Discord's native linux screensharing is now on the stable branch.
from Blisterexe@lemmy.zip to linux@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 01:33
https://lemmy.zip/post/29917677

cross-posted from: lemmy.zip/post/26986197

Wayland and audio is fixed, but only on the canary branch for the moment, this isnt lazy either, they changed the whole screenshare flow to suit linux’s permission prompts

#linux

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Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 01:52 next collapse

Note that the flathub version has not yet been updated. The version with the screenshare is 0.0.79.

real_username56@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 21:10 collapse

Oh ok that explains why it wasn’t working very well

thingsiplay@beehaw.org on 13 Jan 01:59 next collapse

Serious question: I see the topic about Discord screen sharing a lot. Why is this such a big deal?

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 02:03 next collapse

because it’s the communications platform for gamers™.

But seriously discord screenshare was a massive painpoint for gamers switching to linux, so it’s very nice to see it finally, properly, solved.

lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network on 13 Jan 16:00 next collapse

It’s also the discussion platform for open source (sadly)

toastal@lemmy.ml on 14 Jan 08:04 collapse

I will continue to kick & scream at every project that thinks free software is the way to go with their software, but not good enough for the tooling around their project. Fuck Discord. Fuck MS GitHub.

lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network on 14 Jan 14:42 collapse

In my opinion GitHub is seriously good software, but it is awkward when FOSS software is developed on it instead of on Codeberg, Gitea or another FOSS platform.

Discord is actually a security risk, it walls information off the outside world (compared to a forum or IRC server) and incredibly difficult to find information in even when you’re in the server (as opposed to documentation or a forum)

Matrix has 2/3 of these issues, so it being FOSS aside I very much would hate it when development discussion and software documentation is done through Matrix, as well.

toastal@lemmy.ml on 14 Jan 14:48 collapse

MS GitHub doesn’t do anything the others can’t besides the social media features which do not need to be so prominent. If you must, it can be one of multiple code mirrors but should not be the exclusive one, or even the primary option.

Matrix is ass. You cannot reasonably scale an eventual consistency model without centralization & it will be a wasteful network like many of the blockchain projects. We already have had IRC & XMPP MUCs for ages that run on toasters & did not need to be reinvented. Chat has its place tho to help steer folks into asking the right questions, but such questions once formed need to be triaged as bugfixes, issues, FAQs, or forum posts to benefit everyone on the discussion.

ashley@lemmy.ca on 14 Jan 16:31 collapse

Not only gamers, I use discord for my scouts group and I’ll have to show a spreadsheet or presentation sometimes.

bogpunk@lemmy.ca on 13 Jan 02:03 next collapse

people like to share their screens with friends. generally so they can stream a game for them to watch or so people can watch stuff together

teawrecks@sopuli.xyz on 13 Jan 06:15 next collapse

Aside from it being a main way that I spend time with friends, it’s good to see mainstream products spend effort supporting Linux as a viable gaming platform. I have friends who haven’t made the jump to Linux yet, but giving up core discord functionality was simply a dealbreaker for them.

jonesy@aussie.zone on 13 Jan 12:17 collapse

Screen sharing is a big social thing for my friends and I, lacking this functionality would mean I wouldn’t be able to interact as much sharing goofy game moments and watching movies together.

I tried Vencord for a while, but my friends said that the quality of the stream on their end was consistently stuttering, an issue which isn’t happening for me in the official client, so the release of screen sharing on Discord stable after working so well on canary is a welcome update for me.

penquin@lemm.ee on 13 Jan 02:10 next collapse

Finally!!!

Zangoose@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 02:31 next collapse

Can we get actually working global keybinds in Wayland next? Or is that a chromium/electron problem?

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 02:33 next collapse

wayland global keybinds are not really ready yet, they’re only properly implemented in one desktop, so i don’t blame the discord devs for not adding them.

communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz on 13 Jan 03:16 collapse

Hyprland and kwin I think.

