If you want to develop for OBS, please visit our Discord and get to know the devs or have questions answered!

Also, if there is something in this guide you want to change/improve on, it is recommended that you talk about it with the devs in Discord or IRC first.

Please note that any install directions/packages for Linux/FreeBSD distributions listed as Unofficial means that they are community provided, and any support for those packages should be directed at the appropriate distro/package maintainers.

Table of Contents:

Windows

Windows Install Directions:

Pre-built Windows versions can be found here: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases/

The full .exe installer and .zip contains OBS Studio 32bit, 64bit, Browser Source, and Intel® RealSense™ plugin. You will be prompted during install for the Browser Source and RealSense plugin to be installed if using the .exe installer, otherwise the components are included in the .zip.

The small .exe installer contains the base OBS Studio 32bit, 64bit, Intel® RealSense™ plugin, but does not contain the Browser Source plugin.

NOTE: If using the .zip method for either the full or small install and installing to a non-standard program location (i.e. outside Program Files), you will need to add the security group ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES to have full control over the main OBS Studio directory and sub-directories. Certain features may not function properly without these security rights (primarily, the ability to use game capture on UWP apps).

Windows Build Directions:

  • Requirements for building OBS on Windows

    • Development packages of FFmpeg, x264, cURL, and mbedTLS.
    • Qt5 (Grab the MSVC package for your version of Visual Studio)
    • CEF Wrapper 3770 (x64, x86)
    • Windows version of CMake (3.16 or higher, latest preferred)
    • Windows version of Git (Git binaries must exist in path)
    • Visual Studio 2019
      • Ensure that the Desktop development with C++ workload is selected when installing Visual Studio.
      • Windows 10 SDK (minimum 10.0.20348.0). Latest SDK

  • Installation Procedure

    • Clone the repository and submodules:

      1. 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.

    • Create one or more of the following subdirectories within the cloned repository for building: release, debug, and build (suffixed with or without 32/64 to specify architecture). They are excluded from the repo in .gitignore for the sake of building, so they are safe to create and use within the repository base directory.

    • Run cmake-gui, and set the following fields:

      • In “where is the source code”, enter in the repo directory (example: D:/obs).
      • In “where to build the binaries”, enter the repo directory path with the ‘build’ subdirectory (example: D:/obs/build).

    • Set the following variables. You can set them in cmake-gui, or you can set them as Windows Environment Variables to persist across configurations.

      • Required

        • DepsPath

          DepsPath is the path to the folder containing the dependencies, not including Qt. Set this to the win32 or win64 directory from the Pre-built dependencies package that you downloaded earlier.
          For example, if you extracted the dependencies .zip to C:\obs-deps, DepsPath should be one of these:

          • C:\obs-deps\win32
          • C:\obs-deps\win64

          If you want to specify both 32 and 64 bit dependencies to avoid changing the variable between builds, you can instead set DepsPath32 and DepsPath64 like so:

          • DepsPath32: C:\obs-deps\win32
          • DepsPath64: C:\obs-deps\win64

        • QTDIR

          QTDIR is the path to the Qt install directory. The OBS UI is built by default, which requires Qt. Set the CMake boolean variable DISABLE_UI to TRUE if you don’t want the GUI and this is no longer required. Can be optionally suffixed with 32 or 64 to specify target arch.

          NOTE: Make sure to download Qt prebuilt components for your version of MSVC (32 or 64 bit).

          Example Qt directories you would use if you installed Qt to D:\Qt would usually look something like this:

          • QTDIR32=D:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019 (32-bit)
          • QTDIR64=D:\Qt\5.15.2\msvc2019_64 (64-bit)

        • CEF_ROOT_DIR

          CEF_ROOT_DIR is the path to an extracted CEF Wrapper. We provide a custom prebuilt wrapper to simplify the build process. This custom build includes access to hardware acceleration and additional codecs. This enables Browser Source and Custom Browser Docks.

          Be sure to also enable the CMake flag BUILD_BROWSER otherwise this will do nothing

      • Optional

        • VIRTUALCAM_GUID - Set to any random GUID value. This must be set to build the Virtual Camera features.

        (If these components below share the same directory as DepsPath, they do not need to be individually specified.)

