How to Install FFmpeg on Fedora: ffmpeg-free or Full FFmpeg from RPM Fusion

Updated: 9 October 2026 · Applies to: Fedora 44 (tested, dnf5, FFmpeg 8.1.3) and Fedora 43 with RPM Fusion

To install FFmpeg on Fedora, run sudo dnf install ffmpeg. That gives you ffmpeg-free, Fedora's own build with a limited set of codecs (no x264 or x265 encoders, no HEVC decoder). For the full FFmpeg, enable the RPM Fusion repositories and swap the package:

sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing

Both builds are the same FFmpeg version (8.1.3 on Fedora 44 at the time of writing); only the codec list differs.

ffmpeg-free or full FFmpeg: which one do you need?

We tested both builds on Fedora 44. ffmpeg-free handled:

• Audio: MP3 (libmp3lame), AAC (aac and libfdk_aac), Opus and Vorbis.
• Video: VP9 (libvpx-vp9), AV1 (libaom-av1, libsvtav1, librav1e) and H.264 through Cisco's OpenH264 (libopenh264, both encoding and decoding).
• Copying streams without re-encoding (-c copy), cutting and remuxing.

What it could not do:

• Encode with libx264 or libx265 (the usual choices for MP4 video).
• Decode H.265/HEVC at all.
• Decode every H.264 file: a normal 4:2:0 High profile video worked through OpenH264, a High 4:4:4 file failed.

If you only convert audio, make WebM or AV1, or copy streams, ffmpeg-free is enough. For MP4 encoding with x264 or x265, or for HEVC input such as phone videos, install the full build.

Option 1: install ffmpeg-free (no extra repository)

1. Install it. With dnf5, the name ffmpeg resolves to ffmpeg-free while RPM Fusion is not enabled:

   sudo dnf install ffmpeg

2. Check the result:

   $ rpm -q ffmpeg-free
   ffmpeg-free-8.1.3-1.fc44.x86_64
   $ ffmpeg -version | head -1
   ffmpeg version 8.1.3 Copyright (c) 2000-2026 the FFmpeg developers

Option 2: install the full FFmpeg from RPM Fusion

1. Enable the RPM Fusion free and nonfree repositories (the command from RPM Fusion's own configuration page; $(rpm -E %fedora) fills in your Fedora version):

   sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

   Check that the repositories are there:

   $ dnf repolist
   repo id                   repo name
   fedora                    Fedora 44 - x86_64
   fedora-cisco-openh264     Fedora 44 openh264 (From Cisco) - x86_64
   rpmfusion-free            RPM Fusion for Fedora 44 - Free
   rpmfusion-free-updates    RPM Fusion for Fedora 44 - Free - Updates
   rpmfusion-nonfree         RPM Fusion for Fedora 44 - Nonfree
   rpmfusion-nonfree-updates RPM Fusion for Fedora 44 - Nonfree - Updates
   updates                   Fedora 44 - x86_64 - Updates

2. Replace ffmpeg-free with the full build:

   sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing

   dnf removes ffmpeg-free and its -free libraries and installs ffmpeg, ffmpeg-libs, x264-libs and x265-libs from RPM Fusion (about 15 MiB to download in our test). The first time, it asks you to import the RPM Fusion key:

   Importing OpenPGP key 0xD651FF2E:
    UserID     : "RPM Fusion free repository for Fedora (2020) <rpmfusion-buildsys@lists.rpmfusion.org>"
    Fingerprint: E9A491A3DE247814E7E067EAE06F8ECDD651FF2E
    From       : file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmfusion-free-fedora-44

   Answer y. The same command works when ffmpeg-free was never installed: dnf prints "No packages to remove for argument: ffmpeg-free" and installs ffmpeg.
3. Check that the x264 and x265 encoders and the HEVC decoder are there:

   $ ffmpeg -hide_banner -encoders | grep -E "libx264|libx265"
    V....D libx264              libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 (codec h264)
    V....D libx264rgb           libx264 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10 RGB (codec h264)
    V....D libx265              libx265 H.265 / HEVC (codec hevc)
   $ ffmpeg -hide_banner -decoders | grep -E " (h264|hevc) "
    VFS..D h264                 H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10
    VFS..D hevc                 HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding)

4. Make a short test video to confirm encoding works:

   ffmpeg -f lavfi -i testsrc=duration=3:size=1280x720:rate=25 -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p test.mp4

Desktop playback and hardware acceleration

On a server or VPS you only need the ffmpeg package. On Fedora Workstation, RPM Fusion also recommends its multimedia group so that GStreamer apps can play the same formats:

sudo dnf install @multimedia --setopt="install_weak_deps=False" --exclude=PackageKit-gstreamer-plugin

According to RPM Fusion, the VA-API drivers for GPU decoding and encoding are intel-media-driver (recent Intel GPUs, libva-intel-driver for older ones), mesa-va-drivers-freeworld for AMD and libva-nvidia-driver for NVIDIA.

Common errors

• Unknown encoder 'libx264' (the full message ends with Error opening output files: Encoder not found): you are running ffmpeg-free. Enable RPM Fusion and run the swap command above.
• Decoding requested, but no decoder found for: hevc: ffmpeg-free has no H.265 decoder. Install the full build.
• [dec:libopenh264] Decode error rate 1 exceeds maximum: OpenH264 could not decode that H.264 profile. The full build uses FFmpeg's own h264 decoder instead.
• Conflicts between ffmpeg-free libraries and ffmpeg: this is why the swap needs --allowerasing; letting dnf remove the -free libraries is expected.
• libopenh264 missing: the Cisco repository may be disabled. RPM Fusion gives this command for Fedora 41 and later: sudo dnf config-manager setopt fedora-cisco-openh264.enabled=1
• Going back to ffmpeg-free: sudo dnf swap ffmpeg ffmpeg-free --allowerasing (tested).
• After a Fedora upgrade: nothing to redo. The RPM Fusion repository files use $releasever, so they follow the new release.

For AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, Ubuntu and Debian, see how to install FFmpeg on Linux; on a cPanel server, see how to install FFmpeg on a cPanel server. To check which version a repository offers before installing, see how to search packages and list repositories with dnf.

Official documentation: RPM Fusion configuration, RPM Fusion multimedia howto and FFmpeg documentation.