The hyprland dev is doing a ridiculous amount of work.

Zangoose@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 05:51 next collapse

They don’t work for discord in hyprland unfortunately, it only works when I have discord tabbed in (I tried passing the shortcuts in the hyprland config file)

AFAIK kde’s way of doing it is kind of hacky because it was called something like “legacy global keybinds” in settings but I switched off KDE a few months ago so I don’t remember the exact details.

communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz on 13 Jan 06:35 collapse

wiki.hyprland.org/Configuring/Binds/#global-keybi… that’s a bug then, it should be working according to the docs.

honestly if this is for push to talk, i have a mic mute toggle in my config that might honestly be better depends on wireplumber and ripgrep though. If you bind it to something and then have it run again on release you can make it a proper push to talk key for every single application.

$micmute = wpctl set-mute @DEFAULT_SOURCE@ toggle ; wpctl get-volume @DEFAULT_SOURCE@ | rg -q ‘MUTED’ && notify-send ‘ Mic Muted’ -h string:x-canonical-private-synchronous:mic-state || notify-send --urgency=low ’  Mic unmuted’ -h string:x-canonical-private-synchronous:mic-state

arisunz@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 13 Jan 12:50 next collapse

Surprised he finds time to work on anything after spending so much of it being a complete dipshit online or falsely pinning his own bugs on other projects. Good for him.

Wooki@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 14:04 collapse

So doing what every single developer does, got it.

Everyone is teflon

arisunz@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 13 Jan 18:37 collapse

i don’t think every developer hosts an actively transphobic discord full of dogpiling channers but i might be wrong on this one bestie

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 14:51 collapse

didn’t hyprland implement it wrong by making apps unable to add new global shortcuts themselves, or even request to add them?

communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz on 13 Jan 15:26 collapse

No, I don’t think it’s wrong for it to be specified in the config files for hyprlands purposes, that’s standard tiling window manager stuff

Zamundaaa@discuss.tchncs.de on 13 Jan 09:10 collapse

It’s an Electron problem, yes. The API is there, just waiting to be used.

Mikelius@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 06:01 next collapse

For those of us not using Wayland, any idea if this still applies? Waiting on my flatpak version to support audio sharing with screen share… And please performance improvements.

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 14:48 collapse

it (mostly) fixes audio on x11 too

MetalMachine@feddit.nl on 13 Jan 06:16 next collapse

Is this only for wayland or does it extend to x11?

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 14:52 collapse

video worked on x11 before, audio working is new to both

MetalMachine@feddit.nl on 13 Jan 16:30 collapse

Not entirely, there is an issue with sharing when you have multiple monitors. If you try to share a monitor, it shares all monitors stitched together

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 20:35 collapse

doesn’t seem to happen on wayland

sixdripb@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 07:41 next collapse

people on reddit are saying audio-sharing is still broken for every app that utilizes the pipewire audio API directly

Link@rentadrunk.org on 13 Jan 09:33 collapse

Which programs use the pipewire API? I can only think of mumble but no one is going to stream that.

sixdripb@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 10:00 next collapse

i think bitwig is one

Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de on 13 Jan 11:13 collapse

MPV also supports pipewire.

highduc@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 08:45 next collapse

Whish Steam would put some effort into this too.

john89@lemmy.ca on 13 Jan 11:40 next collapse

Try using OBS with its virtual camera.

Crozekiel@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 18:03 collapse

I’ve been using that for ages to share my screen, but it doesn’t bring over the audio which can be annoying, but otherwise works great. I am sure there are ways to get the audio into it, but it felt like it would be more trouble than it was worth.

john89@lemmy.ca on 13 Jan 18:56 collapse

You can stream the audio using PulseAudio volume control. (pavucontrol)

Click in the Recording tab, find the discord input (it should be called WebRTC engine or something similar) and select the audio device you want to use.

To stream audio from your computer, just click the ‘monitor’ version of the device you want to use.

