Hello. I've been banging my head against the apparently-common issue of hardware accelerated video decoding on Linux, and I thought I should do a census on what works. I tested video decoding on all four of the Linux devices I have on hand, with three different video-decoding applications each. I don't draw any conclusions from this, other than the obvious fact that almost nothing clearly works "out of the box." This is just for the sake of one person reporting their unscientific experience:
On Zorin (Framework laptop):
Brave: No (also tried the commonly-recommended solutions)
Firefox: No
VLC: Maybe. VLC complains when launched from the terminal, but CPU usage is lower than streamed videos.
vainfo: unhealthy.
On Zorin Lite (Thinkpad T550):
Brave: No
Firefox: No
VLC: Yes
On Steam OS 3 (Steam Deck):
Brave: Maybe. CPU loads, but GPU also occasionally spikes for an instant. Brawser says that it can use hardware accelerated decoding, but isn't.
Firefox: Maybe. CPU loads, but GPU also occasionally spikes for an instant.
VLC: Maybe. CPU loads less than with browsers, and GPU loads more. Much less distinct than VLC on Zorin Lite, though.
On Mint (Framework Laptop):
Brave: No (also tried the commonly-recommended solutions)
Firefox: No
VLC: Yes
vainfo: VA-API 1.14.0 seems healthy.