        • FFmpegPath - Path to just FFmpeg include directory.
        • x264Path - Path to just x264 include directory.
        • curlPath - Path to just cURL include directory.

      • INFORMATIONAL NOTE: Search paths and search order for base dependency library/binary files, relative to their include directories:

        Library files

        • ../lib
        • ../lib32 (if 32bit)
        • ../lib64 (if 64bit)
        • ./lib
        • ./lib32 (if 32bit)
        • ./lib64 (if 64bit)

        Binary files:

        • ../bin
        • ../bin32 (if 32bit)
        • ../bin64 (if 64bit)
        • ./bin
        • ./bin32 (if 32bit)
        • ./bin64 (if 64bit)

    • In cmake-gui, press ‘Configure’ and select the generator that fits to your installed VS Version:
      Visual Studio 16 2019, or their 64bit equivalents if you want to build the 64bit version of OBS

      • NOTE: If you need to change your dependencies from a build already configured, you will need to uncheck COPIED_DEPENDENCIES and run Configure again.

    • If you did not set up Environment Variables earlier you can now configure the DepsPath and if necessary the x264, FFmpeg and cUrl path in the cmake-gui.

    • In cmake-gui, press ‘Generate’ to generate Visual Studio project files in the ‘build’ subdirectory.

    • Open obs-studio.sln from the subdirectory you specified under “where to build the binaries” (e.g. D:/obs/build) in Visual Studio (or click the “Open Project” button from within cmake-gui).

    • The project should now be ready to build and run. All required dependencies should be copied on compile and it should be a fully functional build environment. The output is built in the ‘rundir/[build type]‘ directory of your ‘build’ subdirectory.

    • The PACKAGE target uses Wix Installer and seems to be obsolete. Discussion on discord indicates that the current installer uses NSIS, but the process seems not to be fully documented.

    • If you want to use the Virtual Camera from this build, you will need to run its install script. If you already have a standard OBS Studio installation, you will need to uninstall its Virtual Camera first.

      To uninstall an OBS Virtual Camera:

      1. Close any applications that were using the OBS Virtual Camera.
      2. In the obs-studio installation directory, run data\obs-plugins\win-dshow\virtualcam-uninstall.bat as administrator.

      To install an OBS Virtual Camera:

      1. In the obs-studio installation directory (for Visual Studio builds, this is ‘[build dir]/rundir/[build type]‘), run data\obs-plugins\win-dshow\virtualcam-install.bat as administrator.

      Don’t forget to uninstall your build’s virtual camera before cleaning/deleting your build files.

  • Integrating clang-format into Visual Studio

    • clang-format is required for pull requests, and our CI uses a specific version that may not match the one VS2019 ships with.
    • Download and install LLVM 10.0.0. LLVM 11+ currently introduces extra clang-format changes that we do not want to handle at this time.
    • Run VS, and go to Tools -> Options…
      • Text Editor -> C/C++ -> Code Style -> Formatting -> General
        • Enable “Use custom clang-format.exe” and enter the file name. For example:
          • C:\Program Files\LLVM\bin\clang-format.exe
    • The default command for formatting a document (Edit.FormatDocument) is Ctrl+K, Ctrl+D.

macOS

macOS Install Directions

Pre-built macOS versions can be found here: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio/releases

Simply run the installer and follow the on-screen directions to install OBS Studio.

macOS Build Directions

  • Clone the repository and submodules:

    1. 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.

macOS Full Build Script

To get a self-built OBS up and running, a default build and packaging script is provided. This script only requires Homebrew (https://brew.sh) to be installed on the build system already:

  • To build OBS as-is with full browser-source support, simply run ./CI/full-build-macos.sh from the checkout directory (The script will take care of downloading all necessary dependencies).
  • To create an app-bundle after building OBS, run the script with the -b flag: ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -b
  • To create a disk image after building OBS, run the script with the -p flag: ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -b -p
  • To notarize an app-bundle after building and bundling OBS, run the script with the -n flag: ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -b -n
  • To create an app-bundle without building OBS again, run the script with the -s flag: ./CI/full-build-macos.sh -s -b

The last option is helpful if custom cmake flags have been used, but a proper app bundle is desired.

