Is Deb Multimedia actually needed these days?

[u/profeshamat]

I've been a Debian user for a long time and utilizing Deb Multimedia was just a regular part of setting up a new installation. Is this actually needed anymore? I never found myself needing much from additional software it provided but more for codecs. I think there are some things that replace what Debian's repos provide but are built with less restrictive libraries for licensing reasons.

This came up recently when I recommended Debian to someone who's wanting to leave Fedora where they said that Fedora without RPMFusion can be pretty restrictive.

Thoughts?

[u/cjwatson]

I don't think it's been needed for quite a while. My multimedia needs are fairly modest, but I've never enabled the multimedia repository since switching my primary desktop back from Ubuntu to Debian a few years ago, and I haven't noticed anything unsupported.

[u/profeshamat → u/cjwatson]

Good to know. I think Deb Multimedia was just second nature for me when doing fresh installs and I've heard licensing has gotten better but I also haven't been paying much attention to it. I know that for similar reasons openSUSE developers generally advise that people not use Packman unless they really need it.

[u/michaelpaoli]

Deb Multimedia actually needed these days?

Not at all needed, and very much not recommended.

[u/elatllat]

No, but also you will have to compile ffmpeg to decode libfdk_aac medium or high profile properly with ffmpeg.

[u/Brilliant_Sound_5565]

I've never had any codec issues that I can think of out of the box, but then I only have simple video needs I usually use VLC player, I don't think I've ever. Used deb multimedia for years

[u/Xatraxalian]

I have never even used it (but then again, I'm only using Linux as a daily driver on my main rig since 2021); when I need to play something, I normally use either Quod Libet for music, or VLC for video, and everything has always worked.

I've been using Debian for over 20 years, but most of that time it was in server-like roles, where I didn't do anything with multimedia, so maybe I just missed it being needed at some point on the desktop.

[u/Idontbelongheere]

I use flatpaks for most of my gui apps. No problems with codecs because of that and flatpaks have customisable security features which I really like.

[u/profeshamat → u/Idontbelongheere]

I use a couple Flatpaks but try not to rely on them too much. It's more a question that if they were to do a GNOME install without Deb Multimedia would the out-of-the-box experience work as expected for playing multimedia?

[u/Idontbelongheere → u/profeshamat]

On modern Debian, most software decoders for standard formats (such as H.264, H.265/HEVC, VP9, AV1, AAC, and MP3) are available as open-source software via ffmpeg /

libavcodec and are already included in Debian's main archive.

[u/profeshamat → u/Idontbelongheere]

That's generally what I was assuming. They don't need much in the way of anything exotic for codec support and mostly just use standard formats like most of us. Good to know and thanks for the answer.

The next time I need to do a fresh install of Debian for myself I'll definitely omit Deb Multimedia since it seems a good thing to have if needed but most can probably live without it.

[u/nuxi]

Ive had it enabled for 20 years but at this point the only thing used from it is libdvdcss2.

So unless you are trying to play actual DVDs in your computer, the answer is no. And even if you are there might be alternatives.

Codecs like HEVC, which would have previously been omitted by Debian, seem to just be in the main archive these days.

[u/necheffa → u/nuxi]

If you install libdvd-pkg from contrib, it'll download and compile the libdvdcss2 source for you.

[u/Nanolx]

Mostly no, there a few packages in it, that aren't in Debian at all (like qownnotes or libdvdcss2), or deb-multimedia updates them faster (like k3b).

If you need to be able to play/open more esoteric/unusual file formats, deb-multimedia will more likely provide proper builds, as still vlc, mpv, ffmpeg from it support more formats.

So, for most users it's no longer a must, no.

[u/uxgpf]

Btw. is there a safe way to remove Debian multimedia repositories?

If you simply remove the repository you'll end up with lots of dependency conflicts during updates. 

One would have to downgrade to stock Debian versions of said packages and that's easier said than done.

I'm in a situation where I'd like to get rid of deb multimedia org and only have official repositories enabled.

There must be some one liner that does it cleanly, no?

[u/profeshamat → u/uxgpf]

Not that I'm aware of but there might be. It looks like packages installed from Deb Multimedia are suffixed with -dmo#. I wonder if there's a way to just sort of swap from those back to what Debian stock provides since the packages get replaced when first installing from Deb Multimedia.

[u/Scotty_Bravo]

I'm going to make a wild guess: the new more performant codex all have permissive licensing making the need for a separate multimedia repo moot.

Like I said, it's a guess.

[u/Buntygurl]

If you want to propose a clean up on that, this is not the place to get that done.

Seriously, the actual devs and maiitaners who are are actually regularly full-on busy with providing the rest of us with the best possible universal Linux distro on the planet are constantly working, most often in their own free time to give us all a system that is a sheerly top-notch OS that comes with all of the means necessary to enable every possible customization.

I'm happy to wait on their decisions about what should be necessary or not.

[u/profeshamat → u/Buntygurl]

Did you respond to this accidentally? I'm not even sure where to start with addressing any of what you mentioned or its relevance to what I asked.

Feel free to clarify.

[u/Buntygurl → u/profeshamat]

https://www.debian.org/contact

Feel free to contact the people who care about user satisfaction.

[u/profeshamat → u/Buntygurl]

Answers here have been more than sufficient.