my linux won’t do that” and being mocked by my mates on Windows (I won’t be offended, I’m just trying not to make the entirety of linux desktop look bad while I’m trying to convince them they should ditch windows)
Probably other stuff I haven’t thought of yet. Nothing a normal desktop PC power-user wouldn’t expect in 2026. I’ll add stuff as it comes to mind.
Is there any path to such a system here?
I’m trying to follow existing guides and I’m hitting some pretty hard walls:
AptX is a major issue but I can see light at the end of the tunnel here. It’s not in Factory because of patents, but the patents have been expired or revoked so it should be able to be added to Factory now. I will follow that up soon and try and get pipewire-aptx added to Factory. But that’s not a guarantee and I absolutely need this guaranteed working.
The biggest one that’s jumping out at me is that the VLC repo does not build the libav*-32bit packages, and wine/steam requires them, so removing the packman libav*-32bit packages wants to remove wine and steam. Obviously that’s no sale. I can’t find anyone discussing it.
There are alternative gstreamer-bad and -ugly codec packages, but they aren’t built against libx264/265 so it’s not clear if they’ll actually work the same way once those libs are installed from the VLC repo.
Where are the package sources and build logs for the VLC repo? Or is it just a matter of blind trust of the repo?
Factory obs-studio recommends obs-vkcapture but it is only available on packman.
Let’s just start there and we’ll get to the other stuff as we go…
Just picking that one. Steam (including all Games) works as it should, i had packman but changed to the VLC repo before the end of packman was announced. Heroic Launcher (flatpak) is installed for installing/running GOG Games.
I can’t say anything to your other points. Generally, most of my “media” related programs are flatpaks/appimages now.
edit: i had some trouble with No Mans Sky, this could be related to mesa, idk and didn’t investigated it.
You must be using the patent-safe packages from repo-oss, which obviously aren’t suitable for this thread’s goals.
This thread is not for discussing fatpak.
That seems to be a document regarding the project sources but I’m asking about the package sources and build logs. As in, the rpm .spec file, and the output when building it. Users can use this to ensure that the package is safe and the downloaded file hasn’t been modified from it. The packman equivalents would be this and this
I’m obviously aware that it’s not openSUSE’s environment, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to ship the codecs we’re all discussing. But this is the place where that repository is suggested as an alternative to packman, so that’s why I’m asking here.
Again? First time we’ve spoken about this.
I did define which codecs I need - All of them:
This is what we have with packman right now, and that’s the experience I’m trying to replace.
The GPU isn’t relevant here, just as it wouldn’t be relevant with packman. I don’t know what GPU I may or may not buy in the future. I don’t know what GPU a friend will have when they come and ask their friendly local suse nerd how to install the same thing I use. With packman, I don’t need to, things will work to the full capability of the upstream projects, either way. That’s what we’re trying to replace here.
I have had one for years, but it’s hardly viable for day-to-day use. (as you well know)
There are numerous posts about it in the forum. If you have an AMD gpu there is no hardware acceleration. All codecs work out of the box these days except nvidia 264. You need to run without Packman and see what works and doesn’t,
Obs-studio should work fine with openh264 if it doesn’t a bug report is needed.
Yes, I’ve read all those posts (and the mailing lists, both of them, and other forums), as I mentioned “I’m trying to follow existing guides”. I wasn’t in any of those threads so I don’t know why you’re starting out with “again”, we’ve not discussed this. And besides, you already have the information you need.
No they don’t, some aren’t even built, they’re explicitly disabled. You know this.
I need everything to work. If a codec is shipped upstream and opensuse disable it in Factory, I need to know that the full-fat version will be available somewhere else, so that I can install it, and never have to think about codecs again, just like I have for many years on TW and just like anyone on any other distro would do. Y’know, like normal.
I tried to run without packman and I can’t, as described in the OP and again in my first reply. There’s no available version of the dependencies for steam which is built with all of the codecs enabled.
I am not looking to remove codecs and then see if media will play without it. I know the media won’t work without its codec, and “pray you never need that format” isn’t a solution, either.
I have one friend who ran with the repo-oss version of the steam dependencies, his game cutscenes failed to play, and he’s now on cachyos. I really would have liked to have told him “no problem, just do this to solve it” but I don’t know a solution and judging by the replies in those other threads and especially this one, it seems to me like there really isn’t one, and discussing it is not allowed.
I run Steam since years and Steam never needed any codecs from packman. The 32-bit libs from the OSS repo is everything what is needed to satisfy the Steam deps and to run any game. No graphics or codec issues with Steam. No packman. Only VLC repo.
Issues with cutscenes are much more likely graphics related.
You seem a little bit confused. When packman is not needed for a task/problem/issue, there is no need to replace it. And you brought up Steam in the opening post. So this is on topic.
Look you need to describe the codec you need. Your wrong many codecs are not patent encumbered anymore. Or are you wanting the likes of ffmpeg. Look at the notes in the spec file for obs-studio on openh364 which Cisco have kindly paid for.
Please describe the application and codec needed. Just a generic blanket statement doesn’t help. OTB everything I use with intel ARC supports both hardware encode/ decode and codec support for AV1 and VP9 which I’ve used handbrake flatpak to convert. Likewise I use vlc flatpak. Now that immutable is available for Leap 16.1 flatpaks can become more relevant. Which is also a build option on the Open Build Service.
We just did this and I responded directly. All of them.
Yep, that too. All of it.
Understand, this is not a tech support thread. I can fix my own PC. This isn’t about a specific use-case, this is about ALL use-cases. This is a thread to discuss actual solutions to the problem presented by the discontinuation of packman.
How am I wrong? I specifically mentioned patents that are not patent encumbered any more. But I also want the ones that are patent-encumbered, or disabled for other reasons, to be available.