Discord now properly supports screensharing on linux
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
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Comments206Wayland 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
I was almost convinced they were keeping this broken on purpose, it's been broken so long. Like, years long.
It was broken so long I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if news surfaced that Discord was taking back-handers from Microsoft under the table to keep it broken. With steam working so well on Linux now, broken discord streaming without actual working audio share was one of the last things that posed a hurdle for gamers ditching Windows.
(In the meantime, thank you Vesktop for your service <3)
I saw something from a discord dev (can't find it, so grain of salt) about how there was interest recently to do it, but they'd have to work on other stuff that affected everyone first, and they'd probably get it done by q4 2024, guess they were right.
I think before then the whole linux graphics and audio space hadn't really stabilized enough for them to be interested.
Heh. There's a ticket with Splunk. It's a simple request: do the 30 sec of work to let us install your software rpm from a proper yum repo.
They can't figure out how.
They won't ask.
It's 12 years old now.
The ticket for them to do a trivial exercise with tools twice as old, is now a tween. It can ride the bus on its own. I think it can get a Facebook account. Maybe.
We should get one for it.
It was the same with Zoom but AFAIK they're finally working on it now.
The Zoom flatpak works fine. Haven't tried native.
I had weird issues with the Flatpak (can't remember what they were) but the native RPM worked fine. Previously you had to download and install/update the RPM manually but I've heard they're working on proper RPM and deb repos.
That's good! Options don't hurt imo, as long as they're properly maintained.
who in their sane mind uses zoom on their private device. holy molly
I'm using it on my work PC, since it's what we use for meetings.
Is there really? Long time splunk admin, I would love to see this
Tech companies are fully capable of being lazy for free. Fixing this takes dev time from other work that brings Discord money so doing this costs them, especially considering that Linux userbase must be rather tiny. 99% of software companies don't give a shit about making quality product and will always try their hardest to do as little work as possible while making as much money as possible. If fixing a bug will cost them more than potential profits from making it work then they won't fix it.
You're right of course, it's definitely down to simple lack of incentive, rather than some kind of conspiracy. But the conspiracy was a fun shower thought! :)
You give them too much credit. It's just shitty, that's it.
Discord is pretty much broken on all platform. It always was. There's just no real alternative unfortunately.
"Don't attribute to malice what is explained by incompetence"
Lets create an alternative.
If Twitter is any indication, Discord would have to fuck up big, and for a long time for people to switch.
I agree, but working on an alternative an cultivating it could be a good start. Look at mastodon or lemmy.
There is an alternative people have used before discord came, it is called teamspeak. Is still around as well, but works more like a federated system since everyone has to set up and host their own server for people to use.
Teamspeak is no alternative to discord. Sorry. Also its not even open source, is it?
Discord isnt open source either tho so how does that matter for the comparison?
And while yes it is a little outdated, I do recall the time before discord when people would have their own teamspeak server instead, which worked very similar to the fediverse.
You had the client and could connect to any server you had the credentials to, which each were owned and hosted by various people or groups each with their own rules and code of conduct.
Mumble is open source.
I'm all for it tho I have no idea how to grab the folk's attention
We would have to sit down and actually think what an opensource solution can achieve and how it gets traction. Also from the get go it should be clear that there will be no feature parity between it and discord. If it was me, I would cut out the whole chatroom functionality, leave private messaging in, use threaded conversations as a standard and but a decent videocall system on top. But this would be my version of it, other people have other needs.
For the video call system you would not have to reinvent the wheel, use something existing like Jitsi (?) or alternatives. Then you would
Maybe the best bet is to look at matrix and wrench out the chatroom focus and replace it with threads?
best alternative would be a forum + voice calls + dms IMO
why cut chatroom functionality? Servers are the main reason people use discord?
Not in my bubble, chats create insurmountable loads of noise. By focusing on threads you get the discussion much more focused and streamlined. Example: Most of my discords are ttrpg related, where with the usage of bots games are scheduled. Or where discussion are happening around certain ttrpg systems.
