If you want to run professional-grade video editing software on Linux, DaVinci Resolve is the only serious option in the room. Blackmagic Design built it with Linux support from the ground up, and the free version is genuinely powerful. The catch? Installing DaVinci Resolve on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is not as clean as it sounds. Ubuntu 24.04 ships with newer library versions that break the default installer, and the process requires a few extra steps to fix conflicting shared libraries before the application will launch correctly. This guide walks you through every step, from download to first launch, including GPU driver setup and the most common post-install errors you will run into.

What Is DaVinci Resolve and Why Run It on Linux?

DaVinci Resolve started as a dedicated color grading tool used in Hollywood productions like Solo: A Star Wars Story and Jurassic World. Blackmagic Design expanded it into a complete post-production suite that covers video editing, color grading, visual effects through Fusion, audio post-production through Fairlight, and final delivery.

The free version covers everything most individual creators and developers need. The paid DaVinci Resolve Studio (~$295 one-time) adds multi-GPU support, HDR tools, advanced noise reduction powered by the DaVinci Neural Engine, and multi-user collaboration. For personal projects and learning on Ubuntu 24.04, the free version is more than sufficient.

Running it on Linux means you get a professional toolset with zero recurring software costs on a stable, open-source OS. That matters for sysadmins and developers who already live in the terminal and do not want to maintain a separate Windows partition for creative work.

Prerequisites

Before you run a single command, confirm you have the following in place:

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat), 64-bit, x86_64 architecture only
• Display server: Xorg, not Wayland. DaVinci Resolve does not support Wayland. Check with: echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE — output must be x11
• GPU: A discrete NVIDIA or AMD GPU with at least 2 GB VRAM (4 GB+ recommended for 4K workflows)
• RAM: Minimum 16 GB system RAM; 32 GB or more for 4K editing
• NVIDIA Driver: Version 550 or later (if using NVIDIA GPU)
• Storage: At least 5 GB free disk space to cover the ZIP, extracted installer, and installed application
• Permissions: A user account with sudo privileges
• Network: A stable internet connection for downloading the 2.8 GB installer ZIP
• Blackmagic Design account: Free to register; required to unlock the download link
• Display resolution: 1920×1080 minimum

If your system runs Wayland, log out, click the gear icon on the login screen, select Ubuntu on Xorg, and log back in before proceeding.

Step 1: Update Your Ubuntu 24.04 LTS System

Always start with a clean, fully updated system. Outdated package caches cause dependency mismatches that will silently break the installation later.

Run the following command chain in your terminal:

sudo apt clean && sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y && sudo apt --fix-broken install && sudo apt autoclean && sudo apt autoremove -y

Here is what each part does:

• apt clean clears the local cached package files
• apt update refreshes the package index from all configured repositories
• apt dist-upgrade -y upgrades all packages, including those that require installing or removing other packages (important for kernel and library upgrades)
• apt --fix-broken install resolves any broken dependency states left over from previous installs
• apt autoclean && apt autoremove -y removes stale cached files and unused packages

If the upgrade included kernel packages, reboot before continuing:

sudo reboot

Skipping the reboot after a kernel upgrade can cause library version conflicts later in this process.

Step 2: Download DaVinci Resolve from Blackmagic Design

The only legitimate source for DaVinci Resolve is the official Blackmagic Design website. Do not use third-party mirrors or PPAs for the installer itself.

Navigate to:

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support/family/davinci-resolve-and-fusion

Scroll to the bottom and locate the two download buttons: DaVinci Resolve (free) and DaVinci Resolve Studio (paid). Click Download Now next to your preferred version, then select Linux.

A registration form will appear. Fill in your name, email address, country, and phone number. This is required to unlock the download. After submission, the ZIP file download starts automatically.

The ZIP file is approximately 2.8 GB. Save it to your ~/Downloads directory. This keeps all the following commands consistent without modification.

Step 3: Extract the ZIP File

Open a terminal and navigate to the Downloads directory:

cd ~/Downloads

If unzip is not already installed, add it first:

sudo apt install unzip

Now extract the archive:

sudo unzip ./DaVinci_Resolve_*_Linux.zip

The wildcard * matches any version number, so this command works for DaVinci Resolve 19 and 20 without modification.

After extraction, you will see two files:

• A .run installer file (the actual installer, roughly 2.7 GB)
• An .html file with basic Blackmagic Design installation notes

Do not delete the ZIP until you confirm the installation works. If something goes wrong mid-install, you will need to re-extract without downloading again.

Step 4: Install Required System Dependencies

This step is where Ubuntu 24.04 LTS diverges from earlier releases. The DaVinci Resolve installer checks for specific package names that no longer exist in Ubuntu 24.04 because several libraries were renamed with the transition to t64 suffixes.