OrekiWoof@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 19:09 collapse

it’s horribly out of sync with the screenshare and low quality

john89@lemmy.ca on 13 Jan 19:17 collapse

Really? I don’t have that issue. Are you also using OBS? It’s possible your stream is lagging due to hardware restraints.

OrekiWoof@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 20:19 collapse

Meh, I guess there’s just no reason for it to be synced. Hardware is out of the question

prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 13 Jan 14:29 collapse

I would love for Valve to make an alternative to Discord, built into Steam.

highduc@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 14:44 next collapse

Same. Atm it works well for basic voice chat but not much more.

john89@lemmy.ca on 13 Jan 15:41 collapse

Matrix really is the answer.

priapus@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jan 19:20 next collapse

Matrix doesn’t have voice channels, probably the most important part of Discord for everyone I know. It’s also built around single rooms, not servers, which just doesn’t feel as good as Discord for interacting with friends.

MonkeMischief@lemmy.today on 14 Jan 06:43 collapse

Dang, looking into Revolt seems like it’d be more in line with your use case. I wonder if it also has separate voice chat rooms?

I’d love to be able to get people to switch to something like this.

toastal@lemmy.ml on 14 Jan 08:02 collapse

Not if we want sustainable chat. It runs like a blockchain under the hood & duplicates so much data.

index@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jan 11:23 next collapse

Don’t use discord it’s like reddit

jol@discuss.tchncs.de on 13 Jan 12:22 next collapse

At least you can still read some of reddit without an account.

ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca on 13 Jan 14:55 collapse

/readme.md

Join our discord

lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network on 13 Jan 16:02 collapse

That forwards to a shadily different URL.

Why does Boost turn that into a clickable link in the first place…?

ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca on 13 Jan 21:34 collapse

Added a /

lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network on 13 Jan 22:54 collapse

I’ll see if I can raise an issue with the devs of Boost because that didn’t fix it.

A \ might, but it seems simple enough to me to exclude readme.md from being automatically marked as a link. And that phrase basically never refers to a link (:

Fern@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 16:36 next collapse

What’s a similar alternative?

index@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jan 19:17 collapse

element

TypicalHog@lemm.ee on 13 Jan 22:07 collapse

In what sense?

raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 12:43 next collapse

Fuck discord. Proprietary spyware. That shit isn’t getting on my computer anytime ever.

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works on 13 Jan 14:46 next collapse

FYI, Element now has a lot of the call features that Discord has

lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network on 13 Jan 16:03 next collapse

Including screen share with audio?

Twig6843@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 21:41 next collapse

nope but this must be added its like the most requested feature

lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network on 13 Jan 22:56 collapse

Doesn’t mean it’ll be added in an open source application… There has to be a dev/some devs willing to implement that, they can’t force volunteers to implement features because of the selling value it’ll have.

communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz on 13 Jan 22:53 collapse

tbh if you’re on linux there’s kind of an easy workaround

pactl load-module module-combine-sink sink_name=‘Stream’ slaves=‘easyeffects_sink’

^^ I have this aliased as “gamesound”

easyeffects is great for this because it’ll just be the default sink, plus easyeffects makes your mic sound good anyway. (if you configure it for that)

then when the game opens i set it to output to “stream” and bam i can output game audio in a stream without capturing anything else, since i’m on hyprland i can also stream just the window, discord screenshare with audio everywhere.

raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 17:07 collapse

Been using matrix since forever :) But the dissing of shitty corporate centralized applications is necessary because way too many naive users still give their data away for convenience.

jsomae@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 19:31 collapse

in the case of discord, it’s not convenience, it’s the network effect.

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 19:55 next collapse

Facts, I just left discord and joined groups in matrix, and had some close associates get matrix/element to chat w me. Easy peasy

raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 23:01 collapse

That falls under convenience. Getting others to leave corporate bullshit malware and/or spyware takes effort (and I know very well how frustrating it is). Personally I refuse to use discord or FascistApp (I guess with the recent policy changes that name is warranted) etc with all the implications that it has.

