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Install commands by distro, with the versions we actually found

~/install-by-distro

By the TuxTone crew · Updated 2026-09-20 · Every version below was read out of the distribution's own package database on that date.

Most install guides give you a command and no idea what you'll get. On Linux that's the interesting part: the same package name delivers a 2024 release on one distribution and last month's on another, and for EasyEffects that difference spans a user-interface redesign. So this page pairs each command with the version we found in that distribution's database today, and tells you when to skip the repository entirely.

The versions we verified

"Not verified" means exactly that — we checked the databases we could check and are not going to guess about the rest. It is not a claim that the package is absent.read from archlinux.org, packages.debian.org, packages.ubuntu.com, packages.fedoraproject.org and flathub.org · 2026-09-20

Arch, Manjaro, EndeavourOS

The best-packaged distribution for this particular job — both the GUI route and the config-file route are one command away, at current versions:

~$ sudo pacman -S easyeffects
~$ sudo pacman -S noise-suppression-for-voice
~$ sudo pacman -S obs-studio ffmpeg sox

~$ # NoiseTorch is AUR-only, and dormant — see our status page
~$ paru -S noisetorch

Debian and Ubuntu (and Mint, Pop!_OS, Zorin…)

~$ sudo apt update
~$ sudo apt install easyeffects
~$ sudo apt install obs-studio ffmpeg sox

~$ # Ubuntu: easyeffects lives in "universe"
~$ sudo add-apt-repository universe

Here's the honest wrinkle. Debian stable and the older Ubuntu LTS releases carry EasyEffects 7.x, while upstream is on 8.2.9. Seven works fine for noise reduction — but the application was reorganised between the 7 and 8 series, so screenshots and step-by-step guides written for current versions won't match what's on your screen. If you're on Debian stable or Ubuntu 24.04 and you'd rather follow current documentation, skip the repository and take the Flatpak below. That is the one case where we'd override a distribution's own packaging.

The LADSPA plugin is the other gap: we couldn't verify it in Debian's archive, so on this family the filter-chain route generally means fetching the plugin release yourself and dropping the .so into ~/.ladspa/, as described on the filter-chain page.

Fedora

~$ sudo dnf install easyeffects
~$ sudo dnf install obs-studio

~$ # ffmpeg: enable RPM Fusion first if you haven't
~$ sudo dnf install ffmpeg sox

Fedora tracks upstream closely — 8.2.8 on current releases at the time of checking, one patch behind Arch, which is about as good as distribution packaging gets. The only friction is the long-standing one: the full ffmpeg build comes from RPM Fusion rather than the base repositories, so enable it before the CLI cleanup commands will all work.

openSUSE, NixOS and everything else

We didn't verify these databases today, so rather than pretend: EasyEffects and the plugin are widely available across the major distributions, and the Flatpak below works everywhere regardless. On NixOS the declarative equivalent is adding easyeffects to your packages and letting the module system handle it, which is philosophically the same move as the filter-chain — infrastructure as a file you keep.

The universal escape hatch

~$ flatpak install flathub com.github.wwmm.easyeffects
~$ flatpak run com.github.wwmm.easyeffects

Flathub carried 8.2.9 — current upstream — when we looked. Two Flatpak-specific notes worth knowing before you start debugging: the sandbox needs permission to reach your audio devices, so if the application starts but sees no microphone, look at portal permissions rather than at PipeWire. And a Flatpak EasyEffects and a distribution-packaged EasyEffects can both be installed simultaneously, which produces exactly the double-processing mess we warn about everywhere. Pick one and remove the other.

After installing

Installation is the easy half. Before you tune anything, run the two-minute stack check to confirm you're on PipeWire, then fix your input level and automatic gain — in that order. Then set up the effect and save an autoloading preset. The whole sequence is about ten minutes on a normal desktop, and none of it costs anything.