Video playback in a fedora-36-minimal qube is much worse than in a regular fedora-36 qube (in firefox AND vlc)

User Support
1

I wanted to switch to minimal templates for two reasons: to see if it is possible and to improve my video (browser & dvd) playback, which is a bit jerky especially in horizontal moving scenes…

BUT

Video playback in firefox (in a fedora minimal qube) is even more jerky and slow as before (unwatchable even if I wait long), sometimes videos do not load at all and youtube recommends to restart the machine, something I have not seen before. When doing the same in a normal fedora (not minimal) qube it works as good as before.
Otherwise the firefox works just fine in minimal.

Any ideas? Is there important software missing, that is needed for playback/streaming?
I appreciate your help greatly
M.

2

Update:
It seems that in the fedora-minimal template there are essential audio and video playback packages missing.
I have installed vlc and have the same problem as in firefox: video starts with great delay. Seeking within the video will freeze the playback for a very long time just as in firefox/youtube, audio is missing. When switching the app qube to a standard fedora template (not minimal) all works fine.

3

Install pulseaudio-qubes.

1 Like
4 
$ sudo dnf install vlc vlc-extras python3-vlc vlc-core vlc-devel phonon-qt5-backend-vlc libvlcpp-devel
$ sudo dnf install pulseaudio-qubes --allowerasing
$ sudo dnf install qubes-audio-daemon

This works flawlessly with my fedora-37-minimal.

2 Likes
5

@enmus That did the trick (which package exactly, I do not know). Just in case someone else stumbles on the same problem: where would a normal user most likely find this information?

1 Like
6

Well, I don’t consider myself abnormal, hahah, but I couldn’t find it too. What helped me was to read a lot, especially logs then search online resources for them errors, then trials and errors…
At the end, a “normal” user can now find this info here, in this community that is better then many others…

1 Like
7

It’s a core assumption of using minimal templates that users will be
“advanced users” - this is documented and repeatedly quoted on the lists
and in the Forum. So a “normal user” should not need this information.

As to where this information for fedora can be found in the future,it’s here.
(I have no idea if the suggested install list is correct - for Debian it
looks like overkill)

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team. When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.
8

The fact is that only in this topic 50% of us so far couldn’t find summarized info elsewhere.But it (finally) worked at least for the OP since he couldn’t find the answer elsewhere. I’m talking about transferring knowledge here.

The list is most probably overkill, and assumes exactly non-advanced users will use this info avoiding most of possible failed vlc use cases because of the lack of some overkilled package (phonon package for example). I’m talking about transferring knowledge here, too.

The idea is that overkilled list will more probably work then with not overkilled for non-advanced users, thus sparing everyone’s time.

But that could be said even for official minimals doc, where it is recommended to install not few packages which users may not need ever and at all.

Advanced user will anyway know, and probably won’t need this info.

Of course, everyone is welcome to solve users’ issues the way they think it should be done, but I already emphasized earlier that my impression is that too few actually are. And that’s not good for promoting Qubes.

9

@enmus
I’m not clear on the point you are trying to make or why you use this tone.
I explicitly said that this forum would be the place where this information can
be found in the future.

I think this is misleading. It is true that there are relatively few users
contributing answers, just as there are relatively few concurrent users of
the Forum.
This has nothing to do with how people approach issues imo.

I never presume to speak for the Qubes team. When I comment in the Forum or in the mailing lists I speak for myself.
10

Relativism of contributions.