macOS Custom Builds

Custom build configurations require a set of dependencies to be installed on the build system. Some dependencies need to be installed via Homebrew (https://brew.sh):

  • FFmpeg
  • x264
  • cmake
  • freetype
  • mbedtls
  • swig
  • Qt5

If you need SRT support, either use FFmpeg provided by obs-deps or install FFmpeg from a custom tap instead of the default homebrew FFmpeg:

  1. brew tap homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg
  2. brew install homebrew-ffmpeg/ffmpeg/ffmpeg --with-srt

Pre-Built Dependencies

These dependencies are also available via obs-deps (https://github.com/obsproject/obs-deps) as pre-compiled binaries, which are assured to be compatible with current OBS code (as OBS is built against specific versions of some packages while Homebrew delivers most recent stable builds).

  • When using obs-deps, extract both archives from the macOS release to /tmp/obsdeps to assure compatibility with app bundling later (due to the way dylibs are identified and linked).

  • Create a build directory inside the obs-studio directory, change to it, then configure the project via cmake:

    1.  cmake -DCMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.13 -DQTDIR="/tmp/obsdeps" -DSWIGDIR="/tmp/obsdeps" -DDepsPath="/tmp/obsdeps" -DDISABLE_PYTHON=ON ..

  • Build OBS by running make.

Configuring and Building

  • If not already handled by the Homebrew installation, install a current macOS platform SDK (only macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 or later is supported): xcode-select --install

  • Create a build directory inside the obs-studio directory, change to it, then configure the project via cmake:

    1.  cmake -DCMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.13 -DDISABLE_PYTHON=ON ..

  • NOTE: cmake might require additional parameters to find Qt5 libraries present on this system, this can either be provided via -DQTDIR="/usr/local/opt/qt" or setting an environment variable, e.g.: export QTDIR=/usr/local/opt/qt

  • Build OBS by running make

  • Run OBS from the /rundir/RelWithDebInfo/bin directory in your build directory, by running ./obs from a Terminal

  • NOTE: If you are running via command prompt, you must be in the ‘bin’ directory specified above, otherwise it will not be able to find its files relative to the binary.

macOS Xcode Project

To create an Xcode project for OBS, cmake must be run with additional flags. Follow the build instructions above to create a working configuration setup, then add -G Xcode to the cmake command, e.g.:

  1.    cmake -DCMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.13 -DDISABLE_PYTHON=ON -G Xcode ..

This will create an obs-studio.xcodeproj project file in the build directory as well as Xcode project files for all build dependencies. To build a full macOS build, the build target ALL_BUILD can be used, but must be configured first:

  • Select ALL_BUILD from available build schemes in Xcode, then press CMD+B to build the project at least once
  • Then select Edit Scheme... from the same menu.
  • Under the Info tab, click on the dropdown for Executable, then click on other.
  • Navigate to the /rundir/debug/bin bin folder that the previous Xcode build process should have created and select the obs binary found there.
  • Next, switch to the Options tab and check the box to Use custom working directory and select the same /rundir/debug/bin directory in your Xcode build directory.

NOTE: When running OBS directly from Xcode be aware that browser sources will not be available (as CEF requires to be run as part of an application bundle in macOS) and accessing the webcam will lead to a crash (as macOS requires a permission prompt text set in an application bundle’s Info.plist which is, of course, not available). Breakpoints and stack traces are available though for debugging purposes if you don’t need browser source. In that case, make sure to add -DBUILD_BROWSER=OFF, e.g. :

  1.    cmake -DCMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.13 -DBUILD_BROWSER=OFF -DDISABLE_PYTHON=ON -G Xcode ..

NOTE 2: Configuration / generation can also be done with cmake-gui if one prefers to use a GUI.

To debug OBS on macOS with all plugins and modules loaded, follow these steps:

  • Build (but do not run) OBS with Xcode.
  • Run BUILD_DIR="YOUR_XCODE_BUILD_DIR" BUILD_CONFIG="Debug" ../CI/full-build-macos.sh -d -s -b to bundle OBS build by Xcode, replace YOUR_XCODE_BUILD_DIR with the directory where you ran cmake to create the Xcode project.
  • Next, create a new Xcode project, select macOS as platform and Framework as type.
  • Give your project any arbitrary name and place it in any folder you like.
  • With the new project open, click on your current build scheme in Xcode and select Edit Scheme....
  • For the Run step, go to the Info tab and select Other... in the dropdown for Executable.
  • Browse to your OBS Xcode build directory and select the OBS.app application bundle created by the script.