I agree that a lot of discord servers focus on chat rooms. But you could retain that by simply having 1-2 chatrooms per server and structure/direct conversations to dedicated threads/voice chats instead.
Again this is just MY view. I am totally aware that other people, use it differently.
that's a totally fair view, and the people at matrix seem to agree because it has threading, seems to be the kind you like, too
I like how Vesktop updates in the background. Discord proper has to close, download the .deb, install, and relaunch.
And yes, vesktop did it first, but discord's version is quite a bit more polished
Finally I can go back to having people at 200% 😍
Vesktop still allows you to choose a single audio output, Discord's implementation seems to share system audio of all running apps, and doesn't let you choose the specific application.
As far as I'm aware, Vesktop also allows you to share at 60fps, not just at 720, but up to 1440 at no charge. Can't wait for Vesktop to continue being ahead of the curve
Wait how? Does it only share with other vesktop users?
I think the discord server they're in might be nitro boosted to allow all users to share at higher resolutions and frame rates. I think the perk affects all users whether they have Nitro or not.
Nope, any discord lobby afaik
Can confirm! I screen share all the tile and I take advantage of this. Love Vesktop ✨
Fuck Discord! 🙂
Sadly there's no alternative.
matrix, xmpp
no alternative that's as user-friendly and feature-complete
I wouldn’t say discord is either of those things
They need to limit server sizes, get rid of community searching, and add #XXXX to the end of usernames before we can pretend that
Wouldn't limiting server sizes and getting rid of community searching be removing features? Why would anyone want that?
And Discord used to have #XXXX at the end of usernames.
1 they aren’t pedos
2 they want an app to talk to their friends with
3 they don’t want to be victims of misinformation campaigns
Yeah it was better, it meant if you were being stalked you could just have the numbers changed. Now you need a completely different alias with the only purpose to be discouraging victims from getting help
1- What does that have to do with anything?
2- Then make a private server for just your friends.
3- Then make a private server for just your friends.
And no, it wasn't better. Just... different.
I so wish there was matrix protocol for voice rooms and a good reference implementation but sadly there are neither
How long has it been since you used element/matrix? Serious question because the new element call stack is now finally released in element stable, as of a few patches ago. (It still only shows up as the "video rooms" feature that u have to enable in the labs/beta settings)
Its much cleaner than before and properly supports screensharing, adjusting individual user volumes and more. The previous jitsi based voice rooms were somewhat lacking i admit but they have been functional for years.
That was the last thing that kind of kept me from fully endorsing matrix but now it does all that really important stuff. The new mobile ElementX client also supports the new call system but its overall lacking compared to the normal mobile client which does not support it.
But for desktop use i dont have any complains anymore about matrix really.
not that I dig into it very far but I check maybe once a year to find out if any of the features I want made it into matrix protocol yet and they always seem stalled
You can do it for xmpp and Jitsi right?
Zulip has been around for a loooong time. It integrates well with Jitsi, and is fully self-hostable.
Revolt looks pretty good despite its lack of a large user base
No screen share and there seems to be a reluctance to add/address requests for it. They add that and I can get my whole community to switch. Until then it's not happening.
Why?
Centralized social media. Poison of the masses. If they control the pullpit, they control the congregation. Tale as old as time.
It’s reach not centralization
You’d think Lemmy would’ve taught you that by now
The founder's shady history with OpenFeint, their entire privacy policy and shit like this, take your pick. Wikipedia also has an entire section dedicated to Discord's controversies. No matter how you look at it, Discord has a great many shortcomings.
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/discord
https://stallman.org/discord.html
These articles are very old and not super relevant any more. Sources of 2018 and 2019, while a lot has changed over the years.
I'm not here to "defend" Discord and pretend it's all gravy, but if you want to make a compelling argument, I think it's a good idea to stick to current, factual information.