Install the packages that are available:

sudo apt install libapr1 libaprutil1 libasound2t64 libglib2.0-0t64 libglib2.0-bin libxcb-composite0 libxcb-cursor0 libfuse2 libqt5x11extras5

What each package does:

• libapr1 and libaprutil1: Apache Portable Runtime libraries required by the Resolve audio engine
• libasound2t64: ALSA sound library (renamed from libasound2 in Ubuntu 24.04)
• libglib2.0-0t64 and libglib2.0-bin: GLib core library utilities used by the Resolve UI
• libxcb-composite0 and libxcb-cursor0: X11 compositing and cursor support for the Resolve interface
• libfuse2: Required for the .run AppImage-style installer to mount and execute correctly
• libqt5x11extras5: Qt5 X11 extras used by the Resolve Qt-based UI

If apt reports that libasound2 does not exist, that is expected. Ubuntu 24.04 uses libasound2t64 as the replacement. The installer will still complain about the old name in the next step — the SKIP_PACKAGE_CHECK flag handles that.

Step 5: Make the Installer Executable

Downloaded files on Linux do not have execute permissions by default. Without this step, the shell will refuse to run the .run file.

Grant execute permission:

sudo chmod +x ./DaVinci_Resolve_*_Linux.run

Verify that the permission was applied correctly:

ls -la | grep .run

You should see -rwxr-xr-x or similar in the output (the x flags confirm execute permission is set). If you only see -rw-r--r--, run the chmod command again and recheck.

Step 6: Run the Installer with SKIP_PACKAGE_CHECK

This is the most critical command in the entire process. Running the standard installer without the flag causes it to stall on the renamed Ubuntu 24.04 library names and refuse to proceed, even though the functional equivalents are already installed.

Run the installer with the bypass flag:

sudo SKIP_PACKAGE_CHECK=1 ./DaVinci_Resolve_*_Linux.run -i

Flag breakdown:

• SKIP_PACKAGE_CHECK=1: Tells the installer to skip its built-in library verification. The check is outdated for Ubuntu 24.04 package naming conventions.
• -i: Launches the installer in interactive (GUI wizard) mode.

A small graphical wizard will appear. It will ask one or two confirmation questions. Click Start Install when prompted and enter your user password.

The installer deploys DaVinci Resolve to /opt/resolve/ by default. Leave this path unchanged. Installation typically takes 2 to 5 minutes depending on your disk speed. A desktop shortcut is created automatically when the process finishes.

Step 7: Fix the libpango Shared Library Conflict

After installation, do not try to launch DaVinci Resolve yet. A known conflict between the libraries bundled inside /opt/resolve/libs/ and Ubuntu 24.04’s system libraries will cause an immediate crash.

The error you will see if you launch prematurely:

/opt/resolve/bin/resolve: symbol lookup error:
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpango-1.0.so.0:
undefined symbol: g_once_init_leave_pointer

Root cause: DaVinci Resolve ships its own versions of libglib-2.0, libgio-2.0, and libgmodule-2.0 inside /opt/resolve/libs/. These bundled versions are older than what Ubuntu 24.04 provides system-wide. When libpango loads and expects the newer system GLib ABI, it finds the bundled older version instead and fails.

Fix: Move the conflicting bundled libraries out of the active path so Resolve falls back to the system-provided versions.

cd /opt/resolve/libs
sudo mkdir ./disabled_libs
sudo mv libglib-2.0.so* libgio-2.0.so* libgmodule-2.0.so* disabled_libs/

This moves all variants (.so, .so.0, .so.0.6800.4) of those three libraries into the disabled_libs subdirectory. Resolve will no longer find them there and will load the correct system libraries instead.

Verify the fix:

ldd /opt/resolve/bin/resolve | grep libglib

The output should show:

libglib-2.0.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libglib-2.0.so.0

If it still points to /opt/resolve/libs/, double-check that all libglib-2.0.so* files were moved.

Step 8: Install and Configure GPU Drivers

NVIDIA GPU Setup

DaVinci Resolve requires NVIDIA driver version 550 or later for GTX and RTX series GPUs. Older drivers cause GPU processing failures and crashes on launch.

Check your current driver version:

nvidia-smi

If the version shown is below 550, install the correct driver:

sudo apt install -y nvidia-driver-550

Alternatively, let Ubuntu select the best available driver automatically:

sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

Reboot after installing new drivers:

sudo reboot

For older NVIDIA hardware that does not support the latest CUDA instruction sets, DaVinci Resolve will display a GPU configuration warning on first launch. To resolve this, open Preferences > System > Memory and GPU, uncheck GPU processing mode (Auto), and set it to OpenCL manually. This trades some performance for compatibility and lets the application run without CUDA-related crashes.

AMD GPU Setup

DaVinci Resolve uses OpenCL for AMD GPU acceleration on Linux. Install the Mesa OpenCL runtime and the clinfo utility to verify detection:

sudo apt install -y mesa-opencl-icd clinfo

Confirm your AMD GPU is detected by OpenCL:

clinfo | grep "Device Name"

You should see your GPU name in the output. If the output is empty, the GPU is not being picked up by the OpenCL ICD loader. In that case, install the AMD ROCm OpenCL driver for your specific GPU generation.

