Hi, so if I understand it correctly (I’m fairly new to Linux) the inability to create thumbnail previews for MP4 HEVC H.265 encoded video files is a Linux thing in general due to H.265 not being free, right?
Even the version of VLC offered through standard Fedora repository can’t play them, but the Flatpak version plays them. So, I’m wondering if there is some software that can add the H.265 preview functionality to Dolphin? Thanks!
That would be ffmpeg support for the codec that can’t be shipped by default in Fedora because of patents (free implementation exists).
Fedora forum would be more adequate here Unable to play H.265 Video - Fedora Discussion
For me on a Debian based system it was the package ffmpegthumbs that needed to be installed to get the thumbnails. I had missed it when doing my minimal install, I would think if you can get it installed somehow with the h265 enabled on the Fedora you would have them too. Fedora always cripples their multimedia codecs installed as you have found out.
Well then you would need to download the source track down where they disabled the x265 support then recompile and install to get it back. Do they still ship that thing (Fedora) not able to play mp3 files as well? They used to do that or was that when it was still called Red Hat.
OT, but Fedora is sponsored by Red Hat, and upstream of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Many of the contributors to Fedora also work for Red Hat.
Come to ArchLinux everything works great by default
CachyOS, EndeavourOS, ManjaroLinux are some good distros for newcomers that are based on ArchLinux
Cachy will give ou more optimized packages
Manjaro will give you updates after 2 weeks of it being released for Arch
Endeavour is middle gorund between above two
And all 3 will install all codecs by default (maybe few of them would ask on setup/first-boot)
Are you using ffmpeg-free? If so,
sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing
to swap to rpmfusion version. You can follow this guide for more detailed steps: https://github.com/devangshekhawat/Fedora-41-Post-Install-Guide
For what it’s worth, RPMFusion has their own official “How To…” guides on their site, so you can see the recommended steps for installing and activating their versions of each capability: Howto - RPM Fusion
I bring this up mostly because over on the Fedora Discussion forums, I’ve seen a lot of folks get into sticky situations by following guides written with good intentions, but without all the context that the RPMFusion folks themselves have.
Manjaro Linux has been stable for me till now , because they sit on proved working updates and test the newer packages if in 2 weeks it has no bugs it is pushed as stable update to normal users