Did you even read them? They changed for worst all the points remain.
Which got worse? Feel free to show me an example. I'll try to investigate and find out its merits.
It must be said that that site also considers browsers like Firefox and Vivaldi to be at a high level of being spyware. I think it's important to understand that Discord doesn't do things much differently than other platforms, other than not having any 3rd party ads.
You sound exactly like a bad actor. If you open and read the website you would know why Firefox it's listed
https://cadence.moe/blog/2020-06-06-why-you-shouldnt-trust-discord
(emphasis mine). Ah yes, another blog by a user that thinks everything revolves around their experience.
I would love to act in good faith, but you're not making it easy linking this drivel. Because I don't want to make you feel like I'm fishing for sources, let me expand some points in the original link to talk about:
Ah yes, very scary. Connecting your account with other platforms to show your profile.
The "advertising" in question:
Usually this is a server (community) - side setting, but Discord also forces it when they think you are a spammer or malicious actor. Pretending it's to collect phone number is a bit out there. Also, 2FA has been a thing since forever.
Lastly, there's probably the argument of selling our personal data:
This is a legal document that they will get in trouble for if they were lying. They've already been fined hundreds of thousands of euros for GDPR violations but that curiously did not include a fine for "took people's personal information and then sold them without consent whilst explicitly saying they didn't do that"
Discord further has no third party advertisements which they can use to "sell" your data by allowing those advertisements to target you.
Oh my fuck, finally. Good lord Discord, only took you eons to get that working with Wayland after you broke it.
I get that there's other things like Discord out there, but nothing works like Discord.
Matrix doesn't?
There's plenty of free alternatives that works much better than discord
https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/
Not if I want calling, video chat, screen sharing and role based chat rooms all in the same place. I've explored this, but it just isn't feature complete enough at the moment. I'd definitely describe myself as a Discord power user and Matrix just doesn't manage it.
Calls and video chats works just fine in matrix and client like element allow you to integrate other services if you don't like the default ones.
You sound a lot like someone who use windows. We are on a linux sub.
I am a Linux user. Bizarre assumption to make given my excitement over a Wayland specific Discord feature. But I don't have any actual qualms with how Discord implements its own services. Matrix just doesn't fit the bill for me. If you enjoy it, and it suits your needs then all the power to you. It just isn't what works for me.
Matrix does not have the features of Discord. It's far closer to a Telegram alternative. It doesn't even have voice channels, a very basic requirement for a Discord alternative.
When do they stop selling user data? Next patch?
they say they dont sell any user data, although i have my doubts about that
It doesn't really matter if they do or don't. What matters is that they can change their TOS at any time, they keep an archive of all historical data, and you will have pretty much no recourse no matter what they decide to do with it in the future.
Who knows what will happen to Discord in five or ten years?
They might get bought by a narcissistic billionaire.
They might sell all their data to Google for training AI.
They might go bankrupt and sell off their assets to the highest bidder.
They might have an IPO and begin the usual value extraction at the expense of their users.
I know, I know...crazy ideas, right? When has anything like that ever happened?!
i think you're totally right, i just dont like people saying theyre doing it right now.
Frankly i think we should use matrix instead, but it just isnt good enough yet
Yeah, Matrix is a very, very hard sell. I mean, "normal" people (for lack of a better term) are put off by Mastodon, and Matrix is a hundred times more complicated to join. I'm also not sure what it would look like to use Matrix the way I use Discord. Perhaps there is functionality in Element/Matrix I have never explored since I use it more for messaging and group chat, not for communities with multiple channels like IRC/Discord/Slack.
In any case, Discord is too entrenched to be replaced by something that is merely technically superior, or even more user-friendly. Realistically, you can't migrate entire communities if they're bigger than a tight-knit IRL friend group, and even that is hard. That seems to be the only reason X still exists.
all of this is true with literally any company.
