Frequently Asked Questions

Absolutely! I used Linux almost exclusively for professional video editing on a marketing team for more than 5 years. For more complex video edits and animation, I used tools like Blender. When I needed to make some simple video editing templates for other team members, Kdenlive worked very well, since it’s free, cross-platform, and seems to run reasonably well across machines of varying specifications.

Hardware requirements for video editing will depend on the software you intend to use. While light video editing with packages like Olive and Kdenlive won’t require much of your computer, more complex projects, animation, and compositing will likely make more RAM and a dedicated graphics card a necessity. The minimum requirements for Blender are as follows, and I think these serve as a decent baseline. You should aim for hardware above these specs if your intended use for a computer is heavy video editing:

• 64-bit quad core CPU with SSE2 support
• 8 GB RAM
• Full HD display
• Mouse, trackpad or pen+tablet
• Graphics card with 2 GB RAM, OpenGL 4.3
• Less than 10 years old

I typically install 32GB of RAM in any machine I am setting up for video editing, and I personally consider 16GB RAM to be a bare minimum, especially when working with high resolution (2K-4K) footage.

Any YouTube creator worth their salt will be pretty strictly following the guidelines put forth by Google on the matter.
In short, here are the basics:

• .mp4 filetype
• AAC-LC audio codec (96 or 48khz)
• H.264 video codec
• Most frame rates up to 60fps (if unsure, just use 30fps)
• 8-10 Mbps video bitrate at 1080p30
• 384 kbps audio bitrate (you’ll likely need to bump this up from default settings in your video editor!)

The answer depends on what you’re interested in accomplishing. If you want to be able to do pretty much anything, you should spend some time learning Blender for VFX. If you’re simply editing video together and adding some titles and basic effects, Kdenlive stands out for a couple reasons. It’s one of the most mature video editing software packages for Linux, and it has a pretty easy user interface for new users. A couple hours with the software manual will get you off and running!

The answer to this question is much like the last. It depends. In general, Kdenlive is a pretty solid choice, but there are many other options, such as Olive, Shotcut and Openshot.I would encourage any newcomer to try all of the video editors available and stick with the one they like the most.

FFmpeg is used to encode media files in different formats and manipulate them with advanced filters. FFmpeg can essentially do everything a video editor software package can do, but from the command line. In fact, many video editing packages depend on FFmpeg to handle decoding/encoding. The usefulness of FFmpeg from the command line is primarily scripting. Repetitive tasks, such as ingesting and transcoding all video files in a directory can be accomplished with a simple, reusable script.

Absolutely! Recording and creating music on Linux is something I have done since I first started using Linux on all my computers. Most Windows users familiar with audio production will already recognize tools such as Audacity, but there are several other options for more robust DAW software (Digital Audio Workstation). Ardour is likely the most popular and mature DAW software made to run on Linux. However, many Linux-based producers and musicians use tools such as Reaper, Bitwig, and Tracktion Waveform, all with native support. I have even used FL Studio (under WINE) without any issues in the past.

Yes! Ardour MIDI can be a bit complicated for a newcomer, since Ardour groups its audio and MIDI tracks in the same window. Simply resizing the track height will expose the piano roll editor. Switch into draw or edit mode on the timeline, and you can edit MIDI clip events right next to your audio files!

Yes! Ardour comes with some very nice bundled plugins. They are all labeled with “ACE” (Ardour Community Effects). You can take a look at the variety of effects, instruments, utilities and visualization plugins available in the Ardour user manual.

Yes! For a number of years now, Reaper has offered native Linux support. Reaper boasts host support for Linux VSTs, LV2 plugins, and the new CLAP format alongside their open JSFX ecosystem. This makes Reaper a fantastic choice for recording studios running on Linux.

No! However, they do offer a fully functional 60-day evaluation license if you’d like to give Reaper a spin. That said, Reaper is not open source.

Millions of professionals use Audacity on a very regular basis. While the user interface makes Audacity seem dated, it’s a powerful tool for audio edits used by voiceover professionals, podcasters, producers, and more.

Yes. In recent years, Audacity developers decided to include a telemetry opt-in within the software. They have since reversed their decision after strong backlash from the open source software community. Most Linux distributions offered versions of the software compiled with telemetry completely removed. If telemetry is of concern to you, you should make sure Firefox isn’t collecting telemetry data, as I believe this setting is on by default in the popular web browser.

Of course. Some of the most mature creative software packages for Linux are specifically tailored toward graphic design. Among them, GIMP, Inkscape, Krita, and LibreOffice Draw stand out.

Yes. All of these software packages are licensed in a way that means the work you create with them can be used professionally. As a marketing professional, I used these tools exclusively for graphic work, even when collaborating with team members that worked exclusively in Adobe products. GIMP and Inkscape specifically make importing some Adobe files quite pain-free. Some benefits of choosing to use these tools professionally include keeping costs low for teams, and freedom from cloud or license lock-out during internet or server outages. Users and teams can also agree on using very specific releases of each piece of software, since it’s all open source.

This is a great question! Here are the basics. If you are an artist planning to do digital drawing or painting with a pressure-sensitive tablet, stylus or touchscreen, you’ll likely enjoy using Krita the most. If you are mostly interested in photo edits and retouching, GIMP is the package to reach for. Penpot is a relative newcomer, and fills the gap left behind for those disenchanted about Adobe purchasing Figma. LibreOffice Draw is wonderful for simple publishing layouts (think InDesign) or creating some quick and useful infographics. For more information about various graphic design programs, check out my graphic design articles.

This FAQ wouldn’t be complete without answering this question about “The GIMP”. GIMP is an acronym for “GNU Image Manipulation Program”. It is definitely one of the Linux community’s most beloved quirky named and branded software packages.