No1@aussie.zone on 13 Jan 21:37 collapse

And people are celebrating it now being able to record your screen 🤣

raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 23:03 collapse

yeah, proper facepalm there… hello Winsucks Recall…

x00z@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 13:58 next collapse

I’ve been using Vesktop since forever. They have had it working already for a looooong time.

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 19:54 next collapse

Still ass, use matrix/element

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 20:37 next collapse

literally not a single person i know uses matrix, and calls aren’t supported on most clients, so getting them to switch would be literally impossible.

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 22:07 collapse

Idk brah I managed to make 3/5 friends switch to it and we almost exclusively use that to chat, and now got 2-3 family members to use it when talking to me too

8osm3rka@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 22:10 collapse

Element is a messenger and will never have the UX of Discord. There is Revolt, which is actually similar to discord but self-hostable

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 13 Jan 22:58 collapse

Has screen sharing a video calls and group calls and working on addons/extensions, not sure what more people would expect from a project of its size

Feathercrown@lemmy.world on 14 Jan 18:34 collapse

from a project of its size

Ok but you know that people don’t care about this part at all when they’re looking for alternatives to actually use, right?

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 15 Jan 20:47 collapse

Yes, sadly people are dumb enough to value convenience over things that really matter

Feathercrown@lemmy.world on 16 Jan 03:45 collapse

To some, convenience matters more than intangible benefits. This is not necessarily dumb.

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 16 Jan 11:41 collapse

Yes it is

Feathercrown@lemmy.world on 16 Jan 14:28 collapse

Why

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 16 Jan 17:46 collapse

I wouldn’t call having more privacy as intangible. Everyones heard of the stories where someone sends some dickpick to a “girl” on some chatroulette app or whatever and ball of a sudden they’re sending them screenshots of all their family members’ Facebook accounts threatening to leak . same shit goes for pollution and stuff like that, the then “intangible” benefits of being wary of wtf we burn and throw into nature and wilderness are now more obvious than ever with global warming being a growing problem. Intangible doesn’t mean nonexistent and if one can’t realize that they’re simply dumb and shortsighted

Feathercrown@lemmy.world on 16 Jan 19:10 collapse

Ok, that’s true. But what I’m saying is that you aren’t considering the value of convenience and user experience at all. It’s possible for those benefits to outweigh the downsides.

Also encryption wouldn’t prevent your first example

I would also argue that it’s “dumb and shortsighted” to not care about user experience, because then you lose the users and they go back to the unencrypted environmentally-disastrous service.

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 16 Jan 20:45 collapse

Yea i think u have a point too, one of the main reason i use linux for good now is how streamlined things are nowadays, i just too eager to watch these projects come to fruition and gain more adoption

Feathercrown@lemmy.world on 16 Jan 20:49 collapse

Truee I feel like open source has really picked up recently and that makes me happy

bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml on 17 Jan 19:51 collapse

Steamos gonna finally put us on the map?? I can’t wait to see it drop😭

kyub@discuss.tchncs.de on 13 Jan 21:03 next collapse

Well, “nice” to have that feature, but you still shouldn’t use Discord, or at least limit your time on it as much as possible. Remember, when you use it, you’re part of the network effect that makes Discord big. You have to resist that. Take a look how Discord compares to pretty much any other messenger or communication tool in existence: www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html Avoid it whenever possible, get your friends to leave it and weaken its network effect.