Almost, yeah. Certainly the big corps.
This is why I strongly favor services that use end-to-end encryption or do not store history in the first place.
There are not many times when I've needed to search back through history on a Discord server, and every time I have I thought to myself "this would be much better on any platform besides Discord". Discord would, IMHO, be a better product if they did not retain history forever.
Ditto for Slack. Slack has the additional gall to limit access to that data unless you pay for a premium plan, despite the fact that they keep the data forever regardless (as evidenced by their occasional free trials which magically bring all history back, and some search tricks you can use to access old posts regardless).
Both Slack and Discord have lulled their user base into a false sense of privacy. Nothing you post there should be considered private.
They also recently implemented E2EE for calls.
A bear doesn't tell you it shits in the woods.
it would if itd get sued by forest conservation groups if it didnt admit it
Just use spacebar instead
Spacebar doesn't even do voice calls does it? Let alone screen share
Yea Its not perfect, but hopefully on the way
It's not ready for most people unfortunately
Nice! Thank you
That's about time.. I won't be uninstalling vesktop tho
I like their UX, the button doesn't say "Share screen" but "Make Selection". On Element my dad every time has such a hard time to share the screen because even though he did it already a hundred times, he presses the share screen button and then waits, without choosing which window or screen to share.
you first click the "share screen" button, then it asks if you want to share a device, screen or window, then it shows you that screen, that summons a permission prompt tailored to what you selected recently.
I agree it's quite nice
But still doesn't accept my legitimate phone number, which is mandatory now.
Only in servers that enabled that verification. Its a server setting
Sent by me:
Their answer:
But its a server setting to need phone verification. Im on a ton of servers and never provided them my phone number. One server changed access rights manually for my username because i refused to give discord my phone number when they enabled the verification requirement haha.
Also, their response is terrible haha
It isn't just a server thing. Discord can request a phone number from you if they think something unusual is happening. Trying to create an account while using tor will make them ask for a phone number, and they reject those numbers offered by shared number services.
Fair enough, but then you are kinda asking for it if youre doing fishy shit. They need, and i do mean need, to somehow verify the actions being done are from a normal user and not a botnet or other fishy activity...
About fucking time
This is past due, I use Vencord.
now fix push to talk which is arguable far more important
How would they implement this? I'm curious to know.
https://flatpak.github.io/xdg-desktop-portal/docs/doc-org.freedesktop.portal.GlobalShortcuts.html
KDE has support for it, Gnome is in progress: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/xdg-desktop-portal-gnome/-/issues/47
Is there an actual implementation of this for Electron yet? Also, do you know any apps that use these yet? I haven't found any.
Apparently Chromium has merged support for it, so it should get to Electron soon-ish: https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/5871484
Just installed Canary on my system to test this, and while it's a little janky and the hardware acceleration seems to stop other apps using the GPU at the same time this is still good enough I think I can finally move to Linux as my main OS. I assume this will get polished further in the future. Great stuff though.
There is another, semi official linux client called vesktop. Comes with a range of plugin options, all improving or enabling functions the default client doesnt offer or hides behind a paywall. It also has had screen share on Linux for the longest time,if you do the switch give it a go. Certainly better than the default app
Except push to talk doesn't work in Vesktop/Vencord sadly.
Or any global shortcuts (i.e. to mute oneself) for that matter. Pretty useless in a gaming context because of that imho
And sound overall is shit.
Isn't sound shit on Discord anyway? Low bitrate
Getting good enough noise cancelling and mic detection working is only almost decent on the official app.
I've never had a problem with low bitrate or anything related to that.
I was more just shitting on Discord to shit on Discord because you can have insane bitrates on clients such as TeamSpeak, which I would prefer everyone use.
Vesktop supports the same mic detection and krisp noise suppression as the desktop client
they also offer vencord, that patched the official client to offer those features
I'll.check.it out, thanks for the recommendation!