You can now run OBS with Xcode directly attached as debugger. You can debug the visual stack as well as trace crashes and set breakpoints.

NOTE: Breakpoints set in the actual Xcode project do not carry over to this “helper” project and vice versa.

Linux

Any installation directions marked Unofficial are not maintained by the OBS Studio author and may not provide all the features and/or be up to date or stable.

NOTE: OpenGL 3.3 or later is required to use OBS Studio on Linux. You can check what version of OpenGL is supported by your system by typing glxinfo | grep "OpenGL" on Terminal.

Linux Install Directions

Ubuntu/Mint Installation

Please note that OBS Studio does not work on Chrome OS.

  • xserver-xorg version 1.18.4 or newer is recommended to avoid potential performance issues with certain features in OBS, such as the fullscreen projector.

  • FFmpeg is required. If you do not have the FFmpeg installed (if you’re not sure, then you probably don’t have it), you can get it with the following commands:

    1.  sudo apt install ffmpeg

  • If you want virtual camera support you need v4l2loopback-dkms installed. You can install it with the following command :

  1. sudo apt install v4l2loopback-dkms

  • Make sure you enabled the multiverse repo in Ubuntu’s software center (NOTE: On newer versions of Ubuntu, adding a repository automatically apt updates.) Then you can install OBS with the following commands:

    1.  sudo add-apt-repository ppa:obsproject/obs-studio
    2.  sudo apt update
    3.  sudo apt install obs-studio

Arch Linux Installation (Unofficial)

  • “Release” version is available on the community repository:

    1.  sudo pacman -S obs-studio

  • Some AUR packages are also available.

Manjaro Installation (Unofficial)

  • Graphical: search “obs-studio” on Pamac Manager or Octopi

  • Command-line: install it via pacman with the following command:

    1.  sudo pacman -S obs-studio

  • Some AUR packages are also available.

Fedora Installation (Unofficial)

  • OBS Studio is included in RPM Fusion. If you do not have it configured (if you’re not sure, then you probably don’t have it), you can do so with the following command:

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

  • Then you can install OBS with the following command (this pulls all dependencies, including NVENC-enabled FFmpeg):

    1.  sudo dnf install obs-studio

  • For NVIDIA Hardware accelerated encoding, make sure you have CUDA installed:

    1.  sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda

  • If you have an older card, use this command instead:

    1.  sudo dnf install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-340xx-cuda

OpenMandriva Installation (Unofficial)

  • OBS Studio is included in OpenMandriva Lx3 non-free repository and in restricted repository for upcoming Lx4 release - available now as Cooker.

For OpenMandriva Lx3

  • Graphical: search and install “obs-studio” on “OpenMandriva Install and Remove Software” (Rpmdrake)

  • Command-line: install it as root (su or sudo) via terminal/konsole with the following command:

    1.  urpmi obs-studio

For OpenMandriva Lx4

  • Graphical: search and install “obs-studio” on “OpenMandriva Software Management” (dnfdragora)

  • Command-line: install it as root (su or sudo) via terminal/konsole with the following command:

    1.  dnf install obs-studio

Solus Installation (Unofficial)

  • Graphical: search obs-studio in Software Center

  • Command-line: install it as root (su or sudo) via terminal/konsole with the following command:

    1.  eopkg install obs-studio

openSUSE Installation (Unofficial)

  • The Packman repository contains the obs-studio package since it requires the fuller version of FFmpeg which is in Packman for legal reasons. If you do not already have the Packman repository add it as shown below.

    • For openSUSE Tumbleweed:
    1.  sudo zypper ar -cfp 90 http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/ packman
    • For openSUSE Leap 15.2 (If you’re using a derivative of Leap, replace $releasever by your leap release number) :
    1.  sudo zypper ar -cfp 90 'https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/misc/packman/suse/openSUSE_Leap_$releasever/' packman

  • The Packman version of FFmpeg should be used for full codec support. To
    ensure any existing codec packages are switched to Packman versions
    execute the following before installing obs-studio.