Step 9: Configure DaVinci Resolve on Ubuntu 24.04 and Verify the Setup

Launch DaVinci Resolve from the terminal to capture any remaining errors:

/opt/resolve/bin/resolve

If no errors appear in the terminal, the installation is clean. To use the desktop shortcut, right-click it and select Allow Launching to make it executable as a clickable application.

On first launch, DaVinci Resolve opens the Project Manager. This is normal. To verify GPU acceleration is working:

1. Click DaVinci Resolve in the top menu bar
2. Select Preferences
3. Go to System > Memory and GPU
4. Confirm your GPU appears under GPU processing mode and that it is set to the correct processing type (CUDA for NVIDIA, OpenCL for AMD)

Create a short test project and import any short video clip. Play it back. If the timeline plays smoothly without dropped frames and the GPU usage shows activity (visible in nvidia-smi or radeontop), the DaVinci Resolve Ubuntu 24.04 setup is working correctly.

Step 10: Optimize DaVinci Resolve Performance on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

A working install is the baseline. A well-configured install is what you actually want for real work.

Key optimization tips:

• Always use Xorg. This is not optional. Wayland breaks DaVinci Resolve every time. Add a verification to your workflow: run echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE before starting a session.
• Enable Optimized Media. For 4K and higher resolution projects, go to Project Settings > Master Settings and enable Optimized Media. Resolve transcodes your source footage to a more GPU-friendly format for editing. Switch to full resolution only for color grading and export.
• Use Timeline Proxy Mode. In the timeline view, set the proxy mode to quarter or half resolution during the editing phase. This cuts GPU load significantly while keeping the edit workflow responsive.
• Adjust GPU memory allocation. If you see “GPU memory is full” warnings, go to Preferences > System > Memory and GPU and manually set the GPU memory limit to 80-85% of your actual VRAM capacity. This prevents Resolve from overcommitting GPU memory.
• Keep NVIDIA drivers updated. New driver releases frequently include performance improvements for GPU-accelerated video encoding and decoding workloads.

Troubleshooting Common DaVinci Resolve Errors on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Error 1: DaVinci Resolve Won’t Open at All

Symptom: The application does not launch; no window appears.

Cause: Almost always a Wayland session. DaVinci Resolve has no Wayland support on Linux.

Fix: Run echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE. If output is wayland, log out and select Ubuntu on Xorg at the login screen before logging back in.

Error 2: symbol lookup error — libpango

Symptom:

/opt/resolve/bin/resolve: symbol lookup error:
/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpango-1.0.so.0:
undefined symbol: g_once_init_leave_pointer

Cause: Bundled GLib libraries inside /opt/resolve/libs/ conflict with Ubuntu 24.04 system libraries.

Fix: Follow Step 7 above. Move libglib-2.0.so*, libgio-2.0.so*, and libgmodule-2.0.so* from /opt/resolve/libs/ into a subdirectory.

Error 3: H.264 / H.265 Files Will Not Import

Symptom: MP4 files appear greyed out or unplayable in the media pool.

Cause: DaVinci Resolve on Linux does not support H.264 and H.265 decoding in the free version due to codec licensing restrictions.

Fix: Transcode your source footage to DNxHR using FFmpeg before importing:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v dnxhd -profile:v dnxhr_hq output.mov

Error 4: “Start Install” Button Is Greyed Out

Symptom: The GUI installer wizard appears, but the Start Install button is inactive.

Cause: The .run file was not made executable before the installer was launched.

Fix: Close the wizard, go back to the terminal, re-run sudo chmod +x ./DaVinci_Resolve_*_Linux.run, and launch the installer again.

Error 5: GPU Memory Is Full on Launch

Symptom: DaVinci Resolve opens but immediately warns that GPU memory is full, even on a fresh launch with no project open.

Cause: Resolve auto-allocates more VRAM than the physical GPU provides when automatic GPU memory mode is enabled.

Fix: Go to Preferences > System > Memory and GPU and manually set the GPU memory limit to 10-15% below your actual VRAM capacity. For a 4 GB card, set it to 3.4 GB.

How to Uninstall DaVinci Resolve on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

If you need to remove DaVinci Resolve cleanly, use the built-in uninstaller rather than manually deleting files.

Terminal method (recommended):

sudo /opt/resolve/uninstall

After the uninstaller runs, remove leftover user configuration and cache files:

rm -rf ~/.local/share/DaVinciResolve

Confirm the application directory is gone:

ls /opt/resolve

If ls returns “No such file or directory,” the uninstall is complete.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed DaVinci Resolve. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the latest version of DaVinci Resolve on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official DaVinci Resolve website.