So, some of the drawbacks (there’s probably more):

  • Discord has weak security (see URL above)
  • Discord has non-existent privacy
  • Discord has an incredibly vague privacy policy which means they do what they want. Even companies with strong privacy policies screw users over routinely. Guess what companies do who don’t even care about good privacy policies. They even weakened it further a while back because they need to train their new AI features on your data as well, and probably even their weak privacy policies were in the way before. Well, good thing that the users agreed that they can change it at any time for any reason and be fine with it.
  • You grant all rights of everything you write, say, share or do on Discord to Discord, and everything you type, say, upload or share is being processed by their servers
  • Discord tracks what you’re typing before sending it
  • Discord suspended accounts and required even more user data for “verification”, such as telephone numbers which is completely unnecessary except for tracking and data selling purposes
  • Discord shares chat logs with law enforcement (and they can share everything because they’re collecting everything)
  • The Discord client app tracks what programs you have running so it can for example display what games you’re currently running. That means it contains a process logger. It has to scan every running application and then finds games out of those, and then you have to hope that only the game-specific bits are uploaded to their servers. Maybe that is the case, but can you trust them, and also to never change that? No.

If you have to use it:

  • Never use their desktop app, always use the web version from a secondary browser (web apps running in the browser have much less rights than locally running applications), and even then limit what the site can access to the least amount of stuff necessary. If you never use your mic or camera then block it in the browser settings. Don’t trust Discord’s own mute setting (this also applies to other proprietary software).
  • Use a fake e-mail alias / telephone number when creating your account, generally give them the least amount of data possible. Opt out of any options or features which are tied to you exposing more data to them
  • Don’t give them additional money e.g. for their premium stuff (you already pay with data they gather from you)
  • Block at least these API endpoints which are purely used for tracking purposes (there may be more though, and they might change) [easy to do with uBlock Origin for example]:
https://discord.com/api/v*/science
https://discord.com/api/v*/channels/*/typing
https://discord.com/api/v*/track*
  • You can also block these related hosts safely without impairing Discord’s main functions (again there may be more):
crash.discordapp.com
status.discordapp.com
b.stats.paypal.com
app.adjust.com
client-analytics.braintreegateway.com
TypicalHog@lemm.ee on 13 Jan 22:09 next collapse

I just wish there was a FOSS version of Discord. I haven’t looked too deeply into existing alternatives, but I have a feeling they all miss features Discord has and are just not as good.

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 22:12 next collapse

[matrix] looks promising, but it isn’t quite ready yet

dojan@lemmy.world on 13 Jan 23:34 next collapse

Depending on what you aim to do, Matrix works well enough. Reminds me a lot of Discord back in 2017 or so.

allywilson@lemmy.ml on 14 Jan 07:38 next collapse

I think SimpleX is similar

toastal@lemmy.ml on 14 Jan 08:00 next collapse

It is way too expensive/wasteful to run as both a client & a server by its architecture.

mactan@lemmy.ml on 14 Jan 17:44 collapse

matrix doesn’t stand a chance, none of the discord features are there, and the protocol MRs are years old and dead or bike shedded to hell. wish it wasn’t so

jherazob@beehaw.org on 14 Jan 08:37 next collapse

Revolt, can be self-hosted and all, not federated

eneff@discuss.tchncs.de on 16 Jan 08:33 collapse

Spacebar looks promising IMO.

Shadywack@lemmy.today on 13 Jan 22:38 next collapse

Lemme guess, no Wayland support. (Edit: I was being sarcastic)

communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyz on 13 Jan 22:51 next collapse

this is about proper wayland support

Blisterexe@lemmy.zip on 13 Jan 23:14 collapse

did you even read the post??

edit: like seriously i get not reading a long article but the post body is 35 words long

Shadywack@lemmy.today on 15 Jan 13:55 collapse

I was being facetious, ie “expect the worst”

Kekin@lemy.lol on 13 Jan 22:43 next collapse

What about video acceleration though? Cause last time i tried it as soon as I moved the camera the screen share’s framerate would drop like crazy making it essentially useless. On AMD anyway

I’ll prob check later today cause im interested

Feathercrown@lemmy.world on 14 Jan 18:20 collapse

Wow finally! Congrats Discord dev team, this is good