    1.  sudo zypper dup --from packman --allow-vendor-change

  • Install the obs-studio package.

    1.  sudo zypper in obs-studio

Links:

Gentoo Installation (Unofficial)

Command-line: can be installed using portage by the following command:

  1. sudo emerge media-video/obs-studio

See https://packages.gentoo.org/packages/media-video/obs-studio for available versions and more information.

NixOS Installation (Unofficial)

Command-line: can be installed by the following command:

  1. nix-env -i obs-studio

See https://nixos.org/wiki/OBS for further instructions

UOS/Deepin Installation (Unofficial)

UOS/Deepin 20 or newer is required.

  • First, make sure you have everything up-to-date.

    1.  sudo apt-get update

  • FFmpeg is required. If you do not have the FFmpeg installed (if you’re not sure, then you probably don’t have it), you can get it with the following command (or compile it yourself):

    1.  sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

  • Finally, install OBS Studio.

    1.  sudo apt-get install obs-studio

  • or with Spark Store:

    1.  sudo apt install com.obsproject.studio

Debian/LMDE Installation (Unofficial)

Debian 9.0 or newer is required.
Please note that OBS Studio is not fully working on Chrome OS and features like Screen and Window Capture do not work.

Also note that as of 2021-06-13, this package is the outdated 0.0.1 version. It should still work, but won’t have all new improvements. Build from source to get the newest version.

  • First, make sure you have everything up-to-date.

    1.  sudo apt update

  • FFmpeg is required. If you do not have the FFmpeg installed (if you’re not sure, then you probably don’t have it), you can get it with the following command (or compile it yourself):

    1.  sudo apt install ffmpeg

  • Finally, install OBS Studio.

    1.  sudo apt install obs-studio

Void Installation (Unofficial)

  • First make sure your repositories are up-to-date. OBS is available on the multilib repos if you need the 32-bit build.

    1.  sudo xbps-install -S

  • Then install OBS Studio. Any missing dependencies will be installed automatically.

    • If it refuses to install, try running sudo xbps-install -Su to update everything first.
    1.  sudo xbps-install obs

snappy Installation (Unofficial)

  • If you haven’t already, install snapd (ignore the Support Overview which is outdated).

  • Install OBS Studio.

    1.  sudo snap install obs-studio

Linux Build Directions

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.

Red Hat-based Build Directions

  • Get RPM Fusion at http://rpmfusion.org/Configuration/ (Nux Desktop is an alternative that may include better packages for RHEL/CentOS 7)

  • Get the required packages:

    1.  sudo yum install \
    2.         cmake \
    3.         ffmpeg-devel \
    4.         fontconfig-devel \
    5.         freetype-devel \
    6.         gcc \
    7.         gcc-c++ \
    8.         gcc-objc \
    9.         git \
    10.         glib2-devel \
    11.         libcurl-devel \
    12.         libglvnd-devel \
    13.         libv4l-devel \
    14.         libX11-devel \
    15.         libXcomposite-devel \
    16.         libXinerama-devel \
    17.         luajit-devel \
    18.         make \
    19.         mbedtls-devel \
    20.         pipewire-devel \
    21.         pulseaudio-libs-devel \
    22.         python3-devel \
    23.         qt5-qtbase-devel \
    24.         qt5-qtsvg-devel \
    25.         qt5-qtwayland-devel \
    26.         qt5-qtx11extras-devel \
    27.         speexdsp-devel \
    28.         swig \
    29.         systemd-devel \
    30.         wayland-devel \
    31.         x264-devel

  • Building and installing OBS:

    • If building with browser source:

      1.   wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      2.   tar -xjf ./cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      3.   git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      4.   cd obs-studio
      5.   mkdir build && cd build
      6.   cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=1 -DBUILD_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_4280_linux64" ..
      7.   make -j4
      8.   sudo make install

    • If building without browser source:

      1.   git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      2.   cd obs-studio
      3.   mkdir build && cd build
      4.   cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=1 -DBUILD_BROWSER=OFF ..
      5.   make -j4
      6.   sudo make install