THIS prevented you from switching?
Afaik screenshare always worked when using Discord in a browser
Pretty much! Never saw anything that said the browser client worked on Linux, but last time I tried the discord browser client it was pretty rubbish as well.
As someone who only occasionally uses Discord, I honestly didn't even know they had a desktop version of their app. I've always used it in the browser. Why do they even have a desktop version of their webapp?
The desktop version uses Electron, a shitty Chromium + Node.js framework for devs that really only want javascript and web tech
Integration at a level a browser can't offer. Most importantly, imo, a browser can't bind global keyboard shortcuts for websites. So push to talk, mute keybinds, ... don't work in the browser version.
thank FUCK
Does that works for Wayland or X? or both?
Quite nice feature indeed.
both, i mentioned that in the body text
You didn't really mention it works for both, just wayland, but it is in the article.
You didn't mention it works for both, just Wayland. Good to know it works on X, as well.
I mentioned the audio and wayland was fixed, x already worked
What about audio sharing?
also works, although it says audio "may not work in certain instances"
Awesome!
Audio sharing works, but appears to not allow selection of a specific audio stream, when I tested it just then it appears to share system audio. Vesktop still allows you to choose a specific stream. Still, this is a huge improvement over not working at all, and the "Entire Desktop" (3 screens) works, as well as "select region" sharing!
For me audio sharing doesnt work at all haha
If you're using Pipewire, have you checked if you can re-route the audio sink using qpwgraph?
Yes.
Oh my god, it's happening!
I've been screen sharing from discord on hyprland for months, it wasn't already working?
Last I checked I could only share specific windows, not the whole screen. Later there was also an update with a window or screen selection dialogue that didn't work at all, I think. After that I stopped using it on wayland.
I regularly share my whole screen
I have an issue with the dialog box popping up multiple times but that's it, still works
The only caveat is window specific sharing often doesn't work because of how Wayland works
i think it works for you because you have xwayland video bridge installed
Oh sweet jesus, it's finally happening! Huzzah! Rejoice!
Did they also finally fix the AFK detection on Wayland?
I'm not sure if this is actually possible - as far as I know, applications can't track key presses/mouse movement when their associated window isn't in focus. It'd be great if they just gave the option to disable the AFK detection since it doesn't work...
Works fine with a plugin, so clearly it can't be that hard.
Ah, I thought this was in regards to AFK tracking when discord isn't focused (which this plugin still won't fix due to the mentioned Wayland restrictions) - I didn't realize that it still didn't work even when discord was focused, which is strange.
I've been using Vesktop since screen share wasn't working on Wayland, and it already seems to do what this plugin does hence my confusion.
What happens now in afk detection? I never noticed it.
Haven't used it in a while but from what I remember it always puts you in idle if you do something else and only back to online if you do something in Discord itself, as expected from the Wayland limitation.
It could be implemented with the ext-idle-notify-v1 protocol.
In my case it refused to ever mark me as idle, which meant I never got any notifications on mobile...
Finally. I had it working after a bunch of workarounds recently, but it was not really stable.
Always remember, this is what we all deserve for using closed source apps.
Oh awesome, I’ve been using the webcord version as the others were all shit for screen sharing. Having said that even webcord also has weird sound issue sim hoping are fixed with this.
Vencord has had it forever. Just a community discord flathub.
Third party discord clients keep letting me down, not updating their electron version and breaking my system updates cause it's marked insecure
Browser version with extensions is the way to go
Would you clue me in on what kind of extensions you use and why they're better that the discord app?
Stylus for theming, vimium for navigation
It works a lot better than the discord app, more responsive for one. Ctrl k on the app takes a few seconds, takes half a second on web
Multiple instances at once without any hassle is nice, the ability to open links in the same window instead of having it open a browser somewhere (tiling wm with discord in a pop up layer)
Seems to be less resource intensive I assume because no electron wrapper running, just Firefox which I already have open anyway
Plus the main one is that because it's not using electron I don't have the constant drama with insecure electron versions, also if discord forces an update and your package manager doesn't update you just can't use discord for a few days until it catches up
Yeah, I've been using Vesktop/Vencord all this time. Has more features than Discord with Nitro. No reason to really switch back to the official client.
