Running DaVinci Resolve Studio on Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu, Devuan GNU+Linux

Introduction

This article summarizes the simple instructions for running DaVinci Resolve and DaVinci Resolve Studio video editing software on Debian GNU/Linux-based systems.

Supported Distributions

DaVinci Resolve and Resolve Studio work fine on Debian and Ubuntu.

Release of Debian tested was Debian 12 (bookworm) amd64.

Due to reliance on systemd, the application will not work on Devuan GNU+Linux.

Installation

The installation instructions are simple, as always:

1. Download the “.zip” file from Blackmagic (the file usually ends up placed in ~/Downloads/)

2. Unzip it with cd ~/Downloads/ && unzip DaVinci_Resolve_Studio_20.3_Linux.zip

3. Run the extracted installation file: ./DaVinci_Resolve_Studio_20.3_Linux.run

4. Follow the instructions

Running

To run the application, use /opt/resolve/bin/resolve or click the desktop icon.

Nvidia Graphics Drivers

DaVinci Resolve will fail to start if it can’t find an accelerated graphics card.

For nvidia, it is convenient to install drivers from nvidia’s own package repository. The instructions below are for “debian12”. If your system is different, browse nvidia's directory listing to find the correct directory name.

To install nvidia drivers:

1. Add/trust Nvidia drivers signing keys:

(Similar as for the directory itself, if the specific keyring package file is not there, open the directory in the browser to find out the currently valid filename.)

curl -fsSL https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64/cuda-keyring_1.1-1_all.deb -o nvidia-keyring.deb
dpkg -i nvidia-keyring.deb

2. Add to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nvidia-drivers.list:

deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/nvidia-drivers.gpg] https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/repos/debian12/x86_64/ /

3. Run:

apt update
apt install linux-headers-amd64 nvidia-driver{,-cuda}

High DPI

To correct the size of graphical and font elements in the application (usually when they are too small), run:

QT_AUTO_SCREEN_SCALE_FACTOR=1 QT_FONT_DPI=192 /opt/resolve/bin/resolve

Extras Download Manager

In the Studio version of DaVinci Resolve, there is a menu option “DaVinci Resolve -> Extras Download Manager…”.

But it can’t download extras. Trying to download any extras packages will immediately fail with the error message “Download failed”.

The cause are hardcoded SSL-related paths in the application which are set to the values valid for RedHat-based systems.

To correct the issue on Debian-based systems, two symlinks are needed:

cd /etc/pki
ln -sf /etc/ssl

cd /etc/ssl/certs
ln -sf ca-certificates.crt ca-bundle.crt