  • By default OBS installs libraries in /usr/local/lib. To make sure that the loader can find them there, create a file /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf with the single line

    and then run

    1.  sudo ldconfig

    Fedora Build Directions

    1.  sudo dnf install \
    2.         cmake \
    3.         ffmpeg-devel \
    4.         fontconfig-devel \
    5.         freetype-devel \
    6.         gcc \
    7.         gcc-c++ \
    8.         gcc-objc \
    9.         git \
    10.         glib2-devel \
    11.         libcurl-devel \
    12.         libdrm-devel \
    13.         libglvnd-devel \
    14.         libv4l-devel \
    15.         libX11-devel \
    16.         libXcomposite-devel \
    17.         libXdamage \
    18.         libXinerama-devel \
    19.         luajit-devel \
    20.         make \
    21.         mbedtls-devel \
    22.         pipewire-devel \
    23.         pulseaudio-libs-devel \
    24.         python3-devel \
    25.         qt5-qtbase-devel \
    26.         qt5-qtbase-private-devel \
    27.         qt5-qtsvg-devel \
    28.         qt5-qtwayland-devel \
    29.         qt5-qtx11extras-devel \
    30.         speexdsp-devel \
    31.         swig \
    32.         systemd-devel \
    33.         vlc-devel \
    34.         wayland-devel \
    35.         x264-devel

  • Building and installing OBS:

    • If building with browser source:

      1.   wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      2.   tar -xjf ./cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      3.   git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      4.   cd obs-studio
      5.   mkdir build && cd build
      6.   cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=1 -DBUILD_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_4280_linux64" ..
      7.   make -j$(nproc)
      8.   sudo make install
      9.   sudo echo "/usr/local/lib" >> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf
      10.   sudo ldconfig

    • If building without browser source:

      1.   git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      2.   cd obs-studio
      3.   mkdir build && cd build
      4.   cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=1 -DBUILD_BROWSER=OFF ..
      5.   make -j$(nproc)
      6.   sudo make install
      7.   sudo echo "/usr/local/lib" >> /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf
      8.   sudo ldconfig

Debian-based Build Directions

  • Get the required packages:

    1.  sudo apt-get install \
    2.          build-essential \
    3.          cmake \
    4.          git \
    5.          libmbedtls-dev \
    6.          libasound2-dev \
    7.          libavcodec-dev \
    8.          libavdevice-dev \
    9.          libavfilter-dev \
    10.          libavformat-dev \
    11.          libavutil-dev \
    12.          libcurl4-openssl-dev \
    13.          libfdk-aac-dev \
    14.          libfontconfig-dev \
    15.          libfreetype6-dev \
    16.          libglvnd-dev \
    17.          libjack-jackd2-dev \
    18.          libjansson-dev \
    19.          libluajit-5.1-dev \
    20.          libpulse-dev \
    21.          libqt5x11extras5-dev \
    22.          libspeexdsp-dev \
    23.          libswresample-dev \
    24.          libswscale-dev \
    25.          libudev-dev \
    26.          libv4l-dev \
    27.          libvlc-dev \
    28.          libwayland-dev \
    29.          libx11-dev \
    30.          libx264-dev \
    31.          libxcb-shm0-dev \
    32.          libxcb-xinerama0-dev \
    33.          libxcomposite-dev \
    34.          libxinerama-dev \
    35.          pkg-config \
    36.          python3-dev \
    37.          qtbase5-dev \
    38.          qtbase5-private-dev \
    39.          libqt5svg5-dev \
    40.          swig \
    41.          libxcb-randr0-dev \
    42.          libxcb-xfixes0-dev \
    43.          libx11-xcb-dev \
    44.          libxcb1-dev \
    45.          libxss-dev \
    46.          qtwayland5 \
    47.          libgles2-mesa \
    48.          libgles2-mesa-dev

  • Building and installing OBS:

    • If you have configured your environment with a umask 077 or a noexec home dir you may
      want to change your CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX, as it is reported /usr may change permissions on /usr/bin and /usr/lib.