For some reason my screen share freezes for others on vesktop.
Finally, Tho i dont use the desktop app anymore. (Hint electron)
Finally! =D
Yay I can finally uninstall Vesktop
I am using Vesktop, too. Why do you want to get rid of it?
It's not an official client, and non-official clients are against the ToS.
Discord's been nice about them so far, but at some point someone in or above that company is going to demand they start making a profit, and when that happens the amnesty custom clients are currently unofficially receiving will disappear.
Hopefully I can convince people to use Mumble with me 😂
Finally
i don't use it because my laptop is a toshiba from 2006 i think and it runs xubuntu which is pretty cool!! but discord runs a little bit slow so sadly no screensharing and anyway for most of my friends i use email to talk to them
you might be interested in matrix, it's like discord, but you have the option of using a super lightwheight client
i used to have matrix in the past but people were insulting me and well i had to leave matrix sadly but i may go back to it in the meantime i prefer email i'm sorry!!
that's totally fine, no need to apologize, i tend to stay out of public matrix rooms too, too much toxicity
Except for the postmarketOS ones, they are very cool and non-toxic.
Do you really talk to your friends through email?
😆
Great! Now I just need global shortcuts.
Looks like I’m checking daily if it’s on the steam deck yet…
If you don't want to wait you can get the binary from discord.com/download.
or wait t'ill the most recent version here is 0.0.79 or higher
Well thanks discord but you ruined my watch movie together night with my ex gf so.
anyone get this to work on steam deck? hasn't worked for me yet.
The version on flathub (what the steam deck uses for it's app store) has not been updated to support this quite yet.
Yhab
Their company is going downhill ethically and uphill financially, I kind of wish the alternatives were as good a service but thats going to take time.
At least now Signal has that new thing working for starting a video call by link, which is kinda nice. So maybe it can finally replace some use cases in certain situations.
I was thinking more like if Element on Matrix had a prompt where users agree to the rules before entering the server, being assigned a role.
The bigger Discord becomes, the more irrelevant it is to me.
Woooo yeah baby I love Discord
::: spoiler how dare you express a liking for a proprietary platform on lemmy, smh /s :::
Forbidden opinion detected. Deploying downvote swarm
Sorry but I don't really care about discord news on Linux...
Right on! People should only share news articles that pertain to my interests.
I reply here :
Discord is related to linux as much as the facebook app is.
It's related because it's news about discord changing something related to linux
Well, except perhaps for the fact that Discord has a Linux version, while the Facebook App doesn't.
And—clearly!—it seems rather popular as well.
I do
I encourage you to switch to better interests
https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/discord
Okay, great, now convince 30+ other people I chat with on the service
Yes I know it sucks and will just keep on enshittifying, but it's not so much as it being a replaceable social media for me, as it is a primary way for me to keep in contact with partners, friends, finding out about and participating in arrangements, and meeting new people in my local area. Stopping using discord is effectively cutting myself off from the local communities
Everyone in my social circle uses it, and will keep on using it. Maybe once some breaking point is reached due to ever increasing enshittification people will start being interested in alternatives, but we're far from that point still
Show them the link and encourage them to move to better platforms
https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/
I can't even get them to use mastodon or Lemmy, they're not gonna go to an alternative discord
and matrix doesnt have a functional voice call across clients atm
Discord is not as good and accessible as you may think. Most matrix homeservers aren't going to ask you for phone verification, some don't even require a mail. You can always join yourself and find other friends there.
Show them the link and encourage them to move to better platforms
https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/
Ah yes, the old "I care so little that I had to tell you".
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