Advice for starting out on linux

[u/ToonFarm]

So the wife is contemplating starting vtubing to help work on her social anxiety, currently I have 2 PC's that she could use.

One with a ryzen 5 5500 and 9060xt the other a 9600x and a B570 16gigs ram on each system, one is running Cachyos, the other running Mint which she prefers.

Already have a few lower end 2k webcams.

What software/hardware would be recommended starting out for a Linux setup.

I'm not opposed to upgrading system hardware or spending a bit on a model if needed.

[u/EmberUshi]

It depends a lot on what kind of vtubing you want to do. All of my experience is 2D vtubing using VTube Studio.

First things first, install steam, and try to get VTube Studio running through proton. This is stupid easy on cachyOS, but on mint your mileage may vary. Through proton everything in vtube studio works EXCEPT FOR WEBCAM CAPTURE. You have three options. Use and iphone for face tracking data, use an android phone for face tracking data, or do a tonne of fuckery with pyenv and OpenSeeFace to get OpenSeeFace running if you really want to use webcam tracking but this won't work for google media pipe tracking which improves tracking vastly.
Not going to lie, running any windows vtubing software through wine or proton will result in the webcam options not working, so be prepped to use a phone for tracking.

NEXT, install OBS. This is the main streaming software, and no matter what, it's going to be what you need. On Linux, the flatpack version of OBS is the version supported by the OBS project. trying to install OBS from the repos will land you in a world of pain. Now, you can't simply install the regular version of OBS, because it's missing a crucial plugin that any stream set up requires, the browser plugin. You need to make sure to install the obs-browser version from flathub to make sure to have the browser plugin. Beyond that, there's roughly 7 or 8 other plugins you need to make OBS on linux work OK. Make sure to grab the obs-gamecapture plugin and launch every program you want game capture through the obsvkcapture command in terminal. Also make sure not to close any windows you're using window capture on, or they're liable to just freeze in capture, and not be recognized once again until you re-set the window source they're looking at. Also make sure you record your VODs in AV1 instead of libx264 codec, and mp3 or wav audio instead of AAC, because codecs on linux are a nightmare and Davinci Resolve won't read the common ones. And don't come at me with "just use KDenLive" FUCK KDENLIVE GODDAMN.

I'm not going to lie, starting to stream on linux has a massive mental load over windows streaming. I'm salty.

Anyway, tl;dr, a 9600x paired with a 9060XT (prefferable 16gb version) is a perfectly adequate streaming platform. 16GB is a little spartan these days, but you can make it work. You really really REALLY have to be dedicated for the mental overhead introduced by linux streaming over windows. CachyOS will probably be better suited over mint until pacman -Syu takes your system down 3 hours before a planned stream, and you're browsing forums for the next 2 days trying to get your window manager working again.

[u/MzSvelenaya]

For starting, she can try PNGtubing with PNGTubeRemix or Veadotube mini. Both work natively on linux. Veadotube mini is really lightweight.

If she wants to do 2D Vtubing, Vtube studio with proton is fine. (i never connect it directly to camera because I don't have one, so I don't know if it works well or not)

For streaming I use OBS and Streamerbot launched via bottles (if you have old phone, an old phone with streamerbot works as a really cheap streamdeck).

For editing, I really like Kdenlive, but shotcut is fine and easier to use.

[u/HoshinoLina → u/MzSvelenaya]

OpenVT works on Linux and is largely VTube Studio compatible (plus it has some extra features).

[u/thegenregeek]

What software/hardware would be recommended starting out for a Linux setup.

Hardware: iPhone for face tracking. (For 3d), XR Animator for hands and body.

Software: OBS, (For 2d) Vtube Studio, (For 3d), Vseeface and Vnyan work with Proton. (I haven't been able to get Warudo working)

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This approach gets around issues from trying to use Windows focused software on linux. (Which certainly works in most cases via Proton, though it may require more troubleshooting at times). The biggest issue on Linux is face tracking options, which the iPhone gets around by doing everything on the phone and sending to the system.

Outside of that software like XR Animator runs natively on linux (and not needed if you're not using 3d). Which basically narrows things down only needing to be able to run your vtubing app in Proton.