    • If building with browser source:

      1. sudo apt install libnss3-dev
      2. wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      3. tar -xjf ./cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      4. git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      5. cd obs-studio
      6. mkdir build && cd build
      7. # Note Ubuntu 20.04/Debian 10 must set ENABLE_PIPEWIRE=OFF and do not support wayland capture.
      8. # Modern platforms can use the default/enable pipewire for wayland capture support.
      9. cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=1 -DENABLE_PIPEWIRE=OFF -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DBUILD_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_4280_linux64" ..
      10. make -j$(nproc)
      11. sudo make install

      If you have checkinstall use this instead of make install

      1. sudo checkinstall --default --pkgname=obs-studio --fstrans=no --backup=no --pkgversion="$(date +%Y%m%d)-git" --deldoc=yes

    • If building without browser source:

    1.  git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
    2.  cd obs-studio
    3.  mkdir build && cd build
    4.  # Note Ubuntu 20.04/Debian 10 must set ENABLE_PIPEWIRE=OFF and do not support wayland capture.
    5.  # Modern platforms can use the default/enable pipewire for wayland capture support.
    6.  cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=1 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DENABLE_PIPEWIRE=OFF -DBUILD_BROWSER=OFF ..
    7.  make -j$(nproc)
    8.  sudo make install

    If you have checkinstall use this instead of make install

    1.  sudo checkinstall --default --pkgname=obs-studio --fstrans=no --backup=no --pkgversion="$(date +%Y%m%d)-git" --deldoc=yes

openSUSE Build Directions

  • See openSUSE installation instructions (above) for details on adding Packman repository.

  • Install build dependencies:

    1.  sudo zypper in cmake \
    2.               fontconfig-devel \
    3.               freetype2-devel \
    4.               gcc \
    5.               gcc-c++ \
    6.               libcurl-devel \
    7.               ffmpeg2-devel \
    8.               libjansson-devel \
    9.               libpulse-devel \
    10.               libspeexdsp-devel \
    11.               libqt5-qtbase-devel \
    12.               libqt5-qtx11extras-devel \
    13.               libudev-devel \
    14.               libv4l-devel \
    15.               libXcomposite-devel \
    16.               libXinerama-devel \
    17.               libXrandr-devel \
    18.               luajit-devel \
    19.               mbedtls \
    20.               swig \
    21.               python3-devel \
    22.               libxss-dev

  • Building and installing OBS:

    • If building with browser source:

      1.   wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      2.   tar -xjf ./cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      3.   git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      4.   cd obs-studio
      5.   mkdir build && cd build
      6.   cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=1 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DBUILD_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_4280_linux64" ..
      7.   make -j4
      8.   sudo make install

    • If building without browser source:

      1.   git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      2.   cd obs-studio
      3.   mkdir build && cd build
      4.   cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=1 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DBUILD_BROWSER=OFF ..
      5.   make -j4
      6.   sudo make install

Linux portable mode (all distros)

  • Please note that you need to install the build dependencies for your distribution before following this 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:

      1.   wget https://cdn-fastly.obsproject.com/downloads/cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      2.   tar -xjf ./cef_binary_4280_linux64.tar.bz2
      3.   git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      4.   cd obs-studio
      5.   mkdir build && cd build
      6.   cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=0 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="${HOME}/obs-studio-portable" -DBUILD_BROWSER=ON -DCEF_ROOT_DIR="../../cef_binary_4280_linux64" ..
      7.   make -j4 && make install

    • If building without browser source:

      1.   git clone --recursive https://github.com/obsproject/obs-studio.git
      2.   cd obs-studio
      3.   mkdir build && cd build
      4.   cmake -DUNIX_STRUCTURE=0 -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX="${HOME}/obs-studio-portable" -DBUILD_BROWSER=OFF ..
      5.   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

FreeBSD

FreeBSD Installation (Unofficial)

  • Install OBS Studio:

    1.  pkg install obs-studio

FreeBSD Build Directions

  • The easiest way to build OBS Studio from source is to use the FreeBSD Ports and modify the multimedia/obs-studio port to suit your needs.

  • First you have to set up the ports infrastructure on your system. See the related chapter in the FreeBSD Handbook.

  • Once you’ve got your ports tree at /usr/ports you may edit the multimedia/obs-studio port to your liking. Then, you may build and install the port with:

    1.  cd /usr/ports/multimedia/obs-studio
    2.  make install clean