21
Freetube flatpak wayland AMD - hardware acceleration anyone? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by glitching@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

running the stuff in the title, tried a buncha switches for chromium/electron stuff but still the load mesured with e.g. amdgpu_top doesn't show "Media" usage. playing other stuff (VLC, Dragon, mpv) shows "Media" usage, which means those are using hardware acceleration.

edit: in the meantime tried the portable version as well, same results so it isn't a flatpak issue.

edit 2: as @thingsiplay@lemmy.ml found, running portable and flatpak with --enable-features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxZeroCopyGL,AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL,VaapiIgnoreDriverChecks under X11/Xwayland produces hardware accelerated video. that doesn't seem to be the case with wayland, the media graph stays at 0% and there's a buncha dropped frames with e.g. 4K video.

top 18 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago

I think I found it. Didn't bother to look this up until your post and can confirm by default the "Media" is not utilized. Looking into a bug report about exactly that from Feb, 2025 (a year ago from now) https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube/issues/6786 the developer says a set of flags is needed to pass in and a user suggests following: https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube/issues/6786#issuecomment-2832299878

flatpak run io.freetubeapp.FreeTube --enable-features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxZeroCopyGL,AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL,VaapiIgnoreDriverChecks,VaapiOnNvidiaGPUs

I can confirm this will use some "Media" activity. But comparing (unscientifically) the GPU and GFX in fdinfo, the utilization doesn't seem too different. So overall I am not sure if that is actually hardware acceleration. Also make sure FreeTube has permission for "GPU acceleration" under "Device" set with Flatseal.

[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

works with portable, media percentage is non-zero (dependent on resolution) but only with X11/Xwayland. running it with wayland switches works but nets a 0% in media.

doesn't work at all with Appimage; won't start with wayland switches. without them starts but media at 0%.

works with flatpak, media is non-zero, under Xwayland. ~~for some reason now won't start under wayland at all, possibly something I fucked up experimenting.~~ works under wayland but zero media use.

[-] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

I don't know why, but the shortcut in the "Start" menu of KDE does not longer start FreeTube... Its Command-line arguments is 'run --branch=stable' --arch=x86_64 --command=/app/bin/run.sh --file-forwarding io.freetubeapp.FreeTube @@u %u @@ . I have uninstalled FreeTube, deleted the shortcut so it is created from scratch and still does not start. It only starts from either commandline with regular flatpak command, or when I create a new shortcut with the arguments run io.freetubeapp.FreeTube --enable features=AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxZeroCopyGL,AcceleratedVideoDecodeLinuxGL,VaapiIgnoreDriverChecks,VaapiOnNvidiaGPUs

[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

check if you have runaway processes: ps aux | grep -i freetube then kill them if they're there. also flatpak settings, here are mine:

[-] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

For whatever reason the arguments got additional quotation marks 'run --branch=stable' which messed up the command... deleting the quotation marks runs fine now. Weird... probably a bug from KDE when I tried to add the other options. Well thanks, now it runs with the original shortcut again. Thanks for the screenshot, helped me seeing the issue instantly.

[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

cool beans. can you confirm your flatpak settings, are they for X or wayland? if you run freetube and run xlsclients in terminal, does it return empty? and if freetube runs in wayland, does it say 0% in media when you playback?

[-] thingsiplay@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

I don't know how to do a screenshot of the entire window that scrolls outside the view... i know skill issues. :D Well in Flatseal some relevant settings are X11 windowing system = ON, Wayland windowing system = OFF, Fallback to X11 windowing system = OFF. GPU acceleration = ON:

  • xlsclients returns "freetube"
  • With the enabled acceleration features using cmdline: "Media" activity is active (as soon as I play a video)
  • Without the extra features: "Media" activity is 0%

Unfortunately if I enable Wayland (just reverse ON / OFF X11 and Wayland setting in Flatseal), the Media activity is unused. Following settings and results are...

X11 windowing system = OFF, Wayland windowing system = ON, Fallback to X11 windowing system = OFF. GPU acceleration = ON:

  • xlsclients returns "" (empty)
  • With the enabled acceleration features using cmdline: "Media" activity is 0%
  • Without the extra features: "Media" activity is 0%
[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

yeah, that jives with what I got here. wayland - no HW accel, xwayland - HW accel. so I guess that's it, for the time being...

[-] just_another_person@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

It's a Flatpak. Did you give it proper permissions to use this hardware?

[-] Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

Stop using flatpack for open source stuff people, i will get tagged as the anti-flatpack guy but there is 3 threads a week for stuff like this.

Flatpack solves the wrong problem for the wrong people. Stop recommending it, stop using it and spread the word.

[-] brooke592@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

I agree. I always try to use software from my distros repository before anything else.

Flatpaks/appimages are good for when there is no other option.

[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

if you'd read the thread you'd see it's not a flatpak issue. also if you spell it correctly maybe people would take you seriously.

[-] Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago

  • the thread had no solution when I wrote, I assumed it was flatpak

  • You seem to have found a reason now, and it indeed seems to be flatpak again

And the reason is always the same, flatpak runs as intended and breaks stuff by default, people find issues, write a thread here to ask for proper flags and settings for stuff that works natively out of the box 90% of the time when installed from the native repos in serious distros.

Which brings us back to my point: it solves the wrong problem for the wrong people. Provides sandboxing and isolation for people that use it as a covenient software source unaware of its quirks.

For those aware of them it is useless because they will know enough to do the isolation and sanboxing were it matters themselves.

To be fair you did some good work understanding what was happening, so I ask you: why do you use flatpak?

[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 1 points 23 hours ago

brah, it is not a flatpak issue, the same happens with the portable version i.e. the one you'd get via deb/rpm/whatevers. it doesn't accelerate video under wayland but does with xwayland; If you got a commensurate rant towards wayland, ixnay please.

as to why flatpak at all, I like my system stuff and my application stuff separate. thus my apps are all flatpak and autoupdated via systemd timer (another rant?) whereas my system stuff get updated like once a month or so as I hate rebooting.

I'm sure you found by now that your use case doesn't match everybody else's, so chill with the absolutes a bit.

[-] Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.works 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

I ain't your brah mate.

Look, I am not that antagonistic man, no need to be this riled up. My main issue is that I lurk these threads to help people with their linux issues to help adoption, but we really have a lot of threads were flatpak is the issue, you can check the history.

I am sorry you did check to see if the native one works and reproduced the issue, I somehow understood the exact contrary, I apologize.

The next time I will ask the user to reproduce te issue with the native version before I start my rant.

My usecase is to turn on my machine in the morning, edit some text files and run a browser and some command line tools. Then i turn it off in the evening, nothing special. I got no beef with wayland and especially nothing against systemd btw.

Is there any chanche that your reboot aversion is due to wayland's issues with session restoration?

[-] furzegulo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

Can't comment on the flatpak, but my portable binary works with HW acceleration with the flags --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland

[-] glitching@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

flatpak runs fine under wayland, no switches needed, xlsclients comes back empty.

anyhow, tried it just now, downloaded portable, ran it with those (and other flags), media graph is still at zero. how did you verify yours is HW accelerated?

[-] boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 days ago

Well it is some electron version, does that support it?

this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026
21 points (95.7% liked)

Linux

57274 readers
820 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
nooter692@lemmy.ml
MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml
cypherpunks@lemmy.ml
cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
d3Xt3